Anna Selby ventures into Botswana on a safari to remember
A safari is deservedly one of those big-ticket items on almost everyone’s bucket list and there are a number of destinations that spring immediately to mind – South Africa, Kenya, maybe Tanzania. Botswana, though, is lesser known and usually further down the list. But it really shouldn’t be.
One of the most peaceful countries on the continent of Africa, Botswana has very low crime and corruption rates, especially when compared to most of its near neighbours. This is, perhaps, one of the reasons its ambience is so calm. And you don’t just feel relaxed out in the bush. You even feel it in Botswana’s towns. In fact, Maun, Botswana’s safari capital (not the country’s capital – that’s Gabarone) is still classified as a village, despite its more than 80,000 population. And it was here I arrived after the long haul journey from the UK and broke my journey staying overnight at the new hotel Grays Eden. Just opened and, with its white, thatched cottages and newly planted gardens about to explode into colour, it will surely live up to the little paradise promised in its name. The gardens run down to the river where herons stalk the banks and, when the river is in full spate, there are wallowing hippos even on the edge of town. You are already surrounded by the sounds of the bush here and sitting on a wide veranda eating a gourmet meal (kudu carpaccio is delicious by the way) under a golden moon – well, you know you’ve arrived in Africa.
The next morning I’m back at the airport early (Maun is surely one of the few ‘villages’ in the world to have an international airport!) for my flight on a ‘Caravan’ 12-seater light aircraft into the bush. As the week goes on, the transport gets even smaller – a ‘Van’ holds just four passengers (five if one sits in the co-pilot seat) and the helicopter takes just two! I land on an airstrip in the Northern Kalahari on the 40,000-hectare camp of Dinaka. However, if I was expecting the Kalahari to be a vast empty sandy expanse, I couldn’t have been more wrong. This year has seen an exceptional rainy season and the desert is, quite literally, blooming. The trees are in abundant leaf, fruits are scattered over the sand and there are, everywhere I look, swathes of sweet-smelling flowers.
Dinaka is a tented camp – but definitions of ‘tent’ may, as they say, differ. Rooms come with indoor and outdoor showers, huge four-poster beds draped with mosquito nets, shady verandas and your early morning tea (desert mornings are surprisingly chilly) arrives in a pot covered with a cosy. And mornings really are early. Wake-up is 5.30am so you have time for a coffee (or even breakfast) before you set off on your first game drive at around 6.30am. The early hours are the best times to spot animals for the simple reason that this is when they are at their most active – as they are in the early evening as the temperatures start to drop. In the middle of the day, they are sleeping and we humans are back in camp, having a splendid brunch before a few hours off, high tea and back out on the hunt for animals. The evenings in camp are spent around a huge fire where guests and guides talk through the day’s adventures before convivial dinners around communal tables.
Of course, a safari is all about the animals and Dinaka certainly delivered. My guide, General, took me to spot young impalas practise their fighting technique, pronking springboks, dozens of iridescent birds, jackal families, oryx, wildebeest, a lone tsessebe (Botswana’s swiftest antelope). On my last drive, a pair of lionesses, as pale as the creamy tufts of feathered grasses around them, stalk past our vehicle, a mother teaching her daughter how to hunt.
The desert, though, isn’t Botswana’s only wildlife habitat. From one of the (usually!) driest, it goes to the other extreme with one of the wettest. The Okavango Delta is the only delta in the world that doesn’t empty into the sea. Instead, it empties into what was, some two million years ago, a vast lake, as big as an inland sea. Rivers flow in from Angola and burst their banks, swelled by the rains so it’s a region – rare for southern Africa – that always has water. As a result, it also always has wildlife.
The Okavango has Africa’s second biggest wildlife migration (after the Serengeti). One of Botswana’s great advantages for visitors on safari, though, is that it doesn’t draw the crowds you’ll find elsewhere. This is partly due to government policy (they don’t want big camps and the norm is around a dozen guests, the biggest barely touching 30. It’s also simply a very empty country. The same size as France, the population is not even three million and some 40% of the land is given over to the wildlife. One of the joys of going on safari in Botswana is you won’t be jostling with other vehicles to see the animals.
In the Okavango, you drive through some surprisingly deep water on the modified jeeps but you can also explore by mokoro. At my first camp here, Maxa, I went out on my first afternoon to glide through the water on something like a tiny, narrow punt, my ‘poler’ behind me, pointing out frogs the size of my thumbnail clinging on to reeds that parted as we moved through them. Back out on the jeep with my guide, Shane, we came across a 30-strong family of elephants, all mothers with their young, but were later met by a bull elephant who, while never actually aggressive, with his ears flapping, trunk raised and head lowered definitely had it in mind to remind us who was boss around here!
Maxa is a brand-new camp (it’s been open just one month) while my last stop, Kanana, has been recently refurbished but very long established. Deep in the delta, the animals are everywhere – dozens of impala graze just beyond my veranda, I see my first herd of buffalo and several crocodiles, a giraffe shows off her days-old calf and there seem to be lions aplenty. These include a lioness with a trio of the most playful two-month cubs imaginable. You could watch them for hours.
So why, I have to ask myself, is Botswana not high on everyone’s safari bucket list? It certainly should be – but maybe this is the time to go before the secret gets out.
Next steps
To plan and book a safari holiday to Botswana, let our Silver Travel Advisors take care of the finer details, call 0800 412 5687.
