Honeymoon Part 3 - Chobe

You can't have a Chobe National Park safari without seeing oodles of elephants.

Two elephants in love. Maybe they were on their honeymoon too.

This young adult, we watched from a boat while cruising on the Chobe River. He was busy munching on the mud in search of mineral salts. The elephants really enjoy eating this particular salt only found along the Chobe River this time of year. He would use his front foot to push the dirt into the tip of his snout and then stick it in his mouth. He was so relaxed just spending the afternoon getting some good grub. After he was done, he slowly walked over to our boat which was fully on the shore and stared at us for almost a minute before slowly walking away. I was so petrified and wanted to hold Chase's hand so badly (the elephant was closest to me) but the guide told us not to move or the elephant might get spooked. The animals don't think anything of the boats and jeeps but if they see movement within the vehicle, they get scared. Anyways...

We enjoyed the occasional downpour on our trip, but I think the elephants enjoyed it more. They became more frisky as they cooled off from the rain. They would roll around on the ground, run through puddles, and generally enjoyed getting rinsed off. It's a good life, if you're an elephant!

Man our camera can take good pictures. I love the tufts of cotton white clouds and the way the sun shines on this elephant. I think this one is worth publishing!

The elephants really don't seem to notice the vehicles and they come up and greet you. We watched this one munched on the grass for a few minutes.

Three adolescent giraffes. They are so gangly and I love their beady eyes with the most perfect eyelashes.

These are Sable Antelope and a giraffe.

The jackal became the official mascot of our trip. More on that later...

Chase really got a kick out of warthog families. They have cute snorts and are easily frightened. They stick their tail up in the air when they are scared and that helps them find each other when the threat is gone.

Again another great picture because of the way the sunshine is hitting this impala.

Here I am checking out the hippos on the Chobe. We had the best binoculars thanks to Kirk and Allyson who gave them to us for Christmas.

Hippos make the coolest sounds when they chomp on their food. Chobe is one of the very few places that you can find hippos come out onto the land because they do not feel threatened. I think that says a lot about the park, rangers, and courtesy of people coming their on safari that they do their best to let the animals be and not get too close. We were warned that getting too close to hippos is never a good thing as they can easily topple boats and if that happens the likelihood of a crocodile attack is severe and life threatening.

So that sums up our days at Chobe. We really underestimated how good the birdwatching would be. I took many pictures of bird life but unfortunately they just don't do the birds justice. You have to see them in person. We saw the most amazing, colorful bee eaters, kingfishers, hawks, and other birds of prey. I was so enamoured by them all, that I now have a new nickname from Chase: Bird Nerd.