Botswana
To kick off our year abroad, we decided it would be pretty cool to head off to Africa and begin our journey there. More specifically kick it off on one of the most wonderful weeks in the Okavango Delta in Botswana. Honestly, I had never even thought about ever going to Botswana, but Danny had always been intrigued on the country and specifically the Okavango Delta. We worked with a travel company while planning the trip to ensure a smooth and seamless process during those ten days. The morning we were scheduled to leave for our grand journey, Danny fell ill with either a 24 hour virus or food poisoning (I think it was food poisoning) so we pushed our whole itinerary back one day. We are SO thankful that we had added a couple of days of buffer in Johannesburg, South Africa before leaving for Botswana so we did not have to change any plans with the safari. On June 25th, we were finally off to Maun, Botswana!! We were warned beforehand that service would not be available throughout our safari so we sent both of our parents our itinerary so they could keep track of where we were and the emergency numbers for each camp we stayed at in case they needed to get ahold of us. Below is a map of the Okavango Delta area that we were in for the ten days.
Camp 1 - Lebala
We got on a small plane from Johannesburg to Maun and after going through their customs/immigration we met with a representative from Mack Air who was taking us on an even SMALLER plane to our first camp, Lebala. After two stops to drop off and pick up other passengers, we finally landed at Lebala airstrip and were headed to the camp. We were greeted by the camp manager, Barcos, as well as some of the staff. One thing I can say is that every single person we met on safari were some of the kindest people I have ever met. They went over the schedule for each day and then Barcos handed us a waiver we had to sign that basically says “if you get eaten by a lion it’s not our fault and you can’t sue us.” Danny and I settled right in to our room, changed, and were off to our evening game drive. Danny is a huge jokester and as we rounded the corner outside of our room he grabs me and says “what’s that!!” and as I turned to him to say “oh stop it” I see four elephants right outside our room! Danny had not seen them yet when he tried to trick me.
Anyways, we were off to our evening game drive. The schedule on safari is pretty much the same each day. Wake up at 5:45am, morning game drive around 6:45am, stop for tea and coffee during the morning game drive around 9:30am, brunch at 11:30am, siesta time from noon to about 3pm, high tea at 3:30pm, evening game drive at 4pm, sundowners (cocktails during the evening game drive) around 6pm, and dinner at 7:30pm. You meet all sorts of people from all sorts of places while at camp which was nice.
At Lebala, which was our furthest north camp (across the river was Namibia), we saw a variety of animals. Compared to our other 2 camps, we didn’t see as many animals but still had a great time! Our guides name was Elvis and our trackers name was John aka Johnny Boy. I have a picture below of Danny and Elvis.
Overall a great three nights at our first camp!!
Camp 2 - Mma Dinare
After a quick-ish plane ride (with a couple of stops) we finally arrived at our second camp, Mma Dinare. This camp was wonderful and was different from the other two camps in that every area was above ground. The common area, where we had dinners and sat around the fire, had a beautiful view of a little flood area where elephants, hippos, impala, and more would all come and drink water. So right from our actual room we were able to sit on our patio and watch the animals from there!
Our guides name was Alko. He was very knowledgable on the area and was able to put us on A LOT of lions! At Mma Dinare, we saw the most lions and lion cubs. My favorite picture of probably the whole trip is the one below of the three lion cubs sitting on the little hill. On one of our game drives, we ran into the lion, lioness, and their three cubs all feasting on a kill they must’ve gotten earlier that morning. Shortly after something pretty cool happened. Another lioness with her smaller three cubs joined the area and I was curious to see how they would all blend. Alko informed us that if the lion had not fathered those cubs, he would have attacked them and killed the cubs. So, since he obviously did not do that - they were just one big happy family! It was awesome watching both lionesses care for their babies. The second picture is a photo of the lion. He also had a big scar on his face which you can kind of see in a photo below as well. Alko mentioned it was probably from another male lion.
One night after our evening game drive, Danny and I headed to our room to drop off some things before dinner. We walked into a full dinner set up on our balcony! The staff had set up for us to have dinner ourselves on the porch. We were served by the camp manager some amazing food! I have to say out of the three camps, the staff at Mma Dinare were special to us and so kind.
Camp 3 - Splash
For our third and final camp on safari, we joined in on the action and fun at Splash Camp. The camp was by far my favorite. It had an outdoor AND indoor shower which was nice because we just had outdoor showers at the last two camps. This was the camp we saw our first cheetah and leopard at! The cheetah, also known as Mr. Special, had been around the camp for around five years now so he was basically a local. I have him pictured below. I had been waiting six days to see one so I was so pumped! We saw two leopards during our time here, both at night time so it was hard to get a picture. I think the leopard was my favorite animal to see because it is kind of a combination of a lion and cheetah in my opinion.
On our second day Godfrey, our guide, had heard of a wild dog den on the opposite side of the land. He asked if we could leave promptly at 3pm for our evening game drive (when we normally leave around 3:30pm) so we could be one of the first to get there to have a chance at seeing the pups. The dogs weren’t there at they time. Godfrey said they were still out hunting. But after waiting for around 30 minutes the puppies came out of the den and we were able to see them!
This was also my favorite camp because instead of blankets during the game drives, they gave us blanket ponchos!! Those kept us quite warm during the morning drives. I don’t think I have mentioned it yet, but I think Danny and I were most surprised at how COLD it was during our time in Botswana. Mornings would average about 45 degrees and it would definitely warm up during the day but then turn cold again during the night. So were were constantly in our jackets and plenty of layers!
Overall, we had an amazing time not only with some pretty cool animals, but also some pretty amazing people. We will never forget this trip and hope to bring our kids back here one day. I told Danny during safari that it was going to be extremely hard to go to a zoo ever again after seeing all of those animals roam free and in their natural environment in Africa.
PS: African sunsets are some of the prettiest I have ever seen before. SO. MUCH. ORANGE!!