Wednesday 31st August 2016: we leave the hotel at 7.15 and a warning sound starts going off, so we go the depot and shift into another bus - we definitely don't see the most savoury part of Vic Falls by doing this and it's not that flash anyway. Today we are crossing the border into Botswana for a game drive along the shoreline of the Chobe River and then a cruise on the same river. It is an hours drive to the border through extremely dry National Park. It is such a procedure exiting Zimbabwe's checkpoint, proceeding to Botswana's checkpoint and getting stamped in and going through a shoe sterilising mat for foot & mouth disease - they export beef and there are diamonds here.
 We make Chobe Lodge our base for the day, all climbing into safari jeeps for the shoreline drive. The Chobe River is a wide expanse with islands of grassed area scattered throughout. The tracks are very sandy and rough and to start with all we see are birds and submerged hippos, but when we leave the waters edge we see the most amazing amount of elephants - one poor baby walking on 3 legs, the other really damaged - the elephant family were being very protective of him - we would have seen over 100, plus lots of giraffe - a group of giraffe is a 'tower' but when they are walking it is called a 'journey'. They can see for 3km and their heart weighs 12 kg. Their life span is about 28 years, compared to 120 years for crocodiles and we saw them on the shoreline as well.
 We return to the Lodge for a 3 course lunch and then board the boat for the afternoon cruise on the river. Even to cross an imaginary line into the National Park on the river we have to do paperwork - the river here is Botswana on one side and Namibia on the other. We go right around a large island where the river divides into two and see crocodiles, basking on the shore, water Buck, a type of deer, different bird life, buffalo, lots of elephants again, giraffe having a drink on the shoreline, not on the island and hippos, in the water and on the island. We watch as a family of elephants swims from the island to Nambia, the babies being helped along when the going gets tough. When they get on the island, they then proceed to blow sand all over themselves, so much for getting out of the water all clean. No immigration controls on the bank. As we get back to the jetty there is a poisonous snake swimming nearby - wouldn't want to fall in there. Back on the bus and repeat the border crossing out of Botswana and then into Zimbabwe along with an immigration declaration, even though we did one yesterday on our way in. Doesn't take long to fill the passport with stamps at this rate.