Plan Your Safari

Safari Safely In Botswana

Botswana Safari Safety

The open safari vehicle does provide a surprising degree of protection. You will be amazed at how close you can get to a lion. Your safari guide will try to get the best setting for your photos and videos. You only leave the vehicle with your guides’ permission.

Predators like lion and hyena are always a concern. Too many accidents happen because the big animals are territorial or protecting their young. Hippos are the most dangerous. They can change from grazing to charge mode surprisingly quickly. Cape Buffalo can be very skittish and mean spirited.Listen to you guides’ guidance. Also, listen to his stories around the campfire at night. The information can save your life.

Whether you are staying at a lodge in the Okavango Delta or on mobile safari with Afro Trek Safari, safety is always concern number 1. Everyone has to realize that when you are on safari in the game reserves, you really are inside the zoo.

The pre-trip briefing, by your professional guide, is extremely important. It is your responsibility to understand and closely follow the safety guidelines. Make sure your fellow travellers understand the guidelines. Make sure your safari of a liftime is memorable for all the right reasons.Your guide wants to get you as close to the big game as possible, in a safe manner. 99.9% of safaris run smoothly. Make sure you are not that 1 in a 1000.

Campfire Safety Perspectives:

After a day on safari exploring for big game and a great dinner in the bush, it is not unusual to sit up for awhile around the campfire. Often, the guides and guests share some great stories. Often the stories are about near accidents or narrow escapes. The themes often come back to safety. Some stories may be fanciful - many are not.

1. Bending over the side of a boat to free a fishing line as a crocodile jumps from a nearby bank and passes just over the startled person…

2. Escape by jumping over a log to get away from a charging hippo…

3. When a lion attacks, keep staring the lion straight in the eyes – it will stop. Your heart may also stop, but that is another story.

4. A guest video taping his own death, walking toward a buffalo herd…5. Last but not least – hyenas. Often they are around camps at night. Their yup – yup sound is distinctive and yup, they can be very dangerous. Follow you guides advice about staying inside your zipped-up tent.

Moremi Gami Reserve - 1st Amongst Equals

Moremi Game Reserve

Moremi is often described as the most beautiful of all wildlife sanctuaries in Africa, covering almost a third of the entire Okavango Delta. It is a diverse habitat where the desert and delta meet - an area made up of floodplains, pans, lagoons, channels, woodlands and forests.

In 1963, the wife of the late Batawana Chief, Moremi the Third, developed the Moremi Game Reserve in his honour. It it was the first wildlife reserve to be set aside in southern Africa voluntarily, by an African community on their own land. In 1970, the Chief's royal hunting grounds, Chief's Island was added with a further area to the northeast in 1991.

The Reserve is a haven to wide variety of wildlife and many water dependant animals. Birdlife is prolific and also varied, ranging from water birds to shy forest dwellers. Elephants are numerous, particularly in the dry season, as well as a range of other wildlife species from buffalo, giraffe, lion, leopard, cheetah, wild dog, hyena, jackal and the full range of antelope, large and small including the Red Lechwe.

Moremi Game Reserve is best visited in the dry season, game viewing is at its peak from June to October, when the pans have dried up. The winter months of May to August can be very cold at night and early mornings, but pleasantly warm during the day. From October until the rains break in late November or early December, the weather can be very hot, with temperatures regularly topping 40 Celsius (105 Far.) in the day.

Maun Safari - Safari Lion Kill

Afternoon Safari Drive Story

The following story was developed over a three week period at my Maun - Gateway to the Okavango Delta Wetlands site. Imagine a variation of it being told around the campfire as you return to camp.

"Look - over there - in the tall grass - 2 female lions! And behind them - on the malapo - a herd of sable. Let's just see what happens... if we are patient enough, perhaps a kill. Look - Quelas, by the thousands - flying in tight formation, like they are all one big body. Amazing how they can dip and dive - they have all disappeared into that tree.

This could be it, one of the lions is moving into the mopane trees - it is circling around toward the sable herd... Perhaps we should move the vehicle more out onto the malapo to see what's happening - not far enough we disturb the dozen or so sable slowly grazing toward the woods. Soon the sable will enter into the woodland themselve. My God - look!

The lion is charging out of the woods, straight into the herd of sable. The sable are in panic - turning and trying to scatter - they are coming straight at us. On of the sable clips the back corner of our vehicle as it flees past us back out onto the malapo. Confusion reigns are the lionese continues to charge. She has picked out her prey, a pregnant sable.

With lightning speed she closes down her prey and leaps onto her shoulders. The weight of the lion and the resistance given by her back legs stop the fleeing sable just 5 metres from our vehicle. The second lionese is now sprightly making her way to the scene of the evolving kill. In quick order the sable is now flipped on her side. She awaits her fate with a stoic dignity.

The first lionese continues her grip on the sables should/neck until she is dead - it seems to take forever - perhaps 5 or 6 minutes. The other lionese starts at the other end and work toward the inards. Dinner is served. Who would have guessed it would arrive so suddenly. It is time to start making our way towards camp and think about our own supper. Perhaps we should come back in the morning and have a final look around. How about passing by the river on the way home - elephants may be having an end of day swim and drink?

My, my, we are lucky today - a herd of about 30 elephants coming down, just as we arrive.Ah, one of life's little pleasures - to see an elephant, after a long dry walk, makes it's run for freaf, clean river water. The gait seems to have a spring, the head and nose start to bob up and down more than usual - you can almost see it grinning as it runs staright into the water. Only the baby elephants seem to have some difficulties - trying to figure out what to do with their long noses as they try and run towards the river.

After watching them play in the water for 20 minutes - pushing there mates under water and spraying each other with water, it is getting late and time to go. We enjoy an emence African sun set and twilight. We arrive back in camp. A glowing campfire and a round of refreshing drinks are waiting for us. Now we can really talk about the safari."

Okavango Delta Flooding

Okavango Delta - Wetlands Getting Wetter

Travellers from around the world are following, with growing interest, the strong floods pouring into the Okavango Delta. A post in the Maun, Botswana Blog about the flow rates at Mohembo is creating worldwide interest. Click on the above link to follow the developing story.

What has started as a strong annual flood with flow rates of over 400 cubic metres per second, has spike over 200 cubes in just 10 days. Kasane is experiencing wide ranging flooding as we speak and it is very possible a similiar situation is developing in the Okavango Delta. A new flow rate chart will be out after April 10th.

Baines Baobabs - Exotic and Strange

Baines Baobabs - Out of this World

Any visit to Nxai Pan is not complete without a detour to see Baines Baobabs and the pans that surround them. We saw gemsbok, elephant and the old secretary bird on the way in. It really is quite a shock to see this errie landscape out in the middle of nowhere. They look much as they did when they were painted by Baines many years ago.

Baines Baobabs is a great place to have lunch, walk around and marvel at the unique setting - marvel at the size of the baobabs and try and figure out why people carve their initials into trees. There is a camp site nearby that, I think, would be worth trying in or around a full moon - you know, add to that errie feeling.