Chobe National Park, Botswana

Chobe National Park is located in the north eastern part of Botswana – Beautiful Botswana as its known.  We arrived from Livingstone Zambia as its only an hour away from the border.

Check out my post on The 15 Safest countries in Africa to see where Botswana ranks!

Chobe is known for their elephants. They have approximately 120,000 elephants in the park and that was evident as you could see them everywhere. The reason there are so many elephants here is that they actually have enough food for them. An elephant eats anywhere from 250-300 kilos of food a day.

Our morning started out with a cruise down the Chobe River. In the dry season this is where all the animals are located. In the middle of the river is Sedudu Island. This island was actually disputed between Namibia and Botswana and had to be resolved by the International Court of Justice. Namibia wanted the island for agriculture and to grow rice. Botswana wanted the island for the wildlife. Luckily for us the ICJ sided with Botswana and the island is now home to numerous animals.

One place I wish I had the time to visit in Botswana is the Okavango Delta. Next time I visit Botswana I’m going!

We’ve seen so many animals on the trip but we’ve never seen so many elephants in one place.  It was amazing to see the elephants interact with each other.  It was great because the animals were not too bothered with us.

The main attraction for us was seeing the elephants cross the river and go onto Sedudu Island to feed.  It was very dry on the mainland so the elephants go into the water to cool down and then onto the island for the fresh grass.  This was a troup of young adolescent males who were playing around and being quite physical with each other.  Watching them swim across trunk up was really cool.  Like I said we hadn’t seen elephants swimming before so it was amazing to watch the elephants interacting.  Chobe is a beautiful park for watching elephants and I highly recommend a river cruise in the morning.