Goodbye Zambia, Hello Botswana Sept 6 Saturday

Today we left our beautiful camp form a short drive to “Lufupa International Airport”, where we flew back to Livingstone, Zambia. We all enjoyed the amenities at the very dusty Sky Club while waiting to board the airplane. From the air we could again see some of the devastation from the wildfires. We have been breathing this smoke for the past three days and I feel bad for the all the camp personnel who have to live with the consequences from these fires.

Enjoying the Sky Club at Lufupa International

When we reached Livingstone, we boarded a bus for the trip across the border to Botswana. We stopped at Dambwa (pool of water) market to shop for local goods. Zambia uses the Kwacha, but also accepts USD at the market. The market was very busy. We saw smoked fish, spices, second hand clothing, and lots of the colorful chitenge cloth that we learned about yesterday. I bought two beautiful pieces to take home. I plan to have a skirt or a swim cover up made from them when we get home.

Buying Chitenge at Dambwa Market

We crossed the Kazungula Bridge over the Chobe river, which is the only place in the world where you can see 4 countries: Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, and Namibia. Namibia is the only one of those four countries we are not visiting on this trip. The border crossing into Botswana was much more organized. Once across the border we switched buses and headed to our camp. We are staying at Baobab I for next three nights. This camp, like all the camps where we are staying, is used exclusively by OAT. The camp and the people are amazing. We are about to set out for an evening game drive and sundowners. We could get used to this!

Our cabin at Baobab I Camp

In the evening we took our first game drive and had a sundowner. We were lucky enough to see five giraffes, including two juveniles, a big male lion with two females and two babies, lots of baboons with babies, warthogs, kudu, a sable antelope, and several elephants. It was another beautiful African sunset.