Jump to content

Lions and Dogs and Baboons, oh my: Botswana February 2013 Trip Report


SafariChick

Recommended Posts

madaboutcheetah

Nice Roan to finish things off .......... Is that PD on the tracker seat?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

SafariChick

Nice Roan to finish things off .......... Is that PD on the tracker seat?

 

Thanks! Yes, PD was our tracker - that's him.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

madaboutcheetah

Cool - I hear he's a great tracker, although no personal experience.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

SafariChick

@@madaboutcheetah that's impressive that you recognize him from the back even though you have no personal experience with him! Here's a photo of me with him and Spencer - I'm not crazy about how I look so just ignore me, but Spencer has a great smile in this shot :)

 

8560456273_4080afb707_c.jpg
P1110981

Link to comment
Share on other sites

michael-ibk

 

Spencer has a great smile in this shot

 

 

@SafariChick:

 

You do, too. :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

michael-ibk

@@SafariChick

 

Just went through your entire report. Loving it, you´re really making a very strong case for Green Season Botswana. (Which I´m pretty much decided to visit next year.)

 

Especially enjoyed your videos of the little baboon and the hyena pups, the lion pride at the zebra kill, leopard Pula and the giraffes at Mombo, the sables, nursing lion cubs, the saddle-billed stork and the drinking leopard at Vumbura, dogs in the water and the little baboon riding on mum at Chitabe, the nursing tssessebe, the blonde-maned lion, the three cheetah brothers and the python at Kware and teh leopard tortoise, the steenbok, the roan antelope and of course the dog pack at Lagoon. And loved reeding about and seeing pics of Solo, the lone dog. Great, great stuff, thank you for it. :D

Link to comment
Share on other sites

SafariChick

@@michael-ibk you are too kind, thanks so much for those nice words. When you list out all those things, it is a great summary and makes me realize again how much I really did see and what a fantastic trip it was!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Thanks for this great trip report.

 

I felt sad for that lone wild dog at Little Mombo - how sad for a single pack animal to live alone. You must have been delighted with the early sable sighting and you had lion luck throughout - those blonde males are very handsome!

 

Roan are some of my favourite antelope, they have such distinctive facial markings and are a wonderful final sighting.

 

Thanks for sharing.

 

.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

SafariChick

I had said I'd do one last post to tell about the first part of my trip home, the Air Botswana part, just because it was kind of frustrating but also a little funny.

From my last morning drive at Lagoon, I was told I had to be at airstrip at 10:20 for a 10:35 flight. This turned out to be the longest of the small plane flights I took. The Flight stopped at Lebala and then Vumbura before getting to Maun, and the whole thing took about an hour & 15 minutes. That's not that long, but being a bit of a nervous flier in small planes, I was quite glad when it was over. When I arrive, at almost noon, someone from Moremi Air met the plane with a vehicle and drove me over to the terminal (in a car with AC, I might add, which felt rather like bliss after a lot of weeks without it - but also kind of sterile and unnatural - interesting). This gentleman driving me over to the terminal told me a bit apologetically that the plane to Jo'berg was delayed - of course it is, I thought to myself. By 2 hours. They said I could sit in the MA lounge upstairs and someone carried my bags up. It had AC and I asked if I could use wifi and they gave me a code - that was nice. I went out to look at the gift shop across the street but didn't find anything I wanted to buy, having bought a few little items at the curio shops at the camps. I then just hung out in the MA lounge and used the wifi and caught up on email and so on, having been away from it for weeks.

I couldn't get straight from the MA people when I should check in for the Air Bots flight. The MA people said do it by 3, but when I'd gone out I had asked at what I thought was the check-in counter and someone else there said 2:30. So I went downstairs again to ask closer to that time and the AB system is so confusing, this is a tiny airport, but there is no one at the check-in desk, so I have to hunt down who can check me in at the little AB office next to the check-in desk. A guy there tells me any time by 3. So I charge my phone upstairs and come back at 2:45, at which time the fellow who'd told me to check in by 3 is nowhere to be found and it took a while to find someone to help.

Finally checked in by the gal who had been in the office and couldn't find anyone else to do it, the gal says go through security by 3:30. I asked her if there was anything different beyond security (i.e. maybe vending machines or a shop) but she said no. There's no line for security. I can see it from the main waiting room and there is only one metal detector with literally no one in line. So I sit in the main waiting area, and believe it or not i see someone I know in the Maun airport! Not someone from home, but it was Joel who was one of the managers at Chitabe! He was there picking up someone and we hugged and chatted a bit. I told him I was interested in trying to get a copy of this book Running Wild by Tico McNutt about wild dogs that I'd seen at Vumbura but couldn't find to buy in any of the camp stores. He told me he would try to help me as he could get in touch with Tico and see if he had any copies, so he gave me his email address, very nice of him.


We said farewell and finally, I decide to try to go through at about 3:20. I walk up to security and the person there says to me 'when is the plane boarding?' I said incredulously 'you're asking ME?' Obviously, I had no idea! This person decided it was too early for me to check in as my plane hadn't even arrived yet. So I go sit down again. Then I hear the plane has arrived (no announcement, just chatter from people waiting to meet someone on that plane. So I wait a few minutes, then I go to security again. This time, a different guy is standing there, and he also seems unsure if I'm coming in too early. He consults someone and comes back says its just about the right time. I go through and say where do I go now, and he points to customs where I need to fill out a form. After the form, I enter the room, and I see its FULL of people waiting for a flight and watching tv. All of those people were going to be on my flight. Why on earth then were the people at the metal detector so perplexed at me trying to go through security then? Oy! Also, they were watching TV - maybe I would have liked to know there was a tv on in there - and there were fans! We got the word to board about 10 minutes after I got in the room. Ten minutes! I could easily still have been out in the main waiting room if I'd been less persistent with security!

