We decided to leave the camp early and do a morning boat game drive before heading to the airstrip. Nice morning boat ride, ran into some hippos resting in one of the hippo highways.
Three short hops to different airstrips to pick up other travelers and we were at the Kasane Airport. Our guide met us and we were off on a 3 hour game drive to our tented camp, Chobe Under Canvas. On the way in we saw a leopard, but he was pretty far away.
Chobe is a national park and only allows one permanent structure, which is the Chobe Game Lodge. All other camps are traveling camps and the entire site is required to switch sites every 5 days. On the days they move they do not have any guests and this gives the staff 1 1/2 days to get the camp ready for guests. We were the the first set of guests for this camp at the camp site. It is an incredible amount of work these guys go through to get the camps moved and set up for guests! All cooking is done on open fire or fire stoves. They food was fantastic! It is VERY hot, dry and dusty here!!!! Now this is the real Africa!!!
Our home for two days!
This is where the staff cooked and did laundry!
This is the dining room!
Inside our tent...
Our bathroom...
Yes, this is the shower!
Once we arrived at camp we got “settled” in our tent and had a quick lunch, then we were off for our afternoon game drive. We found a herd of elephants with a very small baby, the baby was born on Thursday, but as of today still wasn’t standing up. Normally they stand up within a few hours… something is definitely wrong. We watched as the elephants moved in circles around the baby protecting him from any harm. It was something to see this behavior. Very sad, but this is nature. :(
Returning back to camp after the game drive our tents were prepared for us and our hot bucket shower was ready for us. This was definitely an experience… we were so hot and dirty that we thought that shower was the best thing in the world! In the evening we sat by the campfire having drinks and talking with our guide and the other guests. The staff prepared a great dinner that included fresh bread and a fruit tart for desert. No pictures … too dark! The tents do have some power, but it is solar and there is only minimal lighting! otherwise only lanterns for lighting.
It was a bit unsettling as we sat around having drinks and dinner the staff kept shining their flashlights around the camp and out in the bush… they were definitely watching for animals. We were escorted back to our tent and told that we could not leave our tent until they came to wake us at 5:30 the next morning! We were given horns to use incase of emergency! YIKES!!! BTW, did I mention that when we arrived at this camp we had to sign a release wavier! They weren’t responsible for anything bad that might happen to us.
Luckily it was a very quiet restful night! We did hear from other travelers that stayed with this camp a couple days before us, that they had to capture a leopard that kept coming into the camp, they had him in a cage all night and he was relocated the next day.
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