Savuti posh safari

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Living the high life!

From the salt pan, we headed to Maun and surprised Giff at his office (as all the people at Planet Baobob knew him, they culd give us directions).

It was great to see him but he had to work for a couple of days so we decided to see if we could get a last minute deal to one of the posh safari lodges. Amazingly (mainly because Andy agreed to it!!), we could and we booked ourselves in for two nights.

You can only get there by flying in, in a really small (12 seater including pilot) plane. This was really good as you got to see the delta by air. And as you aren't that high, you can sometimes see the animals too. We have decieded however, that we are not supposed to be mega rich and have our own plane as we both felt a bit green!

Our camp was Savuti Bush Camp, a tented camp for a maximum of 14 people. Well the tents were mega luxurious and for the firt night we were there on own own! Apparently people pay loads and loads for this privilage usually and we were just lucky! This meant that we got our own guide and our own vehicle too!

THe lodge is situated around a water hole and so the animals come really close. Everything is geared up to make the most of the view so you have meals looking at the animals and the pool and the balcony of your tent all face to the water hole. It's great.

We on a really nice game drive and then headed back for our dinner, which was set around the pool where they had put out floatings lights and we had a bottle of champagne (you don't pay for anything once you get there so we made the most of it!).

The Savuti Channel is a really interesting part of Botswana. It's just north of the delta and was a flowing river 20 years ago until a seismic shift along a fault line changed the levle of the land and the channel became dry. It means that there are lots of animals and they are esy to see as they flock to the water holes. The channe is starting to fill again though and this year it has pushed forward 23 km so it might all change again.

We saw lots of dazzles of zebra and lots of towers of giraffe (get the lingo!). Our guide Goodman was fantastic and were learned loads. We were also really lucky to see two male and two female lions really close (I was a bit scared the female didn't look as though she liked me and I bet that she could move really quickly if she wanted too!) and a pack of wild dogs which are really rare as they are endangered. THey looked like you could pat them as they were very furry.

The camp is based on raised wooden walkways as the animals aren't fenced out. The wild dogs chased two impala through the camp when we were there and killed them. You could see the remains, which the next night a leopard had dragged into a tree.

On our second night we had a surprise and ate out in the bush, but not roughing it, in style with long tables, a camp fire, blankets and a fully stocked bar. It was all really, really nice.

Hmm - not sure if I'm ready to go back to roughing it but the budget won't allow anymore of this luxury!

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Photos

The delta from the air
You can just about see an elephant