Botswana Safari Snippets

We had an amazing safari through Moremi Game Reserve and Chobe National park.  We experienced all the emotions from highs to lows, from Oh shits to Oh wows.   

 

The Highs.

Before heading out on our Botswana safari, some people told us there was nothing to be seen at Moremi & Chobe.  It was empty.  No animals.  It was just hot, grim, and lifeless. I don’t know if we all went to the same parks, but we saw elephants, a leopard and lion cubs before we even got to the Moremi South Gate.  We saw predators every day – usually it was lion, but we also saw two cheetah brothers, chilling under a tree, and a definite highlight – WILD DOGS at Savuti.  Magic! We were the first car out of the gate that morning, and headed straight to the water hole a stone throw away from camp.  There they were – 13 wild dogs hanging out by the waters edge with Elephants, Wildebeest, Giraffe, Roan, Kudu and Impala.  To say I was excited is an understatement of note. When a single Wildebeest appeared on the scene, and the dogs all put their heads down and focused on the lone ranger, I did think for a wee minute we were going to witness a murder, but that didn’t happen.  It was fabulous.  The next day we realized how lucky we were. We saw the dogs again, but within two minutes they took off into the dense bush, and despite trying to follow them they simply melted away into their surroundings and were gone.

 

The Lows

Chobe and Moremi are going through a terrible drought with heartbreaking effects on the wildlife.  We had already seen many elephant carcasses, and many of them were lying on the ground randomly.  We had wondered out loud – for such an intelligent animal, if it was starvation, wouldn’t they find a more comfortable place to come to their natural end? Whilst driving along the marsh road, in the woodlands, we stumble across an elephant who must have taken her last step a couple of hours earlier.  Her tusks were planted in the ground – keeping her head up, her back legs were curled underneath her, and her trunk was straight out ahead of her.  My heart broke.  In our shock, we initially drove straight past her until Col said ‘is she really dead?’.   I was full of emotion then – if she wasn’t dead…. what do we do?  Do we really want to see such a gracious animal dying?  We reversed to have a look.  She was gone.  It felt like she had given it absolutely everything, like she wasn’t ready to go, but didn’t have anything left in her to simply stand up. The rains haven’t come soon enough, and her last step was taken nowhere special, simply next to the main road.

 

It was very quiet in the car for the rest of the trip.

 

The Holy shit moment: Andromeda goes Goggling

When driving around Moremi – the Okgavango delta – one can expect a water crossing or two.  Col has been to Moremi before, he’s been through a hand full of crossings, and told me all about how initially you think – ‘you sure about this?’ but that it was always hard sand underneath, and getting through it would be a breeze.  Ok then! We are making our way to dead tree island – the map shows a river crossing, and sure enough we come across a crossing whereby we think we can see tracks coming out the other side.  Always a slight relief, to see someone before you has tried and managed.  So in we go – starting slowly – it’s all good – we feel confident – and then all of a sudden – that sinking feeling hits you, when the ground under the wheels goes and Andromeda plunges, nose first, into tea colored water.  Thankfully Col puts his foot down, and we manage to climb up the other side of the bank, but not before half the Okavango River flows into the footwell from all sides including the dashboard vents!  We were just shy of having fish swim around our feet!  Up on dry land, our faces say it all – that was close! Andromedas electrics hated that – the break warning light is now permanently flickering, as a reminder to better inspect future crossings.  We spent the rest of the day finding a way home that didn’t involve water, driving around Moremi, dragging all sorts of pond weed behind us 😊.

 

The Jocks

At Savuti – in the middle of Chobe National park – we come across two Scotsmen from Edinburgh who were up for a good story, a good laugh, and a wee dram.  They gave us a little insight as to how some folks don’t see much.  They had started their game drive at 9 that morning, after a snooze, a shower, and breakfast.  And they were back at the campsite by 10:30 as it was too hot and they were tired of driving in sand.  Lovely chaps – but it was no surprise that one of them had never seen a lion 😊.

 

The Storms

After our camping stint inside the parks, we make our way to Kasane – the sleepy border town that connects Botswana to Zambia and Zimbabwe.  Here we camp two nights at Chobe Safari Lodge – they offer boat cruises.  Our park fees were still valid, so we felt we would join a sunset boat cruise.  I know that sounds very touristy but who cares. Game driving parks you are not familiar with, takes some concentration as one person is forever looking at a phone following MapsMe, whilst the other is driving in unfamiliar territory.  So the idea of sitting on a boat, seeing animals from the rivers edge, putting brain in neutral, sipping an ice cold drink, seemed like a fabulous way to end our Botswana stint.  Clouds were brewing, and despite having had a huge electric storm the night before, we didn’t give it too much thought.  Six minutes into the trip, and after saying how much I was enjoying this -we got hit by hurricane like winds, and found ourself in the middle of a very angry storm.  The winds were something else! It started with the life jackets – one by one flying overboard and down the Chobe River, followed by some monster mattress from the top deck, chairs were being blown over forcing people to sit on the floor.  Thankfully we put Cols glasses into my bag so we didn’t lose them.  At one point, I looked overboard and saw a wee bird flapping its wings for its life, but it was going nowhere – the buffalo on the bank was also lying as flat as he could, and all the while the boat is being pushed into, and eventually onto, the bank.  It lasted all of about 15 minutes, but I was thankful when it was finished.  A handful of us tried to help unground the boat by jumping off and pushing – but in the end, it was another boat that pulled us of the ground and back into the water to continue from where we left off.

 

The action we completely missed

We had a fabulous night at Kwai – a community area situated between Moremi and Chobe.  If I were to do the trip again, I would spend more time here.  We had a lovely campsite on the river, enjoyed our sundowner with a pool full of hippos, and would have had the most exciting evening, if we had not been out for the count by 21:00 that night!  Let me explain.  The following morning, we had come across a couple who were in the campsite behind us, and they asked us what we thought of all the excitement previous evening. Excitement? What excitement?  They told us all about this leopard trying to hunt the Impala IN their camp, and all the noises that came with it – it was all very dramatic…apparently.  She said the leopard then made a bee line for our car did we not see/hear it?  We saw and heard nothing!  I remember putting my phone away at 21:03 that evening – and our camera trap reports that at 21:08 a hyena did a good walk around the car seeing if any leftovers were to be had, and some 20 minutes later a leopard walked by!  Can’t believe we missed this! Every cloud has a silver lining – as you can tell we sleep really well in our roof tent.

 

That’s a wee snippet of our Botswana Safaris. 

 

This message comes to you from Zimbabwe where we are now getting ready to spend some time in Hwange, Kariba, & Mana Pools.  Network is a little iffy here so rather than stress out about getting a blog out for next week, I may take a small break and be in touch again in two weeks!

 

Big hugs to all who are following us – its always great to hear from you all!