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Botswana blend: boat, lodges and camping.


Jochen

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No, read every word of your post, and waiting for the next instalment. Good advice on the problems of those ill prepared, badly advised people!

Sorry about grandma, hope she had a happy life. Pen

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Thx Pen.

 

Working on more pics. Will write more asap.

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OK I spent whole last night editing pics & video.
And I wrote the text to this chapter at work today.
Just don't tell my boss.
Oh wait. I'm my own boss.
Well then don't tell my employees!

Here goes...

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Part 6; Savuti, Chobe (self drive)


Khwai was fantastic, but missing those lions was annoying. I'm sure if we would have had another day in Khwai that we would have found them when they came out of that thick bush (we knew the block they were in). But alas, we had to go. This next morning, we had to do the long and boring drive, through often thick sand, to Savuti.

So we broke up camp, and relocated to Savuti. The drive was quite uneventful. At around noon we set up camp. We were assigned campsite no. 5. This is a bit in the back, away from the riverbed, but a nice spot anyway. Bit more shade than average. Although, in comparison to other campsites we had previously, there's of course less shade in Savuti. And additionally; a lot of sand. Black sand, the kind that makes your hand and feet dirty in 0,00001 seconds.

On the positive side; plenty of birds, slender mongoose and squirrels here.

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Squirrel & mongoose in one pic:
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While you're watching one, you don't know how close the others get:
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Two bush mechanics (look closer!) :
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We had a light lunch and then when the midday heat was gone it was time for our first game drive in this area! Woohoo! We were quite eager to get out as Ewan told us this was "leopard country". He saw four leopards here.

Well, let me make a long story short: that afternoon we had the shortest game drive ever.

It started all right; we went to check out the waterholes (where all the action was happening five years ago during our last visit, when the channel was not flowing. On our way there we saw a nice herd of Roan antelopes. But the waterholes were empty except for a few pigeons.

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Little guy;
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So we decided to drive back to the bridge and drive along the west side of the channel all the way to the Savuti march. But before we even got to the bridge, we got stuck in the sand. This was our first time. One hour of digging and dragging sand mats around, in the desert heat. Fun!

I had brought radios so we called André to see if he could come and pull us out but by the time he got to us we were out. Here's the bit of video where we finally get out:



One hour lost, but now finally we were on our way! We crossed the bridge, and took a left turn …but it turned out to be a turn too soon, as we were not on the main road but on a road leading into some sort of staff village. We thought; "no harm done; the road goes through the camp so we'll get to the main road again". Well …no. The road took a sharp S-turn through thick bush, and we drove straight into this guy;

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He was relaxed, and relaxed even more after we switched off the engine. No way to drive backwards anyway, through those sharp turns.
But it took a while for him to move, so we were stuck there. And when he finally did move, he gave us a clear message that we were too close for his comfort. But hey; there was nowhere to go.



That was a bit too close for comfort!

So we drove on …to end up in the camp workshop. Dead end! Damn. We turned around, and …there he was again. This time we kept our distance, but still we were stuck. We thought we'd just be patient, as to not have any trouble. Well we thought wrong.

We heard some guys playing football nearby and now they stopped and came back to the staff village. The elephant smelled and saw that, and reacted less relaxed this time. To make matters worse, these guys started running and shouting. They got out, but they had "lured" the elephant close to us again.

He moved off a 2nd time, but now went into camp, where he was promptly ousted out by a guy in a bakkie revving his engine ad nausea. We could not see it, but heard it (we were still not through that S-loop with thick bush all around). By now the elephant was more than a bit irritated, we could hear that as well. So, there was nothing else to do but wait again until he was more relaxed again, and far enough from the road to pass him.

By the time we we were back on the main road it was time to get back to camp.
As I said; shortest game drive ever! I think we hadn't been further than 500m from camp.
But we had had plenty of excitement!
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Will continue after dinner!

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So plenty of excitement. But still, we had hoped to see some cats here, and because of this incident we had seen none. Again.

