Victoria Falls - Chobe National Park Zimbabwe/Zambia/Botswana 25-30 June
- Lydia Padilla
- Jul 3
- 3 min read
What a great, but way too short trip! Got to see one of my childhood bucket list items, Victoria Falls (The tallest of the big three falls in the world) but we were out of season to actually sit in Devil's Pool due to water levels. Plus it's $170 per person, so we dodged a bullet there! We also got to raft down the Zambezi, a class 4 whitewater river that is actually a class 10 because there are crocodiles. Suck it, Colorado, and your class 5's!
And lastly, we got to head over to Botswana to see a bit of Chobe National Park, which ended up surpassing all of our expectations - read below for even more riveting prose from me.
Oh, and we ate caterpillars...and crocodile...and some other mystery items...but don't judge. BUT, the best part was that we got to spend a last few days with Kari...she kicked John back to St. Louis (for work) and rejoined us for these last few days. It's nice to have someone to actually call me out on my "we should try the fried caterpillers" hollow challenges on occasion...haha! And most importantly, she brings out the biggest smiles in wife, which after 6 straight months of 'Chris-time' is really needed...
Well, my safari bingo card didn’t have this one as an option…a family of mongooses (mongeese should be the plural, btw) playing king of the mountain on a warthog. And it wasn’t even on a safari. We were exiting the Victoria Falls park and inside the gate we happened upon a male warthog snoozing without a care in the world, just 15 feet from the foot path. A few feet away, a family of Banded Mongeese was playing when they rolled over to the warthog and roused him awake. As he stood up, the mongeese started sniffing around his ears and legs and playing with his tail. After a moment, he laid back down and the mongeese started climbing all over him, nibbling about and cleaning him of fleas, or something gross. Every once in a while, he’d flick his ear when they got too personal but seemed perfectly content to let them climb all over him. Apparently mongeese have no shame or simply don’t recognize safe space, as they were digging right in to the warthog crown jewels, if you know what I mean. Funny stuff.
My bingo card didn’t have necking giraffes and play-fighting baby elephants on it, either, but we got to add those boxes in also. It’s easy to spot the giraffes from a distance and fortunately, our guide was able to maneuver us really close to the small herd. Two of the younger males were fighting over typical male stuff…dominance, chicks, first in the buffet line, etc. It wasn’t overly aggressive, meaning they weren’t kicking each other, but more comically they were swinging their big-ass necks around and whipping each other in the butt and the neck and the head, all the while doing a little circular dance. They also weren’t ferocious but taking their time and, seemingly, taking turns. They didn’t look pained and weren’t screaming out, but damn those things are big and they HAD to get some power behind the hits.
Chobe National Park, Botswana
