lions, impalas, and elephants.. oh my.

To our great surprise, a group of our friends happened to be at the same safari company as us. So we went on our merry way, joined by Danny, Becca, Brett, Ellen, and Will on a journey into Chobe National Park.

First we took a boat tour. Stuck with inedible food and with no more animals in sight than a couple of birds, we were a little disappointed. But then the ball started rolling. We saw a couple hippos. Which become a huge group of hippos. Then a herd of elephants. Then hippos and elephants. Some more birds and hippos. Even a few birds on hippos.

Fun fact: adolescent male elephants practice mounting each other in the water as preparation for the real deal. Saw it with my own eyes. And after seeing a couple of tiny baby elephants, I’m pretty sure it’s effective.

We soon set off to go on a game drive. Perfection: the nine of us perfectly fit into one jeep. After filming a rendition of “In the Jungle” to soon realize that the sound on my camera is broken, we came upon some more animals. Giraffes. Elephants. Impala. Birds. More elephants. Buffalo. Baboons. All of these animals would hang, run, fake charge, graze, eat, care, or couldn't care less about us, as close as 2 feet away from our jeep.

After some snacks we departed for a sunset drive. Soon after we left the camp, our driver hears something on his radio and starts to disregard the strict speed limits in Chobe. Till we come upon a group of giraffes in a field in the distance. We see them looking at three lion cubs and a mother. We waited and looked for a while--all forgetting that breathing is a good thing to make sure you do. The mother lion creeped up and walked closer and closer towards us, and crossed right in front of the car  into the bush. Our attention returned to the cubs, who pitifully tried to catch some impala (not that I could do any better). After another radio call, we sped again—this time off of the road—zig-zagging in between bush and trees. Just as we turn the bend, we see the mother lion holding an impala she just killed in her mouth, carrying it off to her cubs. Extremely rare for Chobe. We were some very lucky ducklings. One of those times you need to sit back and say, “Yep. I am in Africa.”

After camping there, we went on a morning tour. Stumbled upon the impala’s corpse, which was soon to be eaten by hyenas. And almost caught glimpse of a cheetah (missed it by literally 30 seconds). The best part was that our entire safari just kept getting bigger and better, one serendipity at a time.

We were planning on staying an extra day. But since we couldn’t see how it could possibly get better than that (it really couldn’t) we departed early and hit the road.

P.S. For your viewing pleasure: You can see the joy in our faces. And that was just the beginning of our Chobe experience.