For the next two days we had not planned any campsites, so first thing the next morning we went to the camp office to prolong Savuti for a day. That took a bit of time as the office only opened at 8AM. But all was OK; we just had to move from one camping (no 5) spot to the another (no 2). We decided to move straight away, before the midday heat. But how to move camp as fast as possible. Julian and André suggested taking the tents down and setting them up again. But us Belgians we're a bit more lazy than that. So here's how we did it:



:D

Then "no 2" camping spot had less shade, and less animals, but it was close to the river bed. So we did have some animals that came to drink at regular intervals. Elephants mostly.

On to the game drives of that day! We had more luck on the on this second day. Certainly much better than that "shortest game drive ever" of the day before. Our first drive was a bit short, as we had lost time moving our camp. But we had good sightings of general game, a fantastic sighting of elephants coming to drink on one end of the river, in a river bend, while we were on the opposite side (a place where you can get out to stretch your legs).

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And then we drove further south and spotted a white spot under a bush. That white spot turned out to be the belly of an impala ram. And attached to the ram; the teeth and claws of our second leopard. A better sighting this time.

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We stayed longer than we intended to initially, because we experienced for the first time how lodge vehicles react to self-drivers. One guy hogged the best spot to take pictures for at least half an hour, and attempted to stare us away. Of course, he hoped to leave his spot to his colleague, who had also come rushing to the sighting. Unfortunately for him, we are very patient people. When he pulled out of the spot, we went in, took our pics (5-10 minutes or so) and moved on.
- Net gain for the customers in his vehicle; minus 20 minutes (that's the time, after 15 minutes, that his customers started yawning)
- Net gain for the customers in their other vehicle; minus 30 minutes.
Maybe they learned something…

We drove back to camp and informed André we had seen a leopard (we had tried the radios but could not reach him). So he drove to the leopard straight away as his buddy Julian had never seen a leopard in the wild.

After an hour (we were preparing lunch) they got back and said they had seen not one but TWO leopards! Apparently there was a cub (almost sub-adult) as well. So… we drove out again to have a look at the cub. When we arrived there we had the sighting to ourselves, as of course all the lodge vehicles were gone (typically they drive back to camp at 10AM for breakfast and only return after lunch at 3PM). We found the mother. She was a bit more in the open, so we took a few more pics. But there was no sight of the cub. And then I heard a guinea-fowl's alarm call in the distance. As it kept going I was quite certain that is where the cub was. So we drove there, and sure enough; under the bush where the guinea-fowl was, we found the cub. Not the best sighting (midday n the shade). But we had a good look, and were able to take a few snaps, while having the sighting completely to ourselves, just like with the mother.

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The cub;
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In the afternoon, we hoped to get all the way to the march (as it was our last drive in the area, and as we hadn't got there yet). We had a few fantastic sightings again, and then André called us. They had driven ahead, straight to the march, instead of following the river bed. They found some lions; a coalition of three males, one being younger than the two others. So two had full manes and one had a mohawk.

By the time we got there, a lodge vehicle had driven past André, and hadn't even spotted the lions. So again we had the sighting to ourselves. This was really a perfect sighting. Soft light, soft grass. And some elephant bones nearby, for composition purposes. :-D

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Of course, after we were standing there for a bit, other vehicles started noticing us. So we left the sighting, to have a sundowner on the march, with elephants in the distance.

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On our way back we had another stop at the lions. Only on car there. Some more pics. But light was fading fast. And they weren't very active yet. So after a bit we drove on to the lodge.

All in all, we had a fantastic time in Savuti. Edited by Jochen
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kittykat23uk

Hi Jochen, just read the first page of your trip report. I did a houseboat as part of my Botswana wildlife safari group tour with explore worldwide. We had quite a difference experience to you.

 

I went in November. The crew were friendly and the food was probably the best we had on the trip. the 3rd November was spent travelling to Tsodilo Hills where you can view San bushman rock art which dates back thousands of years.

 

overall I felt that the activities did not quite live up to expectations and I felt Explore's itinerary needed reviewing in that respect. I was expecting some of the time to be spent exploring the narrower channels and waterways from the houseboat launch as stipulated in our itinerary, like you did. I had in my mind something akin to the mokoro trips, but using the launch with abundant birdlife to view.

 

However, we had only one river safari trip which effectively only took us along the widest part of the panhandle. Whilst this did include viewing the carmine bee-eater colony and other bird and animal life, which was fantastic, the overall experience fell short of my expectations.

