Botswana was the third country I visited in Africa and it was honestly pretty cool. We went to four main highlights in the country: Ghanzi, the Okavango Delta, Elephant Sands Campsite and Chobe National Park. Since I’ve already written about the delta and the elephants, that leaves Ghanzi and Chobe for this post. Both are completely different, with one being a cultural experience and the other a safari, but both are completely awesome and you should definitely go if you find yourself in Botswana.
Ghanzi, Botswana
Our first stop in Botswana was the Ghanzi Trailblazers camp. Here, we had an included activity and an optional activity, both revolving around meeting the oldest peoples in the world: the San Bushmen.
At 5pm, we headed out on our included cultural bushwalk with the group of locals. Throughout the walk, different members of the family acted out aspects of their traditional lives and explained in their native language (which was then translated to us). Unlike in Namibia, on this tour we were all successful in making the click sound of the language! I wish it was for real but actually we were all given a seed to put under our tongue, which exploded with a loud click.
Later in the evening after dinner, most of the group paid an extra $10 USD to watch a singing and dancing performance by the Bushmen. I actually thought it was really cool, and unlike the performance we saw later in South Africa, it was completely traditional. Again, the whole group was involved in the performance; the women clapped and sung, while the men danced around the fire with seeds tied around each ankle to make noise. My favourite part was definitely when the baby started crawling around behind the men – it was so cute! Of course they got us all to get up and dance at the end, which was kind of fun, even though we were terrible and a little embarrassed!
This was definitely my favourite cultural experience of the trip – it was so genuine and really interesting! Definitely worth looking into if you’re heading to Botswana.
Chobe National Park, Botswana
Over to the other side of Botswana now… Chobe National Park was the final stop in our trip across Botswana and it was the location of our second game drive. Except here we did things a little differently. Not only did we have the usual game drive, we also had a river cruise on the Chobe River! Both were included in our Adventure Pass.
Part 1: The Safari
Remember how I said Botswana is the Land of the Elephants in the last two posts? Yeah well Chobe NP was no different. We saw tonnes of elephants (haha I’m hilarious). Not to say they were boring! We actually saw some gorgeous baby elephants bathing in the mud and I got the funniest video which you can see on YouTube in my Wildlife of Africa video.
Aside from elephants, we also saw a ‘tower’ of giraffes, vultures (which are SO UGLY!), Impala*, and some water animals like hippos, crocs and water bucks which I believe are endemic to the area.
*I want to include a note here about antelope. In Africa there are a LOT of different types of antelope so a good way to tell them apart is by looking at their markings. For example, Impala (which are everywhere) have the maccas symbol on their butts.
PS: can you tell I’m Australian? Using words like ‘crocs’ and ‘maccas’!
Part 2: The Cruise
Straight after our safari, we went to the boat dock for our cruise. It didn’t get off to the best start, though, because only two of us actually listened to the instructions and brought water… So we had to wait on the bus for everyone else while we docked at some random pier for them to buy water and food. Love travelling with a group, right?
Anyway, once we got our cruise underway it was really quite good. We got to see a huge range of wildlife (mammals, birds AND reptiles!) as well as a beautiful sunset. A highlight of mine was seeing hippos really close to our boat, and then one started licking the other! We also saw a family of baboons (including babies!) on the shore having a drink. Most people were excited to see a croc, but as I mentioned in my wildlife of Africa post, I didn’t think he was that impressive (I’ve seen bigger).
The Chobe river in itself is really interesting. It actually forms the border between Botswana and Namibia. Yep you read that right. Now I’m sure you’re thinking “but isn’t Namibia all the way over the other side of Botswana?”. Well yes most of it is, but along the top of Botswana there is this thin strip of land which also belongs to Namibia.
If you’re heading to Chobe National Park, it’s definitely worth doing both the game drive and the river cruise, because you get to see different wildlife on both. But if you can only do one, I’d go for the cruise. All of the animals we saw on the safari, we saw somewhere else as well. Whereas we didn’t see crocs or water monitors or those endemic water buck anywhere else. We also didn’t see hippos as up close and personal anywhere other than on the Chobe River. Don’t worry about missing out on the elephants, I can guarantee you’ll see them literally everywhere else in Botswana.