Chobe National Park

Entry

We made it to Botswana, driving in from Zambia.

Our camp exists within the Chobe National Park.

View From Baobab Camp

The common area of the Baobab Camp offered a glorious view of the flatland and rivers below.

Down By The River

Here, a rank of impala graze on the bank of the Chobe River. A camp card containing collective nouns for animals included “ballet” for impala. That lesser-used identifier comes from the way impalas jump and twist, much like ballet dancers.

Cape Buffalo

The cape buffalo does not mess around! Unlike most large animals, these do not provide a warning before attacking. Most large animals signal for others to stay away. Cape buffalo, on the other hand, remain calm until provoked, then attack and do not stop until death. Unfortunately, no one knows what provocation results in an attack, so we kept some distance and remained at the ready to leave the area quickly.

Jackals

Jackals definitely made it onto my top five animal sightings list. They seemed so playful and fun. They reminded me a lot of my dog, Smokey. We call a group of them a skulk of jackals.

The jackal trotted across the road ahead of us.

This jackal tried to hunt a bird; here looking to pounce before flight.

Kudu

This kudu posed for a picture. More than one gets called a twist of kudu.

Pumba

Other campers kept talking about “Pumba”. Turns out, that comes from The Lion King, a movie I have not watched. One of these days I shall give it a watch. Until then, hakuna matata.

Known At The Police Checkpoint

It was at this police checkpoint, I hear someone yell out, “Sean!” I turn, and it’s a camp staff member waiting for a bus to take him home. I call back, “BG, go siame! (goodbye)” No one was surprised that someone outside the park called out to me, much less from a police checkpoint.

Boomslang

While some us enjoyed the pool, a boomslang slithered up from the raised flooring surrounding the pool in an attempt to get into some clothes resting on a chair. When one of the campers came down the stairs, I said, “Don’t go over that way because a snake is by the chair.” The response? The person went closer, to get a picture.

The boomslang is one of the deadliest. It might not make some lists because it often performs a “dry” bite, without injecting venom. This occurs for two reasons. One, the injection fangs do not sit at the front of its mouth, so it typically bites to clamp onto prey, then chews its venom in. And two, it tries to save venom resources. Most of its prey consists of lizards and frogs, often not requiring venom injection.

That stated, the boomslang venom causes blood clots and internal bleeding. This double whammy effect may take hours to produce recognizable symptoms, but only a small amount of venom proves lethal to humans, where the brain bleeds and capillaries clog with clots.

For the curious, boomslang comes from Afrikaans, with boom meaning tree and slang meaning snake. The proper pronunciation exaggerates the “oo” sound to more of a “ue”, and the “g” sounds drops entirely; more like “buemslan”.

Do not know what you call a group of them. Don’t care to find out, especially in person.

Leopard Encounter

I skipped an afternoon game drive. Of course, that was when people came across a leopard. And, that leopard ended up getting chased up a tree by a pride of female lions. Definitely a safari highlight, as the guides noted the rarity of witnessing such an event. Most had never seen this type of chase outside television programming. Since I have provided the collective nouns for other animals, we call a group of leopards a leap.

Photo credit for the image below (cropped and resized): Jesse V.

Language Lessons

For some reason, I invested more time picking up Setswana than the other African languages from the safari. I picked up a book on learning Setswana and it contains the following quote.

If you talk to a man in a language he understands, it goes to his head.
If you talk to him in his language, it goes to his heart.

-- Nelson Mandela