Kasane & Chobe National Park
October 11, 2011
After spending a couple of hours at the Maun airport after our departure from Oddballs, we took another short flight from Maun to Kasane.
Kasane is the gateway to Chobe National Park. While it obviously still has a tourist-feel to it, so far after one afternoon, it feels less so than Maun. That being said, we didn’t do any of the game activities today, so this early opinion may change.
We are staying at a small family run place, The Old House on the Chobe River that has quite a bit of character. I took some pictures around the place and posted them in a separate album here.
We had a relaxing afternoon wandering into town to check out some of the shops and pick up a few snacks. We returned in time to watch the sunset over the Chobe River, and grab a light meal at the on site restaurant. An early night as we have a game drive scheduled tomorrow morning and a river cruise in the late afternoon.
October 12, 2011
The roosters were the first ones awake this morning which meant we were up not that long after. We headed into Chobe National Park this morning for a three hour game drive.
The park is home to over 65,000 elephants! We could only cover a very small segment of the park and we did see quite a few of them including stopping for an elephant crossing. We also saw plenty on antelope and birds. The highlight of the morning was coming across a leopard feasting on an impala under the shade of a tree. While it was quite sheltered and the pictures won’t turn out at all 1, we were probably within 5-10 meters of the dining activities. The leopard is supposed to be the hardest of the Big 5 2 to see as they usually hide in trees, so seeing one on the ground eating definitely seems like a rare event.
In the afternoon, Amanda and I again headed into the main part of Kasane (which is very small). When we were walking the day before, there were some kids sitting in a field who smiled and waved to us as we walked by. We thought it would be a nice gesture to buy a soccer ball at the local store and bring it to the field. The same kids weren’t there when we arrived, but we did see a group of other children walking home in school uniforms. After they waved to us, I held out the ball at which point the whole group of them rushed over to us. One of the boys wanted to run away with the ball, but we convinced him to stay and play at least for a little while. At one point, an adult approached one of the children and then some of them walked away. One of the girls told us, “She said we are not allowed to play with the white people.” When I asked her why not, she said, “because people with think we are asking you for money.”
We let the kids run off with the ball knowing it would get some good use. It reminded us though how complicated something as simple as giving a ball to kids can be in tourist parts of Africa.
In the late afternoon, we headed out for a boat cruise on the Chobe River. It was definitely a highlight of the trip so far. Since it was later in the afternoon, many animals had made the way down to the river. In additional to the numerous species of antelope and birds, we saw many elephants, buffalo, hippos and crocodiles including a baby crocodile on a log near the shore. The trip was capped off with another gorgeous African sunset over the river.
Kasane and Chobe National Park | amandaskinn.com 3:52 pm on 10/23/2011 Permalink
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