CLAUDIA & CARSTEN'S WORLD EXPEDITION

Botswana here we come!

Giant crickets...

Off to Central Kalahari Game Reserve

If you remember your Africa documentaries, Kalahari should be a desert, correct? Well...it is a desert if you visit between May and August, but if you happen to be here in March, it rains cats and dogs. So the grass is high, the road is terrible and we have long hours until we get to our camp.

Central Kalahari GR

We arrive to Tsao, the closest entry point we could reach and we are advised that there is a lot of water and mud on the roads to the camp and we need to be careful. The next 5 hours of driving were not fun. Our car had no snorkel and he had to cross rivers of water and risk getting stuck in the middle of nowhere. At 7:00 PM it's pitch dark (in a park that has no fenced camps, so there can by hyenas, lions or any animal in our camp) and we are 2 hours away from our campsite.

Camping

We stayed in the closest camp we could find, Carsten set up the camp in 3 minutes and we jumped into the tent with a bag of biltong and said good night. This is what we found the next morning....relief....

Hornbill

Funny enough I always thought Zazu, from the Lion King, was a Tucan...never crossed my mind that tucans only live in South America...Well, Zazu is a horbill and here he is for you. Very pretty. And hungry. Keeps visiting us to steal our food.

Pretty cheeky bird

We got company

Finally on our second day we met a German family and we all stuck together until we exited the park, since none of us wanted to get stuck there. This was our game drive on day two.

Bat Eared Foxes

Bird with headphones...

Marabu

My birthday dinner

We celebrated my 42nd birthday together with the Germans and did a barbecue.

Leaving

On day three, the German family was leaving and we decided to exit with them to see if the road was better than the one we took. We wanted to stay if it was possible for us to leave alone. But after one hour driving it started to rain heavily and we decided to exit the park for good. We will come back another time either in dry season or with a taller car with a snorkel.

Clean cars!

The shops in Botswana

Maun

Camping in Maun

Moremi Game Reserve

Lechwe

Black Saddle Backed Stork

Our friends

Fourth Bridge

Exit

Carsten needs to check that the car is not too dirty and still works.

Lunch

A sticky night visitor

The biggest stick insect

we saw until we arrived to Australia. They are even bigger there.

Border crossing into Namibia

To get to the Caprivi Strip

Border post

Crossing from the Namibian Caprivi Strip into Chobe area in Botswana.

Baobab

Chobe River

Also called Zambezi in Zimbabwe

Elephants along the road

This is not a park area...

Our camp in Chobe

Our first ground hornbill!

And they are huge. This picture was taken around 5:30 AM.

Spotted hyena

He seems to think:" What are you doing on my road so early?".

Chobe National Park

We got up very early to enter the park close to where we stayed, turns out that entrance is reserved for tours only. If you want to enter alone, you need to drive all the way back to Chobe...so we did.

Banded Mongoose

Chobe River

Hawks

Rock Kestrel

African Fish Eagles

Springbok

Monitor Lizard

South Africans love their big lenses

Waterbuck

Kingfisher

I see you....

Pretty obvious where we come from

Croc

Look at me! Look at me!

Sunset in Chobe

Our camp

Working

Early morning drive

This bird is driving me crazy!

Picnic

This is my road

Elephant skeleton