 

When I enquired about an additional launch trip, this was not something that Mike (the owner) was prepared to provide, even though there seemed to be ample opportunities to do shorter river safaris when taxiing back to the houseboat (after the Tsodilo hills trip for instance). There was a lot of down time on the houseboat, we were there for 3 nights. We couldn't walk far when the boat was moored as Mike was concerned about our safety- but he did not offer any of his crew to give us a guided walk until the last night and that only lasted about 20 minutes.

 

On this walk the guide said it was a great place to see sitatunga at first light, but this was our last night and we were out early to drive to Livingstone so there was no opportunity to look for it. Had we moored there the previous night, we could have had the chance to see sitatunga as you did. Whilst myself and another birdwatcher had come prepared with telescopes so were able to birdwatch from the houseboat, there was little on offer for anyone else. One member of the group asked to do some fishing (which was advertised on the itinerary), but this was only provided under duress as this houseboat didnt have a licence at the time - so effectively if he had been caught Mike would have faced a fine for allowing that.

 

That said, we saw some good birds (no Pel's though) and Hippo, crocodile, water monitor and a green water snake. Bird highlights were, African fish eagles (a pair close to the boat every day), Jacana, Black Crake, African skimmers, Pied and Malachite kingfishers, long toed, african wattled and white crowned lapwings, redshank, ruff, caspian plover, Common and green sandpipers, Greenshank, Black-winged stilt, water thick-knee, colleared pratincole, white breasted and reed cormorants, african darter, purple, goliath, grey, rufous-bellied and green-backed, squacco and black crowned night herons, hammerkop, sacred ibis, white faced duck, red-billed teal, African Hawk eagle, swallow tailled, little green, white fronted and carmine bee eaters, African marsh harrier, African green pigeon, emerald spotted dove, African palm swift, red-faced mousebird, African Hoopoe, African grey and red-billed hornbills, black-collared barbet, bearded woodpecker, wire-tailed, pearl breasted and red-breasted swallows, sand martin and brown throated martins Black faced and southern pied babblers, and dark capped bulbul, yellow breasted apalis, luapula cisticola, tawney flanked prinia, Grey0headed bush shrike, white browed sparrow weaver, spectacled weaver, and fan tailed and white winged widowbirds (non-breediing).

 

So basically what I'm saying is it is probably best to book this as a tailor made thing rather than going on a group tour to get the best out of the location. :)

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Hey @@kittykat23uk,

 

Having read your experience (and expectations); there's a few things I must clarify to everyone I think;

 

- About the boat trips; I'd say about 60-75% of our time was spent on the main river, investigating the shores. This is also where we saw the Sitatunga and the Pel's. I you expect nothing but mokoro rides in small channels, you're going to be disappointed. There are some smalle channels now and then, but you always do them with a little metal boat (with engine), same as with the regular shores.

 

- I don't think you should be expecting the same "speed" as at regular safari camps. Sightings will mainly be birdlife, and some aquatic mammals/amphibians. It's a very relaxing atmosphere. So this kind of place best fits in at the start of your trip (unwind from your busy regular life), or in the middle of your trip (a welcome break in all those game drives). I would not put it in the end of my trip.

 

 

Having said that; it's obvious that your trip was indeed quite a different experience than ours. Our time during midday on the boat was certainly no longer than in any regular camp, rather a bit shorter. And fishing licenses were OK (but I had to ask after our trip; as we're not into that, we didn't do it). We also never moored at a place where we could get off and where there was habitation. We were also free to do what we wanted. They proposed side trips (not the rock paintings, but a crocodile farm) but we said we weren't interested.

 

But I see some pros for your trip as well; your bird list is certainly longer than ours. That's because you went in a better season. Of course, at that moment you will most probably only get a boat to yourself if you book ALL the rooms. :P

 

So as you see; pros and cons.

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kittykat23uk

Thanks @@Jochen I wasn't expecting to be on a Mokoro, but I was hoping that the guys who owned the boat would be flexible enough to accommodate more time in the small boat looking for birds (I and other group members offered to pay extra), and the carmine colony was soo close!! but the owner just wasn't interested in adding any time to our set activities..

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I see. They weren't flexible at all then.

 

On our boat it was exactly the opposite, but OK, we had the boat to ourselves.

