Botswana

The little Cessna brings us directly to the heart of the Okavango Delta. The landing on the dirt airstrip of the Nxabega Okavango Safari Camp is an experience in itself. A herd of elephants startled by the noise of the Cessna motors, trample around into the bush on both sides of the runway.

On the first evening round the campfire we learn to recognize and distinguish the different animal

noises, particularly the lions and hyenas. Thanks to our first class guide and tracker, Sam, it is not long before we detect our first lion.

In the Moremi Park a hyena creeps round the camp and steals the left-over bones of our supper from the kitchen fire. Here we become really aware of how near we are to the animals both night and day.

The next morning Sam proves how good a tracker he is. After finding the fresh trail of a leopard he guides us, with the aid of its tracks and the behaviour of the other animals in the area directly to it.

To show that this was no co-incidence, the next morning Sam tracks another leopard, again by following its traces - all in all we were able to sight four leopards, something that doesn‘t happen very often.

There is a special atmosphere about all the evening sundowners in the bush, ours is gin and tonic, with a sun-flooded Hippo pool behind you, or in the open savannah with giraffes and zebras lit by the setting sun.

Our most exhilarating night is in Savuti. First, an elephant herd marches through our camp, all around our tent we hear branches cracking as the elephants trample their

way past. Then a hyena quenches his thirst from our wash basin in front of the tent and for the rest of the night a guinea fowl cackles in bush behind us.

If you are in Chobe N.P. and you don‘t see an elephant you must be blind. The park is full of elephants, more than 60.000 of them live here, the highest concentration anywhere.

We follow the trail of a lion family but have to give up for today as they have retreated to the inaccessible west of the park. we hear them roaring during the night, first far away in the west, later approaching us. Some time in the night they pass near our camp and then turn towards the Chobe River. Carola only leaves the tent under protest and accompanied! The following day we watch some of the lioness circling a group of african buffalo and trying to isolate a single beast. Unfortunately we can not see this hunting scene to the end as it gets too dark.

On a boot trip on the Chobe we see grazing hippos, crocodiles and several elephant bulls measuring their strength trying to push each other under the water.

The Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe are breathtaking. One of the 7 Wonders of the world and with a width of 1.7 km width the 2nd largest waterfall in the world. The Zambezi falls 110 m here and the spray in which you can see numerous rainbows, rises up to 300 m. Just as well our guide provides us with rain capes.

Accommodation

Our accommodation consists of little tents in which we can stand upright and furnished with 2 camp beds. In front of the tents there is a wash basin which is filled with hot

water in the morning and again in the evening. The shower and toilet are set up a little outside the camp. Sure, luxury is something else but all the same, we are comfortable and anyway we only use the tents for sleeping in. Also we are well-cared for by the personnel.

Sum up

The journey through Botswana was an absolute dream. We saw four of the Big Five, whereby I must say that the rhinoceros, after reintegration to Botswana is only found in Mombo where we didn‘t visit.

The best thing about safaris is that you never know what you will see. Sam our tracker, surprised us time and again with his knowledge of the African bush and certainly contributed to making this experience an unforgettable success. From him we learnt much about the African bush, the animals, their behaviour and sounds.

But also, Alois performed little wonders over the open camp fire. Every day he produced fresh bread baked in

a tin, soufflés, steaks, fresh salads and many more delicious dishes not to mention the deserts all prepared over the open fire and no-one suffered any stomach upset.

Also our little group got on well with each other. Everyone knew what they had let themselves in for and there was no reason for any complaints. The organisation was excellent. From Maun to Victoria Falls everything went without a hitch.

All in all, the 8 days in the bush were a fantastic experience in which we couldn‘t have come closer to the animal kingdom of Africa. The evenings round the camp fire, the sounds of the night and the realisation that nothing separated us from the world around us gave us a feeling of adventure that we have never experienced before.