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It was an amazing trip!! So many sights and a couple of stories, too!! Self driving allowed us to see so much of the parks. The campsites were remote with most of them 8 or 9 very large sites. We had heard stories of elephants or lions coming into the campsites, but to actually experience a couple of elephants actually walk thru was surreal, and slightly terrifying at times. And the park roads were just dirt sandy tracks of 10 -12” loose sand with the occasional deep ruts left over from the rains. Once we left the town of Maun, we did not see a tarmac road for another 7 days! We saw very few other vehicles, other than the occasional safari rig. And we loved it!!
We rented fully equipped safari Toyota Landcruisers. They included all camping gear with pop up tents allowing us to sleep on the top. At night listening to all the foreign sounds, safely 8 feet above the ground allowed us to sleep very well.
Our first day we travelled South to Makgadikgadi Pan NP staying at the Khumaga campsite. Following their specific directions and the GPS instructions we ended
up on some deep @12” loose sand for @ 30km . It was slow going, taking about 2hrs to arrive at the campsite. Fortunately, the roads in the Delta and Godfrey’s pretty intense driving at times was a good introduction.
Upon arriving at the campground As we began to set up camp, it appeared we were the only ones there except for the lone female elephant across the road, a safe distance. But she decided to wander into our camp. We quickly got into our vehicles, with Patti in the front seat, Doug in the back seat and their rig closest to the elephant. Ed and I next to them in our rig. I think we were all holding our breath as the elephant kept coming closer and closer. (Although Ed and I did quietly take a pic). She stopped @ 10 feet from the open window, still swinging her trunk before she finally turned around. Whoa!! And that was just our first hour camping!! Driving out for the afternoon game drive, we saw the park entrance and the ranger told us we were only about 2 km from the campsite entrance coming in from the other
The elephant across the road at our campsite
Our first day, seemed like she was far enough away side and a firm packed road.
The game drive in MPNP was amazing as we were on the ‘high banks of the Boteti river’. The valley below consisted of such a beautiful array of animals - zebras, wildebeest, giraffes. And just as many along side the river road. Unfortunately, due to a delay in our flight from the Delta, we were only able to spend one night here. We would have loved to stay longer.
Then it was back to Maun to top off the fuel, food and bottle shop (liquor store). Our instructions told us no shops for 9 days, which at the time we found hard to believe, but it was true! The drive to our next campsite, Third Bridge was inside the Moremi Game reserve, just SE of our flyin camp. We worked with Discover Botswana and Andy had been so helpful setting everything up. At Third Bridge he booked ensuite tents for the 2 nights, which were lovely and allowed us to avoid the troublesome baboons.
Game drives during the day, scouting out more animals. We also booked an evening sunset cruise one night thru narrow channels
on an aluminum boat with 8 of us. Lots of birds, and our first hippo out of the water. They are huge!! And even bigger when he started running towards us. We emptied into a beautiful lagoon in time for sunset and sped past about 10 hippos playing. Although it is a bit unnerving when you see their beady eyes and ears, then they go under and you wonder where will they pop up!
Our next stop was one night at lovely Khwai guest house. A night game drive was included, where we saw about 10 hippos on land, but they did not pay any attention to us. Our instructions sheets at time were almost comical with ‘if you keep taking roads to the right, there should be no need to cross any water’. Understanding there were random tracks everywhere we went! Fortunately, Patti and Doug’s vehicle had pretty good GPS, and we always managed to find our way.
A few of the ending pics are from the Splash Camp portion of our trip - especially the Wild African Dogs!
To be continued...
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Dancing Dave
David Hooper
Botswana
We missed Botswana on our Kenya to South Africa safari some years ago as our cook stole my passport and we had to leave the trip, so a delight to see blogs of what we missed. Great pic of a hippo that I will post in "Animals with character" thread in the Photography Forum. Check it out.