Chobe River, Botswana
The Chobe River runs along the northern
border of Chobe National Park. It rises in the northern Angolan highlands,
where it is called the Kwando (a Hambukushu name), and travels enormous
distances through Kalahari sands before reaching Botswana; here it
becomes the Linyanti (a Subiya name) until it reaches Ngoma where
it becomes the Chobe. Like
the Okavango and Zambezi, the Chobe's course is affected by fault
lines, which are extensions of East Africa's Great Rift Valley.
These three mighty rivers carry more water than all other rivers
in southern Africa.
There is a close association between
the Okavango, the Chobe and the Zambezi. The Okavango River is connected
to the Chobe and Zambezi via the Selinda Spillway where high floods
from the Okavango escape from the southern end of the Panhandle
and flow into the Chobe. A current theory holds that millions of
years ago the Okavango, Chobe and Upper Zambezi flowed as one huge
river across the middle Kalahari, joined the Limpopo River and emptied
into the Indian Ocean. Earth movements stopped this flow and caused
a damming back of the river and the formation of the Linyanti Swamps.
The Chobe River first flows directly
south, but at Diyei, the former capital of the Bayei people, it
is caught by a rift, drops out onto a swamp and then turns north
through Lake Liambezi, finally turning east and passing Kasane before
joining the Zambezi at Kazungula. They flow briefly together before
spilling over the deep cataract at Victoria Falls.
The Chobe twists and turns through
swamps of wide reed and papyrus beds, forming hidden lagoons, which
sometimes fill with water lilies. Its south bank alternates from
open flood plains dotted with pans to thick woodlands. Across the
river from Botswana lies the Caprivi Strip - and there the scene
of grazing cattle contrasts sharply with the scenes of wild animals
in the Chobe National Park.
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