Botswana - Safari in the African Bush

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Hey all!

Back again for the semi-shortened version of our safari in Botswana. I marked it as the Okavango Delta but we actually began in Kasane, our first night of camping in Savuti, then headed into Moremi which is kind of the tip of the Delta. From there we headed back into Savuti and then last two nights in Chobe. Nonetheless, this was an amazing experience despite totally roughing it in the bush. A maximum of 2 showers in six days, layers upon layers of insect repellent and sunscreen. A lot of beans and toast along with sandwiches galore - avoid the palony. 😊 But thru it all, my friends and I had a blast and dealt with all the uncertainties really well.

We left our hostel in the morning and took a van over to the border of Zambia and Botswana. We then had to take a boat over to the Botswana side. The funny part is that we had no idea who was going to meet us, after a phone call from our "guide" to one of the random truck drivers on the other side, we got on the right boat and our safari began. We met our guide Nico (short for Nicodemus) and hopped in our Toyota Land Cruiser (mind you Africa has a ton of Toyotas!) this car would be our official transport on the bumpy roads for the next 7 days. After we got our passports stamped, we were off! We were still on paved roads and immediately entered into Chobe Park, which has the highest concentration of African elephants and we saw our first official elephant on our safari. Very exciting as there is something special about seeing them in their own habitat. We drove thru rural towns with lots of goats and cows just wandering the roads and many kids waving at our truck, knowing that we were tourists and not soon after that we headed into the very bumpy, dirt roads of our safari. We all have stronger cores and experts on riding the 4x4s, plus I think our butts have an extra layer or toughness with all the bouncing in the truck.

Our guide was a bit nervous in b/c we were running a bit late but we still had the opportunity to find a hyenna, giraffes, zebras and A LOT of impala! Impala are everywhere, though if it wasn't for them we wouldn't be able to spot some of the big five. On our safari, we were only fortunate to spot 3 of the 5, we got close to the 4th but no luck. Nonetheless, we saw a lot of animals and we really didn't get tired of seeing them just wandering around. When we finally arrived to our camp area, Nico wanted to grab some firewood and stopped at a nearby camp. Well, we knew we had to work a bit during our safari but we certainly didn't expect pushing out a truck and trailer out of the mud would be a part of it. 😊 Yup Timo and Nico gathered the wood and we thought we were headed out but to our dismay, we got stuck in the soft, wet sand of the African bush. So we all had to get out and push and actually they had to un-hitch the trailer from the truck, and then we pushed the truck out and the hardest was getting the trailer out. Man was that rough but we were successful at getting it out and that was really the 3rd layer of the 7-layer human dip. The first two was sunscreen and deet. We then got to our camp just as it was getting dark and next was setting up camp. Long story short it was rough but we got them up with the little light we had from flashlights (aka torches) and our headlamps. We were situated near the water which provided us with a nice surprise through the night... ha! (An elephant walked behind the Sparks' tent to gather some water from the river - big footprints were found) After we got camp set-up, we finally had time to relax and enjoy a great dinner and of course drinks.

I have to say that in all 6 nights of camping, we actually slept pretty well. The mattresses were comfortable and no doubt there were some nights where we woke up and looked at each other and said, "What is that?" Along with that, no one had any awful bouts with their stomachs, so we were very fortunate. Actually I got sick on the flight from Amsterdam to Joburg, one of KLM's dishes didn't agree with me and thankfully I had the aisle seat. Oy!! I was very lucky though throughout my travels in Africa to have a solid stomach.

The next morning we packed up camp and headed down to our next destination, Moremi. We stayed there for two nights and wow - the Delta is amazing. We set camp up again in an area where the hippos roamed and my friend Debra can attest to that (we are becoming pros by now in setting camp up too). That evening when we were in our tents, Debra couldn't sleep (malaria pills were working well on giving all of us crazy dreams) though for Deb, this night wasn't a dream. We had been hearing hippos call out when we got there (I got a recording - woohoo!) but that night, I woke up just after the fact but Deb and heard them walking behind our tent probably about 30ft away heading to the water. Now if you don't already know, hippos are extremely territorial and you don't want to mess with them, so knowing that there is this 2 ton animal walking behind your tent, you can understand how unnerving that could be. But thankfully no hippos came charging through our camp, but they really do make some cool sounds. The next morning we awoke to vervet monkeys in our camp attempting to steal our food... really. Our cook, Timo eventually got them away from our camp when we left for one of our most exciting days in our safari. We drove 4 hours on bumpy roads to to the Makoro river which is basically the lifeline of the Delta. We had an awesome canoe ride in the hot sun and our poler (dude who guides our canoe) found the tiniest frog on a reed of grass... (unfortunately I don't have the picture but my friend Lisa K does. 😞 It was worth the drive through the bumps and the water, plus we had heard from other guides that they spotted lions. We had to find them!

