Today it was up at 4:30 am to check out, grab our to-go breakfast packs, and get on the jeeps that would take us out of the park to the bus. This was perhaps the coldest I have ever been here in Africa as the open air jeep ride in the dark was bitter cold. We got to the gate to find our bus not there. After many phone calls, we learned the bus had broken down. We were trying to get to the airport for our flights so after a flurry of people trying to help, the lodge provided 2 vans and drivers to speed us to the airport. I never looked at how fast we were driving but the 3.5 hour bus trip only took us 2.5 hours!
Our flight was from Johannesburg to Livingstone, Zambia. Zambia charges $80/adult for a visa and this line to pay rivaled all the lines I have seen at JFK! We were met by our driver who then drove us about an hour to the Botswana border. The border between the 2 countries is the Zambezi river. We came to the border and there were hundreds of trucks lined up to take a ferry across. Our driver said that some trucks wait 3 weeks...yes, you read that right, to get across now that one of the larger ferries had broken down. It is truly a 5 minute ride across the channel but each truck has to be loaded on to the ferry one at a time. While we waited for our passports to be stamped, lots of vendors came up to us to see crafts (mostly wooden animals). South Africa seems quite gentrified and this experience traveling to Botswana makes you really feel like you were in the heart of Africa.
Our bags got loaded onto a small boat and then we all got on for our short crossing. On the other side in Botswana another driver was there to greet us. We loaded everything into that bus and drove about 2 minutes to the immigration office in Botswana where we all had to get out again and have our passports stamped. We all then had to step into some kind of disinfectant for our shoes but we couldn't figure out what they were trying to prevent!
Then back on the bus to finally make it to our lodge here in Chobe. Our Chobe River Lodge is so beautiful. We are right on the bank of the Chobe River and you look across the water over to Namibia. There are 4 countries that meet here (Namibia, Zambia, Zimbabwe, and Botswana). The baboons and monkeys all scamper in the trees, the warthogs are all around, and the birds grace the branches of the trees. Our meals are all outdoors under a huge thatched roof lodge overlooking the water. It is wonderful to have this water experience which is so very different than our first 2 lodges.
We were all tired from this full day of travel so after a huge buffet dinner (great food again) we all went to bed to get a bit of sleep before our 5:30 am wake up call for our next safari drive in the morning!
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