Chobe National Park: Elephants, Rivers, and How I Accidentally Went to Namibia

I wake up before the alarm, which feels unnecessary because the light is already doing its thing. Coffee in hand, I sit with the leaning tree outside my room again, watching the sun come up like it did yesterday—slow, unbothered, completely uninterested in my schedule. It’s becoming our routine: me, caffeine, and a tree that has no plans beyond existing exactly where it is.

By the time I walk to the front of the hotel, I’m ready for the day in the loosest sense of the word. Today’s bus is noticeably larger than yesterday’s. It's less “casual outing,” more “we’re going somewhere that requires logistics.” We make the rounds at other hotels, and then I see them: the two familiar faces from yesterday - the Santa Barbara gals. We exchange the look that says that scream, "OMG it's you again!"

The drive takes us out of Zimbabwe and toward Botswana, with a stop at the border that feels equal parts bureaucratic and surreal. Passports stamped, small talk exchanged, and suddenly we’re in another country like it’s no big deal. It's funny how geography can be both rigid and absurdly flexible.

A pause at the Zimbabwe–Botswana border, where trucks idle, people wait, and the road quietly reminds you that crossing a line on a map is rarely as simple as it looks

At Chobe National Park, we swap vehicles for a safari truck and head into the landscape that looks calm until you realize it’s anything but.

This is where scale starts to mess with your head. Herds of elephants move across the land with a confidence that suggests they know exactly who was here first. I learn that Chobe has so many elephants because it was one of the few truly safe places for them during years when that safety was far from guaranteed. Elephants, it turns out, remember. When conservationists have tried to relocate them elsewhere, the elephants have a habit of returning. Memory, loyalty, stubbornness. An elephant truly never forgets.

A wide, quiet moment along the river as elephants spread out across the floodplain, grazing at an unhurried pace. From a distance, their movement feels less like a herd and more like a landscape slowly rearranging itself. It's hard to believe so many elephants exist in one place.

Now, though, their sheer numbers are creating real problems. Their trails carve into the land, causing erosion and damage to the ecosystem. Hunting is illegal, relocation doesn’t work, and the solution is anything but simple. It’s not the tidy conservation narrative you usually hear. It’s messy. Complicated. Uncomfortable. Which probably means it’s closer to the truth.

Elephant herds often place calves toward the center while adults take the outer positions—especially near water —creating a living shield that prioritizes the youngest without ceremony or fuss.

Hippos dot the landscape like misplaced boulders that occasionally breathe. On land they look almost unreal Compact, powerful, and slightly absurd. Definitely chonky. Like something designed by committee and approved anyway. They graze with determination, heads low, bodies close together, as if daring the world to challenge them. It’s tempting to find them funny, until you remember they’re responsible for more human deaths than almost any other large animal on the continent. Comedy, it turns out, is contextual.

Hippos spend their nights grazing on land, often traveling surprising distances from water. In daylight, their bulk and proximity make them look almost absurd until they shift direction, and the illusion dissolves.

By water, they shift personalities entirely. Submerged eyes and ears break the surface just enough to remind you who actually owns the river. They lay around with scars and bloody scratches. This is not a shared space. This is a lease you are allowed to admire from a respectful distance.

Midday in the mud pit. A very different look than what one sees on Disney's "Fantasia."

The crocodile has been kicked out of the pond by the hippos. It is motionless enough to be mistaken for terrain. Sun-warmed. Armored. Ancient. It lies with its mouth only slightly, fiercely open—not threatening, not sleeping—just existing in a way that feels unchanged for millennia. I find this expression deeply relatable. There are days when “alert, unmoved, conserving energy” feels like an aspirational life strategy.

A long line of buffalo stretches across the horizon, heads down, horns sweeping outward like punctuation marks at the end of a very firm sentence. They move as a collective—dense, deliberate—their dark bodies absorbing heat and purpose in equal measure. There’s something quietly intimidating about them. Not dramatic. Not aggressive. Just powerful enough that nothing questions their right to be exactly where they are.

What looks like casual grazing is actually a low-energy surveillance system. Buffalo distribute themselves across the floodplain so the herd can feed continuously while remaining alert—an arrangement shaped as much by predation pressure as by appetite.

A heron stands alone, statuesque, neck curved like a question mark aimed at the river. It waits with monk-like patience, perfectly still except for the occasional shift of balance. Watching it feels almost intrusive, like interrupting someone mid-thought.

The stork, by contrast, moves with gentle precision—stepping through shallow water as if following choreography only it understands. Its bright bill dips and lifts, efficient and unhurried. There’s an elegance here that contrasts sharply with the brute force around it. Another reminder that this ecosystem doesn’t reward dominance alone—it thrives on specialization, patience, and knowing exactly what you’re good at.

