Boat Ride on Chobe River
After our early morning game drive, we came back and got ready to go out for a Sunday afternoon boat ride with the fun owners of Africa Gallery, one of our favorite places to sit and drink coffee in all the world.
Vicky, Finn, and Clive have a pontoon boat they keep parked on the river across the
street from their shop, Gallery Africana and Coffee Shop. We had met them on earlier trips and were visiting with
them about life in Zimbabwe at present and what had been happening in Kasane. Vicky was wonderful when we told her we needed fuel for our stov. She took us several places to find some
fuel for our stove and invited us to go with them on the boat.
She said that during the recent flooding they had been worried the boat was going to end up on the lawn but it never actually did.
We were joined by Karen, her two sons and friend Jacques and then we were off. It was nice leaving earlier than
the regular boat cruises because we had the river to ourselves for the first couple of hours.
Not only was this a great cruise, it was a culinary experience as well. First, we had tea with "just made" chocolate
cake with a scrumptious icing. We were being entertained by crocodiles sunning in various sizes, monitor lizard,
pied kingfishers, bee eaters, and a malachite kingfisher and then some elephants came down to the water. We enjoyed watching them swim
across to the island. We could see giraffe off in the distance up the hill. On the island we could see hippo and buffalo.
We continued cruising and then set out some more food for people to munch on as they wanted. What a treat! There
were small pizza's, fresh bread and cold cuts, olives, pickles, salad, cheese pastries, peppadews with feta, avocado/
tomato dip, chips, chocolate covered strawberries and of course more cake if you wanted.
We then started seeing several elephants coming down the hill. There were all shapes and sizes, including several
small ones. We stopped the boat and watched the small ones playing around in the mud under the eye of the mother
elephants. Soon they were joined by another group and then another! It was interesting to watch as they drank, and the
little ones played around. The little ones were not quite sure what to do with their trunks, a little bit of a learning curve
it seems.
We saw a huge herd of buffalo crossing the river. Unfortunately, several of the tour boats came up close to them and
the herd broke into two groups and seemed uncertain as what to do. As the boats would move off, they would regroup
and continue with their journey across the river.
There were a lot of birds to also enjoy as we traveled along. We saw African spoonbill, skimmers, darter, cormorant,
squacco heron, grey heron, and African fish eagle.
As we cruised back, we enjoyed wine, beer and shandies. The sunset was perfect as usual. Finn had been a
professional photographer and seemed to know how to position the boat to get the best shot. The entire trip had been
a great experience.
No comments:
Post a Comment