Blog #9 – African Lion Safari

Last night was very chilly. Very chilly. Perhaps we should have closed our windows…or not broken the zipper on the main door? So as soon as the sun was bright out we began getting up – our goal was to be off by seven. That meant 7 o’clock breakfast and 6:30 wake-up! As this was our second morning drive we were not going to be taken surprised. Everyone bundled up in as many layers as possible as well as packing their sleeping bags.

As we climbed into the safari vehicles – we had quite the day ahead of us. We had four hours of driving each way. We had a packed lunch and boat tour in the middle of those road battles. Unfortunately is doesn’t get warm until around 9-10 each day, so we had a few hours to face the cold temperatures and bitter winds of driving in an open vehicle. Everyone tried to cocoon themselves as best as they could. I had three layers, a blanket and then packed myself into my sleeping bag and drew the top drawstring. There was no problem with the temperature for me! Only problem was that I didn’t have use of my hands (as they were inside) so I couldn’t hold onto my seat, and my sleeping bag was slippery against the seat, so I kept slipping down – it was still eventful.

By the time I emerged we began seeing some great game. The most spectacular moment was when we came across a family of giraffe. There was a mother and her baby just a few strides from the car and we followed them a short distance while they went to drink at a watering hole. Watching these huge animals bend over, spread there front legs and fold at the knees to get a drink was magnificent. Also, imagine the change in blood pressure, from having to pump blood all the way up their neck to when there head drops nearly twenty feet to the water! It is amazing their heads don’t explode!

Then we see it in the distance – a whole grouping of even more animals. At first we saw the giraffes on the treeline. Then we saw the impalas grazing and running. Next were the zebras casually meandering around. After that a huge group of blue wildebeast drinking from a small pond. Several large storks… all of this is the small clearing. It was seriously just like a scene out of the Lion King (which by the way provided a great deal of theme music to our long drives and quiet moments, haha!) There is apparently a very special relationship for all of this. The giraffes act as sentinels on the look out for predators. All of the other animals rely on each other to either make their food available or to act as cover/protection. It really was a shockingly realized example of communalism in the animal kingdom – breathtaking. After soaking it all in we finally pulled ourselves together to depart; we had quitea bit of driving yet still.

It was at this point in the safari when we saw the most incredible thing. A leopard! Our driver Pax, whipped around in his seat and told us that these were a very rare species and he was shocked that we had happened across one. It was sitting quite calmly twenty feet off the road. Pax, who was originally from Moremi, but whose family was forced to move when it was turned into a National Park took advantage of his locality and native rights. He maneuvered the truck so that we were really close to the leopard, but it was still hiding in the grass. Eventually the leopard got fed up with us and got up – it was a magnificent cat with a big strong build and low and sulky stature. I couldn’t believe this was happening! It was awesome! Then the leopard starting walking away right down the path! It was one of those moments of understanding. Such a beautiful creature, it was evident the pride that hunters must get from shooting it, but at the same time so fantastic that I couldn’t ever imagine wanting to harm it…thought I wouldn’t mind trying to pet it, haha! Yeah right!

We finally made it to the Mbora site where our boats would depart. We had to wait a while for the other car to catch up…they unfortunately didn’t see the leopard, but did see baboons instead…in my opinion we won :) Our boat ride was in a very shallow, flat bottom boat that had a single outboard engine – it held six people. It was really cool the way that we navigated the small narrow channel, which was lined on either side with ten-foot high reeds. While the airplane ride had given us the big picture of the deltas, this really gave us the understanding of how small we were in comparison to everything!

As the channel started opening up we came upon our first group of hippos! Here they seemed much larger and more dangerous…we were no longer on a large two storey boat, but a seemingly small fragile piece of aluminum. We continued to drive around seeing some incredibly new plant life and scenery. One of the coolest parts of this was when our guide explained to us about the floating islands. It all begins when a little part of a marshy reed island breaks off. Then the birds poop on it and there are seeds in their fecal matter. The seeds start growing into plants which encourage the growth, development and capture of more land. All this time the island is still floating with to connection to the bottom of the lakes. I am talking about an island that is nearly flat with many trees and that would take a few minutes to drive around in our power boat – not something tiny! This place is amazing and every moment more I spend it in, I continue to learn something new and to have to question things that I have taken for granted my entire life! So cool!

We finished our boat tour and headed back to the start. We had lunch laid out for us again this time fish, potato salad, pasta salad and other delectable dishes! After filling our bellies and swapping stories from the morning drive and boat tour we clambered back in to the safari vehicles, waved our good byes and began the four hour trek back to camp!
On the way back we saw a huge cube van parked way off the road. They waved at us and pointed straight down by the side of their vehicle. Pax, our driver, weaved his way over. We nearly hit a lion! There must have been at least five different lions all lounging about. The birds were going crazy – you could tell that they were sending some form of warning (not sure to who though!). We sat here for a while, basically surrounded by lions as they walked around, nuzzled each other and stretched their limbs. They truly are huge powerful beasts that somehow seem to maintain an air of elegance and prestige. We had three safari drives and each time saws lions – that is a perfect record – so I couldn’t believe our luck! I probably have around a thousand pictures of animals – so don’t worry you can all have a great second hand experience once I get home, if you want it, haha!

We got back to camp (after the sun had set, so you know by now how cold it must have been!). I won’t say much more about the temperature, but there is something to singing My Fair Lady, the Sound of Music, Vanilla Ice and National Anthems, not to mention tonnes of camp songs, that just seems to cut through the cold and make the time pass much quicker! It is amazing what a warm meal at the end of a day like that does for you – so good! Then we grabbed some gin and tonics and sat by the bon fire. We were serenaded by some of he more vocally inclined members of our group and chatted about all things relevant and irrelevant. It was one of those moments that you just wish could go on forever, problem is, that at my age the body doesn’t hold up like it used to, haha! So as the fire dies down, the stories started to fade and the stargazing slowed down, we headed off to our tents for our last sleep in Maun!The coolest part about this leg of our journey was the fact that this Kaziikini Camp was a community based project. The entire camp site and experience is owned and operated under the direction of the community. All of the funds that are raised and put into a trust and then the Board of Trustees (whom are all community leaders) decide where to spend it. Sometimes they improve facilities, sometimes they provide every family in the community with upgrades (this past year they installed many enviro-friendly toilets), as well as providing each family a stipend of money. The community is around 600 people and the project in all aspect employs close to 80 people – so it an integral part of the community. We loved it because it was true eco-tourism as its best. We knew that our good times and the money we spend went straight to the people. I was proud to have stayed their and experienced the people and would suggest and recommend it to anyone else making the trip to northern Botswana!