We head back to our camp and Nico begins to slow his pace in the truck, did he spot tracks? Possibly. So we start to keep a sharper look around us and then suddenly Lisa K. says, "There they are!" Sure enough we saw a mom and her 2 grown cubs. We start from afar and then all of a sudden we're about 2 meters away from them... nervous? duh! Amazing? Well no (beep)! 😊 We sat there taking photos for out 10 minutes while our guide literally takes out a piece of chocolate to eat. They were just sleeping under the tree and our guide riles the engine to wake the mom up (we're thinking WTF?) but she stares at the truck and then plops herself down. We then stare in amazement for another 5-10 minutes. Mind you the rules are of course, not to get out of the truck and also remain seated. If you stand they don't think of the truck as a structure and therefore probably more prone to meat. After being in pure amazement, we headed back to camp and then ventured on back to Savuti.

Our safari continued to get better and better, there were definitely moments where things started off ugly but thankfully the days would end on a high note. Savuti proved to be one of danger and sadly death. We came back from our afternoon drive and as we were settling in, we heard the splash of water, a yelp and then a flock of guinea fowl flew up from the trees. Nico and Timo began talking to each other in Swana and then Nico said, "Alright guys, get into the truck." I think most of us thought, "Oh crap we have to get out of danger's way." But he then followed it up with, "We're going to see what happened, I think some wild dogs have made a kill." What!? So we jumped into the truck (after dark - totally not supposed to do that) and sure enough about 30 ft from our camp, 2 wild dogs had made a kill. They were eating a baby impala and man were they hungry. The sound of their mouths cracking the bones and the chewing are not hard to forget. That was one animal I wanted to see as they are rare to find, we were lucky enough to not only see them but to witness their kill. Because things happened so fast, I wasn't able to get pictures but its way beyond the Discovery Channel and Nat Geo shows. As we ate another delicious dinner, we could hear them call out to their pack. It was pretty cool yet definitely something that made you nervous where thoughts of, "Are they calling out because they spotted a bunch of yummy human meat?" Anyway, we slept well that night despite that and a few hyenas sniffing our tent. That was freaky.

From Savuti, we headed back towards Kasane through Chobe Park. Unfortunately though during our first night on safari, our trailer had some major difficulties - the small wheel broke and also a container of our gas was punctured, so we lost some petrol. So on our way to Chobe, we had to wait several hours for our safari company to meet us in the middle of the hot sun in the African bush to get gas. After that we went to Chobe and set up camp in a very rocky place - a pain in the ass! along with that a whole slew of baboons decided to set up their own camp in a nearby tree. There had to be at least 80 monkeys up there, from their great-great- grandfathers and mothers to the youngest child. We ended the night with great glasses of wine, good conversation, a beautiful sunset and a delicious authentic African dinner. Though our time with the baboons didn't end as they decided to make a crapload of noise overnight. Along with digging at our tent, stealing the rocks that we used to hold up our stakes and unfortunately using our guides tent to poop on. We heard that the next day when we went on our drive, our cook Timo was throwing rocks at them to keep them out from our camp... LOL! We're truly bummed that we missed that site.

The last full day of our safari was spent eating lunch at a nice resort (we looked pretty bummy in this posh place, but what the hell - we knew we experienced way more than these guests) before we headed on another boat ride on a very full Chobe River. We were able to see elephants playing in the water, lots of hippos and some wanting to get rid of us, and we finally saw our crocodile. We saw a few basking in the sun but at a distance, this time around we got pretty close. He was small but still very cool to see. As we headed back to our camp, we saw more lions - that brought the count up to 8. On our way back, we hoped to see a leopard but unfortunately he/she remained hidden. It was pretty amazing though to see the impala on high alert. Chobe Park was definitely more crowded in terms of tourists - trucks were everywhere but it was funny to see a stand-off between an elephant and a self-driven truck (no guide). Nico just drove past him and he did a mock charge but we gunned it though, the other car that we pass remained there and Nico told us that elephants will continue to mess with people and basically do a stand-off.

It was then time to head back to Kasane and then to Zimbabwe, though before we left, we couldn't leave without seeing another lion on our way out. Honestly if you ever have the opportunity to do a safari, do it! It's remarkable. This blog is a bit long but I could go on forever because I know I've missed something. Up next, Zimbabwe (Victoria Falls again but the other side!) plus some jumping off of cliffs. 😊

Just FYI - I started taking photos in the RAW format so there are only some that I'm able to publish that are in a regular JPEG format. I'll have to wait till I get home to show you the others. Till then enjoy!!

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Photos

1st elephant mock charge
we had a total of about 4-5