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kittykat23uk

So did we, as a big group! Unfortunately I don't think I made a note of the boat's name..

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A note on the Tracks4Africa application for iPhone

 

I downloaded this app a few weeks before departure.

At 99€ it wasn't exactly cheap. But as the company had quite a good reputation, I thought it was a safe bet.

 

However, my advice - at this time - would be; don't buy it, wait for a better version.

The software has quite a few shortcomings. Let me explain what I mean.

 

The first problem already arose when I wanted to make my itinerary on this app, namely when adding way-points.

At first, I tried doing this using the map (as I knew where most places were), but the problem with that is: the 4x4 routes do not show up until you're zoomed in very close, and even then they are not all visible. In other words; in the beginning I was "aiming" at an area, then zooming in, hoping the correct spot would come up, and if not repeating the process until it did pop up. Almost unworkable. It took ages before I could add the right spot to my itinerary. I started using "Find Places", then choosing "Accommodations around last known position" and finally going through an (often incomplete) list of what the app came up with. This worked better, but still far from ideal.

 

A second problem while making an itinerary; you cannot add the same destination twice. For example; if I want to go to McKenzie 4x4, then to Haina, and then to McKenzie again (to load my vehicle before starting a self-drive), then the app absolutely refuses to let me do this.

 

But an even worse problem is this; if your phone is reset (switched off completely, and on again), the "defaults" of the T4A app are reset as well. In our case this meant; when I loaded my route, he defaulted to "vehicle for tar roads", and therefor came up with a message that went something like "Your itinerary contains destinations that cannot be reached with this vehicle. These will now be deleted". And I only had the option to "OK", not to cancel. So I spent one evening remaking my itinerary again, and from then on made absolutely sure my phone never ran out of battery.

 

The worst problem of all, however, is that the app was absolutely useless when doing game drives. What I mean is this; when I'm here in Belgium, and I'm in my car, following my GPS, going from A to B, then it might be that I take another route as what the GPS suggests. If they say on the radio that the highway around Brussels is blocked, then I might as well go straight through Brussels, using the smaller roads. At that point I use my GPS to find my way. When zoomed out a bit it shows me the big roads (the "blocks"), when zoomed in a bit further, it shows me the smaller roads. I use this info to plot my way through Brussels. Easy.

Now, doing a game drive is about the same thing. At that point, you're also not interested in "going from A to B". But rather: you're interested in seeing what roads are around you, so that you can use that info to plot a nice game drive. One that takes you around the whole area, so that you get to see all there is to see. The T4A app was absolutely useless for this. Again, it showed very little roads, or none at all, just like when planning my itinerary.

Luckily, I had prepared an alternative; the same T4A maps are on the web. I figured; since I bought the app, I got a right to use these. So I screencapped some areas (with all detailed roads), and then stitched them together in PhotoShop (as the T4A website window was not big enough to allow a screen capture of the complete area that I wanted). I placed these maps on our iPad, and used these while on game drive. They helped a little, but an additional problem wass that the "Photos" app only allows limited zoom. I forgot this. So next time I'll use the maps in another app.

 

Bottom line of all this; T4A app is useful as a GPS tool if you learn to work with it and if you have some patience. But as an app to use on game drives it is a missed opportunity.

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I have just looked at the photos so far. Such variety, especially the little guys that often slip by. Your genets are exquisite.

 

How did you get to Royal Tree Lodge? Seems like a great stopover in Maun. I'd go just for that genet.

Edited by Atravelynn
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They come get you at the airport. The lodge is on the opposite side of the river (southwest), a bit out of town. It's about 20 minutes of driving I think. McKenzie 4x4 is nearby as well.

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Since the self-drive part is done, I thought about writing a conclusion on McKenzie 4x4 at this point. But there's still a remaining issue so as long that's not taken care off... let me just continue with the next section; Chobe.

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Part 7; Chobe riverfront (Kasane side)


The lodge we chose was Elephant Valley Lodge. It is not the most common choice, I think. Most lodges are at the waterfront, in or very near to Kasane. That was a bit too busy to our liking. Most of them are more hotel-like too. We tried Kubu lodge but it was full. They returned to us to say they had rooms available ...just after we had already booked at EV Lodge. There's also a few lodges IN the park, but those were a bit pricey.

