Ilse, Africa Easy’s safari consultant and operations manager, headed to Botswana last month for a wonderful and educational safari in the Okavango Delta and Northern Botswana. Ilse, a native South African, was happy to be back on African soil! Read on for her first-person account of her travels and some of the highlights of her trip!
I loved being back in Africa, and the first thing that hit me was that smell – the bush, the soil, the air. And then the sounds. Everything is alive and well!
I have never been in the Delta, so lifting off from Maun was quite the experience for me (see photo left), I was stunned at how beautiful the water was, and the expanse of it. Paul Maloseng, our K&D host for the week, was sharing insights and pointing out game from the word go. It takes a while to get your eye keen again.
Our first big sighting was a leopard, perfect setting, all evasive and beautiful. The guys with the big guns took some great pictures of the leopard peeking through the leaves. Lovely Elephant sightings too, right next to the road!
We stayed at African Bush Camp – Linyanti, and got to see the sights where they are setting up Ebony and the mobile camp. Next up was Kanana, where we shared the waterways with the big game – an elephant wading across a few feet in front of our boat, seven hippo watching us from an adjacent waterway – and the smaller guys – painted reed frog, African Jacana and other waterbirds. Nothing beats sundowners on the Delta, with the fish eagle calling in the back ground!
We stayed at Shinde – probably my favorite camp of the 4 “regular” camps we visited. Saw lion, hyena, lechwe, zebra, giraffe,hippo, blue wildebeest. We were entertained with bush stories till late at night.
Footsteps Camp was my favorite overnight of all, for how unassuming it is – the prefect spot to spend with a family, and the camp staff do it all without running water or electricity. Paul is clearly very proud of his camp and I could tell that kids would have the time of their lives there!
Okuti in Moremi was our last stop, and we danced the night away 🙂 Great cheetah sightings and we heard lion roaring in broad daylight, but they eluded us.
Indaba, the African travel industry’s massive trade show in Durban, South Africa was an experience that far exceeded my expectations. I was very impressed by the value of the interactions with others in the same industry, and by all the new things there were to learn. Many moments of “aha”.
Photos by Ilse de Villiers