We finally board and a minute later, the pilot walks into the cabin and says, to no one in particular, "we have a problem. That truck (he points out the window to a big fueling truck) is stuck." Implication: it's blocking the runway and we can't leave. After some discussions, we somehow did leave although the truck was still there. After we take off, I notice there's a fly flying around on the plane. Not sure I've ever seen a live fly on a plane!? Anyway, the rest of my trip home was fairly uneventful.

 

And thus endeth my extremely long trip report. Thanks for sticking with it and all the nice comments!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Have to love those intrepid African flights.

 

Must have been the month for flies, we had a fly on the Nairobi to Doha flight. Felt weird but no reason why the shouldn't come in with us, I guess.

 

So where to next?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

SafariChick

It made for an amusing story so I don't mind that I spent what felt like an entire day trying to get on an Air Botswana flight to Jo'burg, and the fly wasn't a big deal, just interesting that when I noticed it, it occurred to me that it was the first one I'd seen on a plane!

 

Next? Well, I have a couple different ideas. Leaning towards heading to Rwanda to see gorillas and combining it with Kenya - Laikipia Wilderness Camp to see the wild dogs there and something else - good chance that would be somewhere in the Mara as it seems I must see the Mara if I'm in Kenya! The other thing is at some point I'd like to go back to Botswana, especially to see younger wild dog pups at Lagoon. Am torn between wanting to go back there sooner to try to see the current alpha male again with pups, or going to the new places. Probably the new places will win as I really want to see those gorillas too. As to when, not sure ... we'll see - if I had my druthers I'd say next year in January/February but it might have to wait another year ....

Link to comment
Share on other sites

madaboutcheetah

Your description of the airport really rings a bell - every time I pass through that security check, I know it's time to go back home!!! Last time I was there in Sept, Spencer was going back to Maun with us for his 3 weeks leave, so we flew together...

Link to comment
Share on other sites

SafariChick

Just saw on Facebook today posted by Wilderness that this film called "A Wild Dog's Tale" about "Solo" the Mombo Wild Dog will be aired on NatGeoWild this Sunday night March 31 in the States - it says at 9 pm but it's also at 6 p.m. on the west coast. It will be repeated several times over the following weeks, I saw when I searched for it on my DVR. I assume this is the one in English that I heard about when I was at Mombo. Here's a link to NatGeoWild's blurb about it:

 

http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/wild/episodes/a-wild-dogs-tale/

 

According to the post on Facebook, which Wilderness reposted from "Natural History Film Unit" - which apparently also was involved with the Anderson Cooper 60 Minutes Botswana piece and has a Facebook page here https://www.facebook.com/NaturalHistoryFilmUnit?group_id=0 , this film is a finalist in a film festival about wildlife in Montana.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

africapurohit

I'm slowly catching up with trip reports (I think I'm about 9 months behind). @@SafariChick the excitement of being on safari was just bursting out of this report - thank for sharing your photos and video. You had some amazing wild dog interactions and I loved the little hyenas, sable and rock python.

 

I was trying to control how many times I clicked the "Like This" button because yesterday I reached my quota for the day and wasn't allowed to click it any more - mainly due to reading twaffle's and MAC's recent long reports.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

SafariChick

@@africapurohit thanks so much for all the likes. You like me, you really like me! (Sally Field at the Oscars reference in case that's not that well known worldwide!) I definitely was very excited to be there! But who knew there was a liking quota? I think we should all be able to like each other as much as we want every day!

Edited by SafariChick
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

Wow Wow Wow SC.....what a super travelogue....so much insight.....lovely pics....all in all....Beautiful!!! Thank you for sharing your experience....... :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

SafariChick

Thanks so much @@mowgli - appreciate the comments! It was fun to write it and re-live it as I did so :)

Link to comment
Share on other sites

madaboutcheetah

SC, Hobbs got onto Facebook, finally!!!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

SafariChick

@@madaboutcheetah yes, I saw that you suggested him as a friend to me, and I sent him a request - that's cool, thanks!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

SC, Hobbs got onto Facebook, finally!!!

 

Next step- get him on ST!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

madaboutcheetah

Baby steps - I'm first trying to get him to list himself as Hobbs ...... or possibly a pic of himself to get started. With his Setswana name, i doubt he'd find many( most?) facebook friends from outside Bots.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

SafariChick

Baby steps - I'm first trying to get him to list himself as Hobbs ...... or possibly a pic of himself to get started. With his Setswana name, i doubt he'd find many( most?) facebook friends from outside Bots.

 

You mean his parents didn't name him Hobbs?? :D Yes I noticed that he didn't use "Hobbs" - he could put it in quotes in between his first and last name perhaps. @@madaboutcheetah do you know how he got that name?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

madaboutcheetah

He's been called that from the days he was a tracker going back to the early days at kwando. I think it's just the short form.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Lots of leopard luck! Beautiful wild dog with the cloud reflection from the pond. I hope the sable with the ailment is not in pain. I can imagine your relief when you found the other photos. Always scary when you think your shots are lost. I too liked the lions in the mist. Nice lion pics and looks like you arrived just in time to officially claim a tree climbing lion.

 

Roan on the last drive. What a fantastic farewell. You look very thrilled with your safari in the photo.

Edited by Atravelynn
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

Safaritalk uses cookies to ensure you get the best experience on our website. By using Safaritalk you agree to our use of cookies. If you wish to refuse the setting of cookies you can change settings on your browser to clear and block cookies. However, by doing so, Safaritalk may not work properly and you may not be able to access all areas. If you are happy to accept cookies and haven't adjusted browser settings to refuse cookies, Safaritalk will issue cookies when you log on to our site. Please also take a moment to read the Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy: Terms of Use l Privacy Policy