Photographer's Paradise: Spectacular Botswana Safari

Absolutely awesome experience – better than we imagined! We spent time in Victoria Falls, Chobe National Park, the Okavango Delta and Cape Town. The service, guides, lodgings and experiences we had in each location were exceptional. This safari travel company and our travel planner made everything easy – we were greeted each step of the way, enabling us to enjoy our African adventure without the normal stress of traveling in another country. In Zimbabwe, we experienced majestic Victoria Falls both from the air and a guided tour through the park. We enjoyed a sunset dinner cruise on the Zambezi River. Our room at the Ilala Lodge was picture perfect and comfortable, plus we could see the mist rising from the falls. In Chobe National Park, we went on numerous game drives and boat tour with a dedicated guide. The Ngoma Safari Lodge was the most visually extravagant place we ever stayed.  The view walking into the lodge literally takes your breath away as you look down at the Chobe River with herds of zebras, giraffes and antelopes moving between a small watering hole close to Ngoma Lodge and the river. Combine that with great location to Chobe National Park, exceptional guides, thoughtful and well-trained staff, delicious dinners and wonderful rooms with incredible views and you have the perfect safari location. In the Okavango Delta we saw so much wildlife (inlcuding a numerous lions and African Wild dogs and their pups) and were again blessed with wonderful guides, great staff, and lovely rooms in an amazing location at Sable Alley in the Khwai Reserve. Cape Town gave us an opportunity to relax at the boutique hotel and enjoy winery tours and a peninsula tour, as well as amazing restaurants.

Originally, I tried to work out an itinerary myself using online review and travel books, but became concerned about arranging transportation and guides. Then I contacted several different travel agencies. This travel planner quickly responded. She made everything easy for us. She worked with us on locations, desired experiences, dates and cost. We really wanted to see Botswana’s Chobe National Park and the Okavango Delta. Two other companies were trying to steer us away those areas due to cost and availability, but our travel planner was able to make it happen for us. She took care of absolutely everything from lodging, car and in-Africa air travel, tours, guides, and even restaurant reservations for us in Cape Town. Amazing personalized service.

This company makes you feel very pampered and special. Our travel planner made time to meet us in Victoria Falls (her home base). In honor of our 30th wedding anniversary, the travel company surprised us with a complimentary dinner and bottle of wine at our Victoria Falls hotel, which had one of the best restaurants in Victoria Falls.

3 Destination Safari Trip to South Africa and Botswana...  all logistics, transfers, airlines, reservations, excursions went off without a hitch, every thing flowed seamlessly. Our safari travel company and particularly agent did an excellent job pre-planning and sculpting trip to meet our needs and desires.  We wanted 9 day safari to various locations that had different terrains and bio-diversity, but wanted to be efficient with "travel times" and "travel days" to make use of limited 9 days.

Firstly, Kruger area in SA, our agent guided us away from some lodges and tented sites "inside the park" as one becomes limited to "on road" safari versus if at contiguous private concession [whereby animals freely roam from Kruger park into and out of concession] the safari guides will (and always do) take their Land Cruisers off road and into the bush, for example to find a leopard laying in the bush protecting his kill (water buck)... which this siting would never happen "on road" in the park.  Our agent and this company pushed us to Sabi Sabi Little Bush Camp which was 5 stars and beyond all expectations; modern, clean, impeccable and beyond the call of duty service, and great guides (our guide was great and very knowledgeable). We saw the "magnificent 7" in the first 24 hours [the big 5 plus cheetah and wild dogs].

Secondly, we flew from Nelspruit to Livingston airport in Botswana, had driver take us from airport to river border, hand us off to a boat driver that took us across the river, then he handed us off to another driver that took us through the Botswana customs and then drove us to Kasane airport to meet a 3rd driver from Muchenje Lodge to drive us 50 minutes to the lodge.  All logistics worked perfectly (coordinated by our safari travel company). Muchenje Lodge was 4-star (not 5 star) because it is a bit aged [old bathroom, old toilet, old fixtures] but they make up for it in "safari lodge family atmosphere" and great management effort, buffet style family meals with other guests. Their safaris differed as we were limited to "on the road inside Chobe National Park) type safaris versus off-road. But abundance of hippos, elephants, giraffes here make it worth it.  Just on one afternoon track we saw 36 elephants (different sitings) and over 30 giraffes in just over 3 hours.

Thirdly, we wanted to try a different bio-diversity at Okavango Delta, so our travel company and our agent after much batting back and forth during the planning process, and planning for "bush flights" we selected Khwai Tented Bush Camp by African Bush Camps (they own many lodges and tented camps).  Five Stars, full amenities for a "tented site" very modern, and excellent first class cuisine, high teas, breakfasts and service. Our safari guide was great, friendly, and very knowledgeable. Lots of lions and leopards.

We departed by bush plane (coordinated by our travel company and agent) to Maun and then back to Cape Town.  The whole trip was planned impeccably, and went off without a hitch, the logistics of which I could have never have personally planned or procured by myself. I'm sure we paid a premium using first class travel agent, but it was worth it to just lay back and leave all the coordination to others.

Would we use this safari travel company again? Yes, I had this agent book us a subsequent trip from Cape Town to Victoria Falls for the weekend after this trip, and once again was first class and logistically efficient.

All travel between camps was well coordinated and all of the accommodations were excellent, the job your travel company did was outstanding in every way.

Overall our trip was spectacular at each camp with one exception - Hwange, but this was a staffing issue.

Our comments on each are here:

01. Camp Moremi - 3 nights - The personnel at this camp were outstanding and very friendly and helpful. Our guide was very knowledgeable and highly qualified, good at finding great fauna and fun to be with. It did help that we could go off trail a bit. The accommodations were excellent, the lodge, food and refreshments were great, the location was optimal for land or river excursions and the overall experience was fabulous. Wanted to