Berna's travelblog » Botswana

Chobe again

marco — Thu, 24 Jul 2014 12:41:56 +0000

A sad goodbye, a quick flight over the whole route we drove (1h flight for 9 days driving) and here we are in Kasane again, direction Zimbabwe, but wait a second why don’t we go out again on the river? Asked, done, the Chobe riverfront is so rich in wildlife that we decide to stay one more night in Kasane, enjoy the pool and go on a late afternoon boat ride. What a good idea, we get some amazing views of hippos, crocs, a fish eagle eating and an amazing elephant river crossing… wow, Chobe river front is really great.

High over the Delta

marco — Wed, 23 Jul 2014 15:06:14 +0000

Ok, it did cost us half a kidney, but boy it was worthed. After rushing from the sand issue at Nxai pan, we arrived just in time for the flight, a quick question to the pilot about which lens to mount on the camera and there we are walking on the tarmac near the horizon helicopters machine. We all have big smiles on our faces, we are ready for a last bird perspective of the Okavango delta, 45 minutes of pure enjoyment of the swamp landscape from above.
Wow, just fantastic, when we land we know, we’ll never forget this.

The dry landscapes of Makgadikgadi and Nxai pans

marco — Tue, 22 Jul 2014 12:39:40 +0000

That’s it Okawango is over, and we move to dryer landscapes again. Just to the east of Maun, the Makgadikgadi/Nxai pans national park acts as a transition zone between the Okawango swamps and the arid Kalahari desert. The park is separated in two by the East-West highway to the south the Makgadikgadi, to the north the Nxai pans. We drive to the eastern end of Makgadikgadi and slowly backtrack to the Njuca camp more or less in the middle of the park. The gate check in registry shows the last entry being one week before, nice. This is because most people enter from the western (an closer to Maun) gate where there is a river that attracts all the water dependent animals during the dry season, but we want to see the arid part of things hence the other entrance. The park is extremely dry and there is basically no life, I start thinking that maybe I went for too arid in the planning, but soon ostriches and klippspringer start to appear, the further west we drive the more desert dwellers we get to see. At a point we scare (we think) a widely spread large group of ostriches, they all start to run like crazy in the same direction to finally congregate in one line. Nice. Some more driving, some stunning picture of Gemsboks and we get to Njuca, a lone little hill with 2 camps. The other is empty. we are in the middle of nowhere with nobody around us for the next 30km. Perfect, the best possible way to spend our last night in the wild in Botswana. The stunning sunset, the owl visit and the amazing kudu stew just round up the great night.

What a night, not a single noise, fantastic! And what a sunrise… today it’s an early start again, we want to go to the Nxai pan park and till be back at 16.30 in Maun to go flying with the helicopter. The drive to the Nxai pan gate is very fat, but they tell us that the only waterhole with water is not the one we hoped but the one 20 km further north, well we should manage, we go. As we get there another car tells us they roughly saw lions. We spot them also, 2 females with 2 cups. As we wait for a better sight, one female comes out and goes for a drink making all the antelopes very nervous. She is just thirsty, but what a show and what a machine.
On the way back we make a loop to the Baines baobabs, a group of baobabs that was made famous by the painter and explorer A. Baines which depicted them very carefully allowing detailed comparison with nowadays. Apparently in over 150 years only one branch broke off.
We drive off in a sort of a a hurry since we have only 3h left and 150km to do, should be no problem unless Murphy’s law decides to kick in, and it does. after 5km of deep sand we see a group of 10-12 tourists with their luggages out of the car, they are stuck. Thys and I check their tire pressure, they have over 4 bar, in sand you usually have less than 2, in deep sand even as little as 1.4. we deflate their tires, but it is too late, they already dug themselves too much in the sand so we need to pull them out with the defender. We manage, and they are super happy thanking us in polish and giving us drinking water to wash our hands… they load the car and leave to the baobabs, now its our turn to go and guess what, we get stuck in the holes of the other car. Some sweating after, using the lift jack, some wood and pushing, we get out and can drive to Maun just in time for our flight briefing…

