Blog #8 – Kamikaze & Kaziikini

When I woke up this morning I had no idea of the excitement and adventures that would come. I thought we would be seeing the Delta from the sky (in a plane similar to my Uncle Ricks) and then enjoying another peaceful safari ride through another national park. Little did I know that today would be one of the most memorable days in my life!

We departed Audi Camp and headed for the Maun International Airport – which interestingly is large enough to land a Boeing 767 – but today we would be in much smaller planes. We only had eleven in our group…so we split up into two small single propeller planes. I knew it was going to be good when the pilot asked us if we wanted to go high or go low, and our group responded with a resounding, “LOW!” followed quickly by a request to ride on the back of an Elephant (I promise no Elephants were harmed in the duration of the flight, so no worries PETA). Our pilot responded with, “That can be arranged :)”… oh, good times!

We took off and were only a few hundred feet off the ground. The Okavango Deltas were amazing – there are some beautiful scenes – which are hard to capture in a bumpy plane. The vegetation is uniquely structured and patterned. The water collects into small lakes and finger like streams that collect and pool together to form and separate the islands. It really is a fascinating scene and difficult to explain, so I just suggest visiting it someday!

While the natural landscape was amazing so were the animals. Just as we started to see animals the plane took an immediate nose dive and headed straight for the ground. We all screamed a little bit (at least I did) and everyone heard a huge crash at the back of the plane. I thought that we had lost the tail end of the plane, but it was just the sound of the back flaps smashing down with the amount of force that the pilot exerted! We literally got less than ten feet of the ground! IT WAS INCREDIBLE! It felt like we were just soaring through on a really fast car, which I guess you could consider as I am sure that our landing gear were only feet from the ground! We flew by some elephants and some different herds of animals.

The nice thing was that the pilot continued to dive, rise and turn the plane at all angles. It was an amazing experience, but definitely at the hands of a stunt aeronaut that ended up flying safari tours and not a Top Gun… as we wove on I started feeling the gas building in my stomach and the familiar onset of nausea set in…within thirty seconds I was scrambling to grab the little paper bag from the seat pocket in front of me. I saw a wicked galloping giraffe right out of my window, which was all I could manage to yell out before I spewed…I got the bag in front of my face, but the combination of the force of my puking, the bumpy plane ride and the tiny size of the bag contributed to exploding on the seat in front of me right onto Al, over my arms and onto the floor of the plane. Gavin quickly came to my rescue by documenting the situation with his camera ;)….All in all it took three bags before I was finished, but I was more pissed that I had wasted time puking and not looking out of the window. The best part of it all (besides the animals and land) was that fact that several people in the plane didn’t even realize I had puked until we landed, got out of the plane and saw the three bags!

The flight was amazing – and is an even better story now – but I needed to wash myself up in the tiny public airport washroom, brush my teeth on the sidewalk and then down some liquids and easy foods at the café across the street. After this recovery stage we packed back into the cars and headed for a one-hour drive down a bumpy dirt road towards our next accommodations – Kaziikini Camp.

My favourite thing about driving in Botswana is the fact that the two biggest worries are potholes/bad road conditions and trying to avoid the goats/donkeys/cattle on the road! As we stopped at a veterinary stop point (to avoid the spread of Foot & Mooth) some people had to relieve themselves on the side of the road. When we got back into the car it wouldn’t start…the battery was definitely gone. Thanks to my father’s persistent training I knew that it most likely not the alternator, nor a dead battery – so perhaps the starter…we popped the hood and I smiled. The connection on the negative lead of the battery had come off (picture the kind of rough road it would take to accomplish that!) – so I reconnected it and we were good to go!

We pulled into the Camp only to be greeted by five locals. We did traditional handshakes and exchanged names. They were really friendly and welcoming – they said they were excited to have us and were waiting for us! We wanted to go on a game drive, and didn’t even have time to unpack or set-up tents, but instead decided to head out now and do all of that when we returned.
Our camp site was around thirty kilometers from the entrance to Moremi Park – Botswana has 17% of its country in national parks are close to 40% in parks and wildlife protection areas – amazing! We loaded into to open safari vehicles. The sun was gorgeously warm and as we wound down the road, we started getting more excited for the game. This was a huge park compared to where we went in Chobe. Once we got to the park we were advised by the rangers that instead of doing our planned route that there was a lion pride in another direction. We set out on a forty-two kilometer trek down a VERY bumpy and rough ride. We couldn’t drive to quickly behind the other vehicle because of all of the dust and there were many instances of smashing our heads off the top and side bars of the vehicles on the big bumps! It was quite an adventurous ride, but trust me that it was well worth it!

The first major sighting was a large group of forty elephants that were drinking at a watering hole. At first they were resistant to us being there but eventually relaxed and continued on their business. There were some really cute baby elephants that we so small – it was amazing! We also came across lots of other wildlife on the drive as well! When we came to the end of the trip we ended an open grasslands. The rest of the trip had been in mainly forest cover and so we knew that this was going to be different. Then we spotted them – a small group of lions just thirty feet from our position. Our guide Pax took us closer. We were literally ten feet from the lions. There were several female lions and two cubs. They lounged and yawned and played a little bit with each other. It was a fascinating scene – and so different from when they were in killing and hunting mode. The most bizarre part was being so close to them. They knew that we were of no concern and that they could destroy us in a flash if we posed a threat…which was also a bit unnerving. With yet again our safari lusts satisfied we headed back to camp. Part way back we paused to have our lunch. It was a wonderful spread of home cooking – beet salad, roast chicken, been salad and a fresh loaf of bread. I had a can of Pineapple Fanta – which was very different but quite refreshing and satisfying!

We just made it back as the sun was setting and we scrambled to unload and set up the tents with the little remaining natural light that was left. We had a large open flat sand area to pitch our tents that was surrounded by trees and bush. As soon as we finished setting up camp we headed over to a large wood and thatch building to have supper. We were all famished, but could still appreciate the meal. By the time we got back to our tents, they had started a small fire for us – we used it to warm up and people we so tired that we were all in bed by nine o’clock – how is that for a party scene, haha! We definitely need the rest though as the long days and many activities were starting to drain us. I find it funny to be writing a blog in the middle of the night, in the wild, in a tent, with no power, using my lap top battery – guess we can only remove ourselves from North American comforts so much :)