Shallow floodplains like this support birds that hunt by touch, not sight. A reminder that clarity isn’t always required for accuracy.

And then there’s the leopard. We spot it napping in the shade, the final checkmark on my Big Five list—completed, technically, thanks to South Africa last year. It doesn’t acknowledge us. It’s stretched out like it has taken the afternoon off, possibly the entire week. There’s something humbling about watching an apex predator look completely uninterested in ambition, productivity, or your presence. At the top of the food chain, apparently, rest is non-negotiable.

This leopard isn’t being lazy. It rests in deep shade after a successful hunt, conserving energy while its kill (identified by the visible horns as a young or weakened buffalo) lies nearby, out of frame. Leopards are known to pause between the effort of the hunt and the work of feeding, especially in extreme heat. By delaying its meal and prioritizing cooling, the leopard reduces water loss and avoids overheating, even if that means letting lunch sit in the sun a little longer than seems polite.

Later, we pull into a resort along the river for lunch. Then we board a boat for a water safari. As we drift along, my phone buzzes.

“Welcome to Namibia,” T-Mobile cheerfully announces via text as it explains what services are included in my international phone plan and which aren't.

I thought I was in Botswana. T-Mobile disagreed. Namibia welcomed me anyway.

This is unexpected, since I’m fairly certain I did not make a conscious decision to enter Namibia. I haven’t crossed a bridge or shown a passport. And yet—here I am.

This is when the geography lesson kicks in. Namibia has that long, improbable finger of land—the Caprivi Strip—because of 19th-century colonial mapmaking. The goal was simple: give German South West Africa (now Namibia) access to the Zambezi River. The reality: the river curves, shifts, ignores intentions, and generally does whatever it wants.

Which brings me to a meme. God reaching out to touch Zimbabwe, accidentally stretching Namibia east like taffy. It’s funny because it’s absurd. It’s also funny because it’s kind of accurate.

The river doesn’t care about borders. It bends, wanders, and casually places you in another country holding a camera and asking fellow passengers to take your photo. One minute you’re in Botswana, the next your phone is welcoming you to Namibia like this was always the plan.

Two countries for the price of one, courtesy of colonial cartography and a river.

A sable antelope stands perfectly composed in the shade. Confident, unbothered, and entirely where it belongs. According to Google Maps, however, I apparently was not. Somewhere between Botswana and certainty, this photo now insists I took it in Namibia, making this antelope my accidental proof that borders are sometimes more theoretical than real.

From the water, everything feels different. The land looks quieter from here. The breeze is nice.

By the time we head back, the sun is setting. I look out the bus window, watching the southern African landscape fly by.

The sun slips low behind thorny branches as the bus rolls back toward Victoria Falls. One last pause in motion, where the day quietly folds itself away.

The world has a way of putting things back into proportion.

I didn’t come to Africa looking for perspective, but somewhere between the border posts, floodplains, and accidentally ending up in a different country, I realized this was the trip I didn’t know I needed. Not an escape, but a recalibration.

Earlier in the day, I learned about a stork that hunts by intuition rather than sight, finding its meals by touch in shallow floodplains. It stayed with me. Clarity doesn’t always come from vision. Accuracy doesn’t always come from seeing everything or knowing everything, but from paying attention to what’s right in front of you.

I didn’t know I was on a trip that would quietly prove my problems at home weren’t really problems at all. But something in me understood that this journey would offer exactly the clarity I needed to learn that lesson.

What stays with me are the images. Elephants returning to places that once kept them safe. Ground marked by who passed through and who remained. The quiet connection between endurance and persistence.

And the river, moving as it always has, regardless of the lines someone once drew on a map.

Tomorrow will bring something else. But for now, moving forward without full certainty feels like exactly enough.

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I didn’t really know what to expect from my Chobe National Park day trip, but it became one of the most memorable experiences of my life. From peering down into a valley filled with long, slow-moving herds of elephants to watching a giraffe silhouetted against a wide, open sky, every moment felt lived rather than rushed. The guide’s knowledge brought the landscape to life, and the lunch buffet offered a welcome pause in the middle of all that wilderness.

Add in my stay at Ilala Lodge in Victoria Falls, where thoughtful hospitality, good food, and calm spaces helped everything settle, and the trip became exactly what I didn’t know I needed.

Looking back, it’s the quieter scenes that linger. That giraffe, standing tall above the plains, unhurried and completely at ease. If you want a piece of that feeling on your own wall, I recommend the Above the Horizon: Giraffe in Quiet Profile poster. It captures the same stillness and perspective, bringing a small but meaningful sense of the safari home with you.