CHILLING ON THE CHOBE

WILD AFRICAN QUEST – 4

23 December 2019

“Here we are on the magnificent Chobe river after a long day in the saddle, rehydrating as you do. We have hippos in the background and we just encountered the most amazaing, amazing thunderstorm. Tents and sleeping bags are still dry so all good and we are looking forward to tomorrow,” reported a rather contented looking Glenn against the backdrop of the beautiful Chobe River and the sound of Qwella in the background.

The magnificent Chobe is a river of many names. It starts life as a small spring called ‘Kwando” in Angola before slowly snaking it ways over a great distance throuth the Kalahari sands before it reaches Botswana. Here it is called the ‘Linyati.’ It then reaches Ngoma where it becomes ‘Chobe” and makes its’ was along the northern border of Botswana before it meets up the mighty force of the Zambezi river and tumbles headlong over Victoria Falls in the most magnificent display.

Back in the saddle and the team made their way to the border crossing with Zambia at the infamous Kazungula Ferry. The ferry is a pontoon which crosses the 400-metre-wide Zambezi River and is one of the largest ferries in south-central Africa, having a capacity of 70 tonnes. Today there is also a massive bridge under construction to link Zambia and Botswana. On completion it will span 923 metres and will come to replace the existing ferry.

12h58, a message form Morgs…”That was a pretty painless border crossing. We found a couple of fixers, nice young lads about $30 a pop. They went through all with all our papers and did everything on our behalf so that was quite nice. It’s very hot.