This blog documents the retirement travels of Arlona & Garry Kolb
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Sunday, January 26, 2025
20250126 Seabourn Sojourn Grand Africa Cruise Day 62/96 - Chobe Game Lodge, Botswana
Grand Africa Cruise Trip Day 62/96 - Day #2 at Chobe - Game Drives and Boat Rides
ZeroDark Thirty - that's what time we started this morning. OK, the clock said 5:30, but it was dark. We did put laundry out as the lodge provides free laundry services. Nice!
No sun yet, no problem - we started looking
There are so many impalas here that you almost can't look anywhere without seeing one, or fifty
Red-billed spurfowl
We always saw helmeted guineafowl in pairs until today
We saw a pair of jackals - the first of this trip
This one was favoring its left rear leg
Ah...sunrise
A different variety of flame lily than we saw in Zimbabwe
This lilac-breasted roller was stunning- note the tail extensions
A beautiful southern red-billed hornbill
Hippos - at least a dozen
Egyptian goose
Baboons blocking the road.
We saw some Cape Buffalo, also known as African Buffalo, across the Chobe River in Namibia
We saw a small group of vervet monkeys hanging around in a large tree
I wonder what it was pondering
A less-colorful variety of bee-eater than we saw yesterday
They really blend in with the trees
Your daily dose of baboon sex - he climbed right on her legs
A goose and a dove, sharing the top of a dead tree
We found this lion, hidden in the shrubs - check out that eye
Another lion was flopped on its side, swishing its tail with its head hidden
Of course we saw giraffes
Grey lourie, also known as the grey go-away-bird
They are known for their distinctive call that sounds like "G'way", hence the nickname
Blacksmith lapwing
We drove past some trees and found a huge herd of African buffalo
They have nearly 45,000 elephants here
Another beautiful lilac-breasted roller, but this time, no extended tail
We arrived back at the lodge around 8:45 and got breakfast
With almost zero downtime, we were back at it at 11:00 for another boat tour on the Chobe River.
African darter - in the U.S., we call them anhingas
A stunning giant kingfisher - the largest of the kingfishers
A mating pair of African fish eagles
A couple of warthogs were out for a morning stroll
How African is that - a hippo looking at an elephant
There are so many hippos here - we see them in the water all the time
The Chobe River and the big African sky
These swallows followed us and were darting all around the boat
They were so fast, I was lucky to capture them
We returned to the lodge around 12:45 and went to lunch. As we were receiving our food, this group of entertainers performed for several minutes.
It was a definite positive for today.
We had about 90 minutes until our next activity. I got this morning's photos processed and Arlona took a nap. She said, "Five minutes" but that was a lie. :-)
At 3:30, we met the group for our afternoon game drive. I planned to be more selective about my photos as you only need so many images of impala, elephant, hippo, etcetera. Well, that was the plan.
Our mission today was big cats, but unfortunately, the big cats didn't coordinate. That doesn't mean today was a disappointment. We saw some incredible things, including seeing nursing impalas, nursing elephants, nursing baboons, and being challenged by two elephants simultaneously. Let's get into it.
Right out of the gate, we came across a nursing impala and its baby.
Then, we came across a quintessentially African setting - a wide-open area populated with elephants and giraffes.
We enjoyed watching the young giraffes figure out how to widen their stance to be able to bend and drink
We spotted a hippo out of the water on the Namibia side
So many elephants
Two young ones, play-fighting
If you're into elephants, check this out. Warning: it's around ten minutes long.
Giraffes were all over the place today too
More drinking practice
A crocodile
That's not a yawn - it opens its mouth to help regulate temperature
Hippos were playing today
It wasn't aggressive - it truly looked like play
A parent with a baby
We saw lots of hippos out of the water - this time on the Botswana side
Nearly everywhere we went today, elephants were there - typically with little ones
This giraffe has both red-billed and yellow-billed oxpeckers working on it
We found a group of lazy, exhibitionist baboons. There was also a baby baboon - the first we've seen this young.
Letting it all hang out
Family photo
A very young baby baboon
Grabbing a little milk from Mama
A post from BQ - Baboon Quarterly
Ladies - anyone...
A kori bustard - Botswana's national bird
We struck out on finding a leopard. We returned to where the lions were this morning and they were still there with cubs. Unfortunately, the trucks there ahead of us kept their position, keeping us from getting a look until the cubs were back in the brush.
At one point, they were right by the trail
The females went back to snoozing
We encountered a kudu who didn't seem to like the oxpeckers like the giraffes do
Sun was setting
Our rag-tag group
We returned to the lodge as the sun disappeared. We enjoyed another nice dinner. I tried gembock, a beef-like meat from a type of antelope local to this area. It was lean and tasted good. We returned to the room for an early evening. Our laundry was on the bed, clean and nicely folded.
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