Day: July 18, 2024

I recently returned from a 16-day trip to southern Africa. I’m still recovering from the 15-hour flight from Cape Town back to America (and the three-and-a-half-hour flight from Zimbabwe before that) but wanted to get an overview of the trip up as a preamble to more detailed future posts. The trip took us to South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe, and unexpectedly, Zambia.

Photo: Lioness in Chobe National Park. She scooted her two young cubs under the nearby bush as soon as she saw us.

The first stop, and the first 15-hour flight, was to Cape Town, South Africa. Wary of arriving at the beginning of the organized tour with no buffer time, we planned a two-and-a-half-day stay in the most southwestern city of the southernmost country in Africa. Cape Town is a large, modern city most noted for its iconic football (aka, soccer) and rugby stadium and Table Mountain, the high plateau that dominates the skyline of the city. It also has Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela was held for 18 of the 27 years he was a political prisoner by the apartheid white supremacist government. The day up to the mountain via cable car was anticlimactic given it was socked in pretty conclusively with clouds and drizzle, but it was memorable in its own way anyway. We also rented a car and drove (on the left side) down the Cape Peninsula to Cape Point and the Cape of Good Hope (where we saw elands and ostriches). We also drank a lot of good South African wine, added my 61st aquarium visited, and enjoyed the sunny weather of the South African winter (cold in the morning, warm in the afternoon).

Then it was back to the airport and a flight to Maun, Botswana, known as the “Tourism Capital” of Botswana, mainly because it is an entryway into some of the more attractive safari parks in the country. Here we officially started our tour. From Maun we immediately boarded a small plane (a dozen seats) to fly up the Okavango Delta. The Delta is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site because it is one of the few interior delta systems that don’t flow into an ocean. In fact, the Delta begins in the Angola highlands and the river spreads out into the Botswana flatlands. The amount of surface water area varies significantly depending on season. Rather than flow into a large sea, the water just dries up. This is partly by rapid evaporation and transpiration and partly by sinking into the Kalahari Desert, which covers about 70 percent of Botswana. There was plenty of water while we were there, and plenty of birds, almost all of which were new to us. More on that in future posts.

Video above: An elephant in Okavango Delta warns us not to get any closer.

After a couple of days in the Delta we flew back to Maun and started the trek up through the Moremi Game Reserve to see elephants, various antelopes, zebras, wildebeest, and even more kinds of birds. From there we drove further north through the Chobe National Park. Chobe is known for its vast number of elephants, about 50,000 in the park alone. There are also large numbers of lions that prey on elephants. While they mostly look for calves or juveniles, the lions have been known to take small adults. At one point we crossed over the bridge over the River Khwai, which all of us conflated with the movie of the same name (but different spelling and location). I swear I heard whistling.

The final stop was across the border into Zimbabwe for its best-known feature – Victoria Falls. I’ll have much more on this in a future post, but the Falls are a must-see experience. The massive Zambesi River crosses through several countries on its way to the Indian Ocean. On the border between Zambia and Zimbabwe it drops over 100 meters (well over 300 feet) into a narrow gorge. Measuring in at about twice the height and twice the width of the combined Niagara Falls, Victoria Falls is classified as the largest waterfall in the world. The Zimbabwe side has the best view, with a walkway wiggling in and out along the cliffside where you’re sure to get wet from the mist. The Zambian side has a narrower view of one end.  

Video above: A small part of Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe

Which gets me to the unexpected visit to Zambia. The tour officially ended in Victoria Falls, the Zimbabwean town along the eponymous falls. But we were told by someone we ran into near Chobe that it was an easy walk across the bridge into Zambia, as long as you got a double-entry visa when you crossed into Zimbabwe from Botswana. Always willing to tag on another country, that’s what we did (even though the crossing, and especially the return, was not as easy as suggested).

And just like that it was time to go back home.

I plan to do additional posts on specific stops and/or events as soon as I can download and sort all the photos. Stay tuned.

[Photos by David J. Kent]