The Okawango Delta

marco — Fri, 18 Jul 2014 12:37:11 +0000

Our first full day in the okawango is dedicated to a return trip to 3rd bridge. The very curvy road goes through a wonderful mix of dry savanna and swampy landscapes giving us amazing sightings. Just before Xini lagoon, we spot a sausage tree with a dead impala on it, blood is still dripping, the kill is this mornings. As Thys and I are inspecting the predator’s lunch, we see the leopard running away about 100 meters behind us. wow already our third leopard in this trip, and I didn’t even think to see one!! We keep on driving and see a lot of interesting wildlife. Zebras, elephants, hippos, giraffes, waterbucks, red leechwees, ground hornbills, fish eagles and vultures are all there, wonderful.
The closer we get to third bridge, the more concentrated we get on the two main reasons for us to take this road, cheetahs and wild dogs. Unfortunately, this time we’re not lucky.
After a lunch break with elephants roaming by, we start the drive back, high concentration again but still “nothing”. Left turn, right turn, woah… a fantastic leopard lying just by the track. He stays around for 10-15 minutes and than roams off to a nearby termite heap to show us that cats and leopards are not that different, they both come and go as they please and like to lay on their back…
We start again, our brains still boiling from the amazing sighting, when we see many vultures flying, there must be a carcass, so we go back a bit and perceive a lioness, there must be more. We keep on looking and find two adult males with very full bellies lying on both sides of the road confirming even more my theory that cats are all the same, eat, lie, sleep.
Back at south gate camp, big smiles on our face we start cooking dinner while taking pictures of a naughty honey badger around our tent.

After a pleasant night with the usual hyena visit, we start toward north gate and then further to xaxanaka. This area is much more swampy and bird-life is very abundant, we see plenty of fish eagles, pelicans, herons, yellow billed and marabu storks, hammerkops and spoonbills. Add some hippos, elephants, plenty of red leechwe and the stunning dead trees landscape of paradise pools and the day would be perfect. Well actually it is also the place we decided to give our “tip” to Maureen and Theys, we invite them on a boat cruise on the xaxanaka lagoon.
The trip is fantastic, this is the okawango as I always immagined it, reed filled swamps with shimmering rivers, anthelopes, hippos and many birds. Plain amazing.
Back at the camp we find our site occupied, but the problem is quickly solved by sharing the huge space.
Ready for sleeping, but a strange noise outside the tend worries us a bit, foremost because we can’t understand what it is. It sounds like a mixture of a large bucket of water being moved around, the waving of a light saber, Darth Vader’s breathing and branches being cracked. Really really strange. As it gets louder (and very very close) we finally manage to make sense of all the noises. The bucket is the stomach and the breathing and the waving is the trump of an elephant eating just by our tent. Wow and ohhh but we still manage to fall asleep and foremost to wakeup in one piece. You might think being in a tent in africa is dangerous because of all the large cats, but actually most wildlife related accidents are with elephants and hippos.

For our last day in Moremi we decide to do xaxanaka – 4th bridge – 3rd bridge – black pools – south gate and then down to Maun. This to try to spot wild dogs, cheetahs and crocodiles. The plan works only for the crocs. We get to see a very large one at black pools. The highlights of the day though, are the various water-crossings that we find in the way. Thys is not really in love with them yet, but he is a bit more confident than the first day.
In Maun Maureen an Thys invite us for dinner at the camp restaurant before we go to try to sleep near some extremely noisy animals… British teenagers on a summer sort of camp.

Khwai river to Moremi south gate or the delta outskirts

marco — Thu, 17 Jul 2014 21:02:29 +0000

The Khwai river defines part of the north border of the Moremi game reserve with a a swamp like region, that is perfect for hippos and other water creatures. When we get to the Khwai river trust camp we go for a walk. Very calm and relaxing until we notice that we are being stalked… by hippos. Mmm, as soon as we notice the first, we realize that there are many, and soon they make themselves very noticeable with their very loud typical laugh-like call. I try to take one more shot, but the calls get really loud and probably having only 15 meters between you and an hippo is not a great idea. We go back to the bonfire and found Thys a bit worried if we are all good… he doesn’t know hippos that much either, so we go for better safe than sorry. We are all a bit worried, but the amazing steaks, the bread on the fire and a bit of wine make us almost forget the big vegetarians around the corner.
After an early morning photo session we start driving along the river where we get some incredible hippo action and some of the most beautiful sceneries we had so far.
Some more driving and there we are, the firs unavoidable water crossing. Maureen doesn’t seem to convinced and Theys doesn’t look stoked either. The local kids shoving the shallowest path finally convince them to go for it. Some more bumps and here we are, the Moremi game reserve north gate, lets enter the Okavango. Well almost… the only trouble here, unlike in South Africa and the rest of Botswana where you can pay all the park fees with credit card, in Moremi cash is king and Thys didn’t know, so we need to get more cash. we decide to go to South gate camp for the night. After Eliane and I cooked risotto (using a wonderful biltong-onion-aromat broth) e luganighetta and a bit of polenta (since we had too little rice), the evening activity gets clear, spotted hyena spotting and photographing. They are really naughty but shy, so as long as you don’t see them they sneak up on you, but a soon as you notice them they go away. After the cool evening we go to bed, the next morning Thys and Maureen drive to Maun to stock up on cash and since they are there, they get some more groceries as well. We relax the whole morning and when they get back at three, we are really happy that they suggest still going on a game drive toward black pools. Really cool, the Okawango discovery starts.

Crossing Chobe national park

marco — Tue, 15 Jul 2014 12:35:16 +0000

Still trying to recover from the “million animals shock” we pack our tent and start moving toward Savuti in the center of the Chobe national park, It’s a rather long drive but it is a very nice scenery and we get to see our first zebras, some ostriches and have a quick glimpse of a spotted hyena in the evening. Since whether Linyati nor Savuti have any free spaces for the next night we decide to move south in direction Khwai river.
It is also a very long drive, but the climb of a the rock paintings hill with stunning vistas from the top and foremost the ten minutes “look-at-me-I’m-super-beautiful” leopard sighting make the day go like a breeze.

Welcome to Botswana, or getting spoiled at Chobe riverfront

marco — Sat, 12 Jul 2014 12:33:28 +0000

Short walk, river crossing and here we are… OK I skipped the 11-12 hours plane transfer to Lusaka (Zambia) and the 8 hours bus ride to Kazungula but it doesn’t matter, the whole trip was smooth and we are In Botswana!
Bags dropped in the fantastic Chobe Bakwena eco lodge and we quickly leave for a boat ride on the Chobe river.
WOW, we are speechless, Elephants, Hippos, Buffalo, Crocodiles, and a million storks, egrets, kingfishers, herons, cormorants. It’s unbelievable, we have been 3 hours in Botswana and we have already seen more than we ever imagined we would see in the whole trip.
A fantastic sunset, a nice dinner at the lodge and we are really happy to hug the pillow.
The next morning while we are having breakfast, a known voice calls my name… Thys and Maureen are here, what a pleasure. A quick last bite, an even quicker repacking session and the Land Rover is ready for taking us to the Chobe National park.
We spend two days driving around this magnificent riverfront, spending the night at the Ihaha campground and spotting myriads of animals.
Velvet monkeys, baboons, elephants, giraffes, buffaloes, kudus, impalas, warthogs and hippos are everywhere. The bird-life is extremely rich and we see plenty of Kingfishers, herons, storks, egrets, cormorants, fish eagles, hornbills, francolins, guinea fowls, shorebirds, doves, you name it… and when we thought we had see it all, a Leopard pops up… there goes the getting spoiled in two days! Ah no wait, i forgot the six lionesses… wow, we need to get out of this park, there is just too much ;)
We spend the night at the Senyati camp where they have a waterhole with an underground hide from where you can take great, (almost too perfect) night shots…