Elephant Valley Lodge is not in Kasane, but about 5km up the road to Pandamatenga. And it is very close to the Zim border. Because of it's location, they're doing things a bit different than most lodges in Kasane. These lodges in Kasane rush to the gate in the morning, try to get in asap, and then all drive around in the same little area of the park. It can get quite busy, and I know you can also lose considerable time at that busy gate. So EV Lodge said "to hell with all that". They are offering their guests breakfast first. And at about 8:30 AM they drive to Kasane, from where a boat trip starts. It's good that it doesn't start too soon, as that would be a bit cold. Plus, the fact that they stay out late (they only return at around 1PM-1:30PM) means that you already get some elephants coming to the river to drink and bathe. And then in the afternoon (3PM something) they drive to the park for a regular game drive. At that time; a bit less vehicles than in the morning, and no queue at the gate.

What's cool about this schedule is that you have no "wasted hours" over noon, like you can have in lots of camps. You've got time for a light lunch and a bit of freshening up, or perhaps a short nap. But not more than that. Let's say you got about 3 hours over noon, while in most places it's about 5 hours.

Also, the drive to the gate isn't that long either. OK, the lodges in Kasane get there much quicker. But still; it only takes EV Lodge 25-30 minutes to get to the gate. That's because they use a back road through Kasane forest reserve, and around the airstrip of Kasane. It's also a bit of game drive along the way (we saw ground hornbills and elephants), and a short "night drive" on the way back, which you're not allowed to do in the park. But of course animal densities are less in the forest reserve so you have to be a bit lucky.

Elephant Valley Lodge has got two types of rooms. The regular rooms at the edges of a garden with various trees, and then some more expensive rooms with view on their waterhole. We chose the regular rooms.

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The rooms were very good. And so was the staff (lots of staff in this lodge, actually) and the guiding. Unfortunately I took no pictures of the main buildings, but those are very nice as well; a restaurant under thatch, a big boma, and a bar/lounge area under thatch. Plus a small hide, closer to the waterhole. But this waterhole can be seen from all the main buildings. It's also a very active waterhole. I don't think I've actually seen it without animals. Elephants and kudu come to drink. But so did small buffalo herds, baboons and bush bucks.

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And our banded friends;

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A lot of birds as well. There were also vultures nesting nearby.

The bush buck have found the place where they can get over the fence (idem as where staff gets over the fence to get to the waterhole), and they come to get a nap in the garden where they know they are safe from predators. Pretty cool to see them sleep while people pass by a mere two meters away (I must add that they blend in very well so most people don't even notice them).

At night the waterhole is as busy as during the day, so I mounted my night cam on the hide. But from there the waterhole is a bit too far away so it only caught elephants (all throughout the night though).

www.youtube.com/watch?v=WH2m5v-YmAs

 

We liked the lodge a lot, and could not really find any downside to it. Food was amazing as well. Well perhaps there was one downside, but nothing that had to do with the lodge; at the same time as we were there, a big group of American travel agents arrived (about 20 people in total, I assume they had been at Indaba). They were very loud, but what shocked us the most was how ignorant they were about the wildlife. A bush buck was a kudu. A vulture was a "big bird". And a squirrel was a rat. The worst of all was this; at dinner in the evening, the group leader stood up, and for the whole table (plus anyone else who was in a 500m radius) announced with loud voice that for the next day he had arranged for everyone to do a "walk with lions" somewhere over the border in Zim. He got oohs and aahs in response. All agreed; that was going to be fantastic. None of them, and I mean NOT ONE was aware of what happens to these lions when they grow up. I must admit I had to bite my tongue at that point.

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OK, some pics of our boat trips we did, and then in a next post of the game drives we did (we did two of both).

I guess this first batch of pics needs very little explanation. Lots of birds, obviously. I think we saw about 50 species. Perhaps more. Quite honestly I didn't count.

 

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I'm afraid this image's changes of getting published are not very high:

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And this one neither:

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On our boat, at my feet;

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Some images of the game drives;

 

These were very good as well. Highlights of the first day were a huge herd of sable (couldn't get really good shots, but still an amazing experience), vultures mating and on their nest, a lioness that had just caught a baby giraffe, and right after sunset a Giant Eagle Owl. The lioness was lactating, but we didn't see the cubs, and she didn't call for them.

