Camping at Chobe

Life has settled into a routine of sorts here in Chobe. We’re staying at a campsite for this fancy-shmancy lodge called Chobe Safari Lodge. The campsites are nice and there are bathrooms and showers. Chels has had hot water each night so she’s happy…I (Tim) haven’t been so fortunate. I think it took 6 days before I broke even on the number of nights where my water was actually hot. I’m still holding onto the lead, but barely. We’re on the edge of the Chobe River and so we can hear the hippos and hyenas at night. It also means we get visits from some of the animals (Which I love!). Warthogs walk around camp, wallowing in the mud near the bathrooms. They can also be seen wandering around the main street of Kasane and in the grocery store parking lot. There are also monkeys too, which isn’t nearly as great as it sounds (see below for more on that) and birds that try to raid our food when we’re not looking. One morning Chels even found one in our car because we left the back door open. We’ve also had visits from elephants right on the other side of the small fence lining our camp. One night I woke up at 2:30 to see a HUGE bull elephant eating the branches from a tree whose trunk is right next to our camp table. He was only about 20 feet from our tent and was leaning over the fence to grab branches and pull them to his side. It was incredible! His trunk was going right over Lauren’s tent, but somehow she slept through it all.

 

Us with the camp warthogs, we'd just finished a hot, dusty game drive, so its not the best picture of us but its priceless just the same.

 I (Chels) haven’t minded camping for the most part. The 2 most annoying things are that I only actually feel clean for the 10 minutes when I’m in the shower and getting dressed because after I walk back through the dusty campsites, I’m already dirty again.  And the second thing is when I’m warm and cozy in my tent and I have to pee in the middle of the night. The absolute last thing I want to do is walk to the bathroom in the cold. So I usually hold it until the morning when I’m about to burst and then RUN to the bathroom. Sorry, if that was TMI. J

We’re on the outskirts of a town called Kasane. Its small and its main reason for existence is the National Park and tourism. There are two grocery stores, 2 banks, a small hospital and a police station. And 2 restaurants both of which are pretty good. There’s also a KFC where we can get ice cream cones for about 50 cents (best 50 cents spent in Africa). We’ve been going to the grocery store about every day because with only coolers to keep food good, we can’t buy bulk.

~Chels and Tim

 I (Chels) apologize for my lack of editing skills with my previous posts. Apparently I write but don’t look back over it, so there were duplicates and mistakes. I was also trying to post those as quickly as I possibly could because we’re paying for internet by the hour here. I don’t have much experience in that regard, so I was rushing. But thanks for reading anyways J