La Aventura

Growing up, my favorite Disney movie was the Lion King. The opening scenes of animals migrating toward Pride Rock, to welcome Simba, was and still is an iconic moment in Disney movie history. Since then, I always wondered what it would be like to go on a safari in Africa. Finally, after years of traveling, I had the opportunity to experience my very first safari in Botswana, Africa, at Chobe National Park!

So…if you are wondering if I traveled all the way to Botswana just for a safari then the answer is…well, kind of. I visited Botswana during my trip to Zambia. Zambia shares a border with Botswana and you can easily hop the border and visit not only Botswana, but also Zimbabwe, Namibia, or Angola. Acquiring a KAZA visa for $50 USD upon arrival, to any of these countries, will make border hopping a breeze.

We arranged an all day excursion to Chobe National Park, Botswana, with the concierge of our hotel for roughly $200 USD. The excursion included, breakfast, transportation to and from the Botswanan border, a small-group land safari by jeep, lunch, and a river safari by boat.

Our driver picked us up at 6:30am from our hotel and we began our one hour drive to the Botswanan border, where we passed through immigration and continued our journey to the Chobe National Park entrance.

One of the funniest experiences during this trip was passing through immigration. Each time you enter or exit a country, you go inside of an immigration building at the border. On one side of the building lobby are windows with immigration officers who check your passport and stamp you “out” of one country [e.g. exiting Zambia]. After receiving your “exit” stamp, you must then walk to the other side of the lobby to another set of windows, where an officer will stamp you “in” to the other country [e.g. entering Botswana]. The same applies when you leave and head back to your hotel/point of origin [e.g. exiting Botswana and entering back to Zambia]. Our hotel home base was in Zambia, but we visited Zimbabwe twice and Botswana once during our stay – we had at least two pages worth of entry and exit stamps in our passports by the end of the trip.

At the entrance of the park, we met our guide, hopped into our jeep and began our safari. Unfortunately, it had been raining all morning. The tour guide informed us that rain causes animals to seek shelter, which makes them harder to spot. Despite the weather working against us, we rode the park trails for about 1.5 hours searching for animals. Luckily, we encountered quite a few such as, impalas, elephants, hippos, water buffalo, and warthogs. The animals paid us no attention and continued grazing as we observed them quietly. Each time we encountered an animal, the guide offered some interesting facts:

• Impalas are the McDonalds of the savannah – they are everywhere and an easy meal to grab for predators.
• If we [tourists] feed the animals we [park rangers] have to kill them. We don’t want them to learn to look to or attack humans for food. Please don’t feed the animals!
• Male hippos mark their territory with a technique called dung spraying – they poop and swing their tails so fast that it flings the dung around the areas they want to claim.
• Elephants travel in groups, so if you see one alone it may be dying soon or an outcast.

After taking the jeep for a spin around the park, we eventually returned to the entrance and drove a short distance to a luxurious hotel where we had a buffet lunch. The lunch was amazing and had an array of local foods. We even tried some exotic bites like crocodile tail – it tasted just like fish! Once lunch finished, we began our river safari. Our group piled into a small motor boat and began our cruise down the Zambezi River.

The Great Zambezi River runs through Botswana and a few other neighboring countries – Zambia, Namibia, Zimbabwe, Angola, and Mozambique. It is the center of life for the animals that inhabit the lands of the national park. From the river, we spotted most of the same animals that we saw on land, but we were able to get some up close and personal time with pods of hippos and herds of water buffalo. We watched crocodiles sun bathe and slink into the water and spotted warthogs hanging out by the river bank. Every which way our boat turned we were surrounded by wildlife. We made our way back to the dock, gathered our things and started our long journey back across the Botswanan border to our hotel in Zambia.

It was truly an amazing experience to be able to admire animals in their natural habitat. No bars. No glass. No sedation. No cruel treatment. Just animals being animals. A safari is a fun, enriching excursion that I highly recommend for every traveler to experience while on the African continent.

My best friend, Vanessa, and I – December 2024