best-african-safari

Chobe National Park is situated in northern Botswana, on the border with Zambia and Namibia. Our camp, pictured at right, was set up several miles from the banks of the Chobe River, to prevent being overrun with elephants, hippos or other animals who were seeking the water of the river.

Look closely at the tents, and you will see it has two sections. The larger section is the sleeping quarters, and the smaller section is the latrine. Since it is dangerous to leave our tents at night, the latrines need to be attached. Also note the pole holding a bag. Every afternoon, after a morning game drive, the bag would be filled with hot water for our daily gravity showers.

The camp routine was: rise at dawn, have a filling breakfast, game drive for several hours, return to camp for lunch, shower, nap (in the heat of the day). Then late afternoon game drive, back to camp by dark for dinner, followed by singing and tall tales around the campfire. I wish I were there right now!

Africa teems with exotic bird life. Unfortunately my photographic expertise was hampered by bumpy jeep rides. Luckily, this shot was fairly good.

I saw 95 species during 11 days, including various types of hornbills, weavers, wood-hoopaes, bulbuls, boubous and sunbirds, none of which I had ever seen before. Plus different types of owls, herons, storks, eagles, hawks and ibis.

I was thrilled to see an African paradise flycatcher, even though I did not get a picture.

Livingstone is the home of the Livingstone Museum, of course, and Victoria Falls. We stayed several miles outside the town on the banks of the Zambezi River at the Thorntree River Lodge, appropriately called "Home of the Elephants". At night, elephants and hippos roamed through camp and made quite a lot of noise. We ate under the stars, but on a table set with fine china and silver.

Victoria Falls was impressive, despite not having a lot of water overflowing the falls, since we were there in the dry season. If you want to see the falls in all its glory, go during the rainy season, when the mile wide rock face is filled with flowing water! However, our goal was the see the wildlife, and they are more visible in the dry season as they congregate along the rivers for much needed water.

We also visited a traditional African village, estimated to have been inhabited for 700 years. The inhabitants make their income by tourists like us buying their hand-made souvenirs.

We left the relative populated area around Livingstone and traveled by small plane to a dirt landing strip. Surprisingly, there was a terminal.... made up of a card table and two folding chairs! We were supposed to sign in, but nobody did, since the table was unmanned. We then traveled by jeep on dirt tracts through thick vegetation until we arrived at camp.

Chongwe River Camp was by far my favorite. In fact, I stayed in camp or canoed during our stay rather than take any of the offered game drives . The setting was idylic, and everything I wanted to see came to me, including quite a few inquisitive elephants who wandered through camp. Across the river from my tent, a family of baboons kept me occupied with their antics for several hours while I sat on the porch, and a young elephant took a mud path about 25 yards away from where I sat.

At night, I tried to keep myself awake so I could listen to the exotic calls of hyenas, owls and hippos. I never knew hippos were so noisy!

We canoed up the Zambezi River to our next camp, Mwambashi River Lodge.

Knowing that hippos are one of the most dangerous animal in Africa, we stayed well away from the many pods in the river. The hippos were quite curious, however, and often we came closer than I would have wished. I trusted our guides, however, and we had no mis-haps.

So far during our the time in southern Africa, we had traveled by jeep, motor boat, canoe and small plane. However, here in the Lower Zambezi National Park, we finally were able to go for a hike, but only after picking up an armed guard. The reason we could not hike previously, nor leave our tents at night, nor get out of our jeeps or canoes before the guides told us it was safe to do so, is the real danger of encountering an angry animal.

Alan McSmith was our guide from the time we entered Africa until we arrived in Mwambashi, our last stop. Seeing southern Africa's wilderness and wildlife through Alan's eyes was an amazing experience. It was more than just looking at wild animals and beautiful birds. It was more than just the adventure of being in the African wilderness. Alan's perspective underscored the spiritual value of this remarkable place on earth, and the very real need for its protection.

In addition to Alan, we met many other remarkable people. Each camp had local guides and camp hosts or hostesses. Heather, the hostess of our camp in Chobe National Park, is a native of Zimbabwe, a nation destroyed. She told harrowing stories but with a sense of humor that kept us spell-bound. Our local guides, Nick and Chimney, regaled us with legends and local lore. Our camp workers entertained us one evening around the campfire with their native songs.

Garth and Lindsey, our hosts at Chongwe, welcomed us back from each boat trip with warm wash cloths to wipe off the grime. They took us on night drives , during which we saw hyena, jackels, genets and owl.

The last camp, Mwambashi, was hosted by Steve and Carrie. There we learned about the wild dogs of Africa, although we were not lucky enough to see any.