 

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On our second game drive, plenty of sightings (one after the other) as well. Highlights were bush buck (rather close), puku (a first for me), a brown snake eagle that got confused and thought the tail of a monitor lizard was a snake, etc...

 

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But the most fun was running into our lioness again. She had dragged her kill into the bushes, and was drinking from the river.

 

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Our giude said "we're too early, so we went for a sundowner first.

 

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He was right. When we returned she was still there but a lot of cars had moved off. And then... she went to her kill and started calling the cubs.

 

It took a while, but they did come out. This was after sundown, so my ISO's were 4000-5000 at this point.

 

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You can never guess what one cub decided to do next.

 

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:D

 

There were two other lionesses present as well.

 

The cubs started feeding on the giraffe, and gave us a real show.

 

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Throughout the whole sighting, there were still quite a lot of cars. Not as much as in the beginning but still too much to my liking; I'm not used to more than three. More would perhaps still have been OK, if they would just have parked and waited. Alas, they were driving around constantly, looking for the best spot. Some even drove away to go get some pics of a jackal, only to miss the best opportunity to photograph the cubs, and then return for another bout of back-and-forth-back-and-forth to get half a decent view. Kudos to our guide. He kept his cool the whole time, barely moved the car, and had all the needed patience.

 

Anyway, we couldn't have dreamed of a better sighting to end our safari with.

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Let me finish with the perfect "self driver at sundown" outro picture;

 

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Your photos are great! birds, cubs, scenery........

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Hope those cubs are still around in August. Great pics.

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Elephant Valley Lodge looks great. The animals you saw in Chobe were outstanding...the sable, the lion cubs! It pays to wait awhile as your adorable cub shots show.

 

Your camping part of the trip had some harrowing moments to go along with the short game drive. All adds to the variety, which "blended" together very nicely.

 

 

Back to the boat, I saw @Kittykat's comment: So "...it is probably best to book this as a tailor made thing rather than going on a group tour to get the best out of the location." Question for @Kittykat if she is tuning in (or I can pm). Do you think this boat trip you and Jochen took caters to people who want to see wildlife and have chosen a boat as the means to see it? Or do you think this boat caters to people who want a relaxing cruise and time on the water and the wildlife is a bonus? Jochen, you can chime in too, but since you had the boat to yourself, you might not be able to respond about other guests.

 

Jochen, would you say your boat sightings were better from the main river or from smaller channels?

 

Do you know the max number of guests on the boat?

 

Did either of you consider Ichobezi or any other houseboat or can you comment on different boats? Thanks!

Edited by Atravelynn
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Well, I think I made the right call waiting until you finished to read the report in one sitting. I really, really enjoyed it. Full of useful information as I would expect and I thought the photos were excellent. Some of those sunsets were so beautiful and I particularly liked the giraffe in late light after the sable photos. Thanks for the effort put into it, really worthwhile.

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@@Atravelynn,

 

I'd say the sightings are about the same. Riverside or small channels; it didn't really matter. Of course, I do understand why a lot of their boating is done on the riversides; it's the panhandle, not the heart of the delta. In other words; there simply aren't that much side channels.

 

Max guests on the boat is 8 (four rooms). This is on Both Ngwesi and Delta Belle (have retrieved the name of the 2nd boat in the meantime).

 

Sun Safaris started promoting Haina Kalahari and Ngwesi at the same time, and we really liked their prices and the combination of both (also in combination with our self drive plans). We didn't take long to decide. So we didn't particularly look at Ichobezi for this trip. But I do know what they're offering, and it's about double of what Ngwesi costs. There's a couple of reasons for that. In my humble opinion, you pay more because of the popularity of the destination (boat tours on the Chobe are known, boating on the panhandle; much less so). But also; the game viewing is certainly better on the Chobe; you get the mammals from Chobe NP as a nice extra.

Now, that magnificent Chobe game viewing from a boat can be had by guests from normal lodges as well. And those lodges can also take you on game drives in the park, while Ichobezi doesn't seem to offer that. So I think that, even without our favorite TA promoting Ngwesi, we would still have made the same decisions.

 

Ciao,

 

J.

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