Southeast Africa part two

The last portion of our 30 overland trip was from Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe to Johannesburg, South Africa with the majority of the time spent in Botswana. Highlights from the last portion of our southeast Africa tour include Chobe National Park, the Okavango Delta, Baobab forest and the rhino sanctuary are below.

Unfortunately, we had to say goodbye to some of our group in Victoria Falls, while the rest of us continued to Johannesburg. 

CHOBE NATIONAL PARK game drive...

For anyone that wants to try out the water buffalo hair style, here you go...

Warthog family, the mom is preying for less kids next time.

Thanks to Rob's days of playing Big Buck Hunter at the Cooler in Denver, we know this is a Sable!

OKAVANGO DELTA

Okavango delta, where we spent (American) Thanksgiving.  The delta is a really amazing place and is the world largest inland delta.  It was formed by a fault that heaved and blocked the flow of water from the Okavango river to the ocean.  Most of the 11 trillion liters that flows into the delta every year is lost to evaporation (36%) and transpiration (60%) by plants and only a small amount percolating.  It supports a tremendous amount of animals that have to swim from island to island in the delta.  Even large cats are willing to get wet in search of prey.  Botswana was good to us for game viewing as we saw many large animals including water buffalo, lion, elephant, rhino, hippo, warthog, wildebeest, giraffe, crocodile, etc.

First makoro boat ride to our campsite in the Okavango.  These boats are poled through the delta in narrow alleys through reeds that open up into larger lily ponds where hippos are frequent.

Enjoying the lily pond :)

This is the only elephant that we saw from the ground (not truck) on one of our hikes through the delta.

African sunsets make some people want to dance, especially Rene and Stuwart

The men and women of the Okavango

PLANET BAOBAB

These Baobab trees are said to grow about 5mm per year.  The one below is the biggest that we saw and is likely over 3000 years old.  

Sundowner drinks after an evening hike

Juvenile White Rhino

From Johannesburg we jumped over to Cape Town... next post will be "Cape Town and the Garden Route!"