I will start by saying WIFI is extremely touch and go here at Thebe River Safari. We went on our river safari this afternoon with a guide by the name of Robert.
Before I start writing about the cruise, we went for a walk to the supermarket with Jayenne while we were waiting between safaris. As we walked back I spotted a large group of Mongoose heading towards us. We stopped and gave them some room as they ran into the yard of the resort behind ours.
We were picked up at the lodge and transferred to our boat that was waiting for us at the Chobe River. As with everything you start the adventure with a stop at the ranger station where they lodge your waiver. We are now responsible for anything that may happen to us whether by Hippo, Croc, South Cape Buffalo, Elephant or general misadventure.
The cruise down the river was initially pretty uneventful but we could see lots of Elephants further down the river. We definitely spotted all of the above including some pretty large Nile Crocodiles.
We came across the two male Elephants who walked across our path in the park earlier in the morning. They are both very thin and the guide from this morning doesn’t think they will live much longer. There are too many elephants for the National Parks in Zimbabwe and Botswana to support, a large number of Elephants will likely die of starvation before the rains in November (if they come). Zimbabwe are going to start a program to cull Elephants which will achieve two things, one is reducing the strain on the Elephant population who are struggling to find food and two feed the human population who are starving because of the drought (Elephant is a game meat eaten by Zimbabweans as it is affordable).
We came across large family groups of Elephants – getting extremely close to them. I was a bit worried about what might happen if we got between a baby and their mother but Robert seemed unconcerned.
There were lots of Hippos in the water but it was very hard to get a photo of them as they would submerge as we approached.
As I am writing this we are killing time until our flight to South Africa at 2pm this afternoon. We have to check out by 10am and are being picked up at 11am.
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