For some years I’d had Botswana and the Okavango delta on my bucket list. Whilst I want to go to all the main safari destinations (South Africa (done), Namibia (done), Botswana (done), Kenya (next?), Tanzania, Zambia, Zimbabwe), I felt like seeing the delta would be something different to what I’d seen in South Africa and Namibia.
The Trip
We flew into Maun via Johannesburg and then took a scenic flight up to Moremi game reserve, towards Xakanaxa. We travelled across northern Botswana to Khwai, then Savuti and finally to Kasane at the top of Chobe game reserve before flying home, again via Johannesburg.
We were staying in a mobile tented camp. Our group consisted of our photography guide (Mark Sisson) and his wife (Caroline) and then 2 other guests (Matt and Nigel). We had 2 guides/drivers (Leonard and Stanley). We would camp for 3 nights in each area before setting out for a long travel day whilst the camp would relocate. A number of camp staff set everything up, ran the camp and prepared food for us each day. We had one final night in a lodge on the end in Kasane to have access to a proper bathroom and bed before the flight home.
The Camp
Whilst we booked the trip through Nature’s Images, the local operator for the camp and guides was Kazuma Trails. Most operators offer 3 tiers for their camping in Botswana. Tier 1 means you help set up and run the camp and tents yourself. Tier 2 means that people set up and run the camp for you and conditions are relatively basic. Tier 3 is the same as 2 but with more luxury and bigger tents. We were on tier 2. It was sold as “semi-luxury” and whilst it was comfortable enough in some ways, it felt very basic in others.
Each tent was 9 ft x 9 ft with 2 beds (unless on single supplement) and with an area behind with a long-drop toilet and a bucket shower. The toilets just had a little metal stand over them with a plastic toilet seat on it. The bucket shower would be filled at specific times and we’d then ask for some more water so we could both shower. We had one little light inside the tent and one outside, running off a battery pack. We could only charge devices in the vehicles but we were prepared with power banks that made life pretty easy.
Food was all western. Some of it was shockingly good considering the basic nature of their facilities. In particular some of the breads, sauces and desserts (passionfruit cheesecake and banoffee pie). Some of the food was a bit less tasty - usually larger cuts of meat that were pretty tough.
Moremi
I had high expectations for Moremi as it’s right on the delta and you hear great things about it. Unfortunately our camp site should have been a short drive (45 minutes) from the air-strip but was instead a long drive (3.5h) due to a bridge being unavailable. It sounds like the bridge has been unavailable for ages. So getting to camp on the first night wasn’t as relaxing as planned. Also one of the two camp vehicles had broken down so the camp had tents but no bedding, showers, food etc. We sat around a little fire and had some crisps and eventually the rest of the camp got to us on a backup truck at around 11pm.
We drove around various areas near to the campsite and saw lots of birds and the more common animals but didn’t really get anything rare. We did a boat trip out onto the delta but that involved driving all the way beyond the air-strip and back again so it was an awful lot of journey for what ended up being 2 hours on the water in the middle of the day. We did see a few lions around a kill very briefly before returning.
I’d only really been to very dry places before on Safari so it was really a treat to be able to see so much lush vegetation and water, especially when flying over the delta too. It didn’t really live up to whatever crazy expectations I had built up but it was a nice (but slow) start to the safari.
Khwai
Things picked up in Khwai. We had a wonderful morning experience where around 70 Hyena (2 different clans) were clashing over a dead buffalo and we also had several leopard encounters. What we also had were more other people. The community campsites in Khwai had a lot more people in a much smaller area. This would be my first experience of proper scrums when it came to lots of vehicles around an animal in Africa. Vehicles block other vehicles and tempers flare. It definitely takes some of the joy of nature away when there are 10-20 vehicles all trying to do the same thing.
We did get to do a mokoro canoe trip in Khwai which was lovely as we sat silently watching an elephant come to drink in the delta right in front of us. This was the favourite of the boat trips in the end because you’re so low down and close to the nature and it’s so peaceful.
Savuti
Savuti was much more open in various areas than the tighter bush of Khwai. It felt like if we could get some mammals out in the open then it would make for some really nice photo opportunities. The area was also our best hope for wild dogs and cheetah but nothing is guaranteed. On our first evening we saw nothing of interest but on the next morning we found wild dogs relatively early. Whilst it looked like we might have missed the best of the action at first (our other vehicle found them around 10 minutes before we got there) we did end up with some nice opportunities.
We had a very slow day and a half after the wild dogs and it felt like Savuti might have given us our best already but then we got word that a couple of cheetah had been found quite far off, down some fairly unpleasant roads. We still jumped at the chance and managed to get to them in time for some nice photos before sunset. We had some extra excitement as I was stung by a bee during all of that and then we got our vehicle stuck trying to follow the cheetah. We ended up getting a further 3 vehicles stuck and all the guides had to be pulled out by a self-drive guy in a land rover. It was smiles all round though as it had been a big goal of mine to see and photograph cheetah on this trip.
On our final morning in Savuti we were again told of more cheetah but this time they were quite nearby and in the open area. We raced over to do some photos of them and then a pride of lions came along to chase the cheetah away and so we got photograph them too. Lions are one of the disappointments usually on safari because you find them next to a dead animal and they’re dirty, full of food and mostly sleeping. It was really nice to be able to enjoy seeing them up close during some nice light and whilst they were active.
Overall Savuti was the outstanding area of the trip. Much of that can come down to luck but it’s the area I would most like to return to if I were to go back to Botswana.
Kasane (Chobe River)
Our campsite in Kasane was pretty close to the Chobe river and views out over the Caprivi strip in Namibia. Life is abundant here and at most we saw over 100 elephants out in front of us all visiting the river to drink. We also saw hundreds of buffalo. These are the 2 main attractions. We did get some leopard and lion sightings but not fantastic photo opportunities.
You mostly end up driving along the edge of the river here or along the main road which is set back from the river. You don’t get the same variety of scenery as a result, but the river and views are gorgeous and help make up for that.
We finally got to photograph a honey badger here on our last morning and we raced past a lion to get to it. We’d been trying to see one since our very first evening when it was too dark to stop to photograph one and we were very happy to come full circle.
We did a couple of boat trips from the town in Kasane into the park and they were both very relaxing and pleasant. One was with the group and the other was through our lodge on our final night. The lodge was a welcome relief after the tents but ironically the bed was really hard and left us dreaming of our camp beds.