Blogs from Botswana, Africa - page 10

I’ve been away from Guba the past 2 weeks, doing an incredible camping tour of Botswana and Zimbabwe! The tour started and ended in Johannesburg, where I splashed out on a decent camera before my trip began.The first 3 days we drove a long way through Botswana, which was tiring, but the group (there were 13 of us) at least went on an evening game drive the first night at Stevensford Game Reserve in Tuli Bock, to get our first taste of African wildlife. We saw a couple of Kudu, springbok, impala, wildebeest, skip hare and some new birds. The drives through Botswana were actually interesting, I found it incredible being surrounded by endless trees and scrub! The same in Zimbabwe. There were a lot of cattle grazing, plus some donkeys and goats, which would usually ... read more

Day 5 All night I couldn't fall asleep. Moreover, the story told by Greg about unfortunate last year's diving of South-American group added the fear. They arrived two weeks after Amos left the island. Initially the season was chosen wrong. In addition, the number of participants exceeded five. And when such a large group of divers surrounded the large male, the croc panicked and attacked one of the divers. The other diver could rescue the unfortunate tourist. He survived of course, but he is still working on the recovery of the limb. There is a rule - no more than 3 people at a time. Two divers have to secure the one who works with a reptile. You must always give the animal a chance to escape and in no event deprive it its own space, ... read more

Die Chobe Marina Lodge ist traumhaft am Ufer des Chobe River gelegen. Mit einer Bar auf einer Terrasse über dem Fluss, einem Pool, zwei Restaurants und luxuriösen kleinen Bungalows im traditionell afrikanischen Stil ist der Aufenthalt hier eine echte Wohltat nach den Zuständen im Rainbow Hotel. Wir haben ein Angebot gebucht, dass neben Vollpension auch zwei "Game Activities" am Tag beinhaltet. Man kann jeden Morgen und jeden Nachmittag zwischen einem Boat Cruise auf dem Chobe River, der auch zum Nationalpark gehört, und einer Jeep Safari durch den Park wählen. Am Ankunftstag können wir natürlich nur noch die Nachmittagstour mitmachen und entscheiden uns für eine Bootstour. Mit einem kleinen Boot fahren wir raus auf den breiten Fluss und schippern 3 Stunden am Ufer entlang und durch die zahlreichen Nebenarme des Chobe. Hier gibt es eine riesige Nilpferd-Population ... read more

Geo: -18.5421, 24.5105After valiantly fighting off a near fatal African upset stomach despite a distinct lack of sympathy from DH, I was ready to take on the rest of our journey through Botswana which was to have a very large elephant focus (pun intended). Our next stop for the night was at an elephant watering hole and our accommodation was one of a number of little cottages that surrounded said water. I love the fact that someone in Africa thought it would be a good idea to surround a watering hole for the biggest land based mammal in the world with slightly shaky cottages filled with relatively tiny humans that these herds would need to navigate around or through as they came and went. Our stay here was relatively straightforward. We hung out with new friends ... read more

Geo: -19.0933, 22.4451We were up early this morning as we were going back to Pretoria. By half past seven we were at the airstrip packing our bags into the plane. We took off at eight and arrived at Maun ten minutes later. The flight to Maun was too quick and luckily there was no turbulence. Jan flew the plane quite low, which gave us a great view of the scenery below. Today was another clear day, with the blue sky making the view below look spectacular. At times it was hard to know which side of the plane to look out of. In Maun we went to a cafe for breakfast and then we were back in the plane. The flight from Maun to Sun City was very boring compared to flying over the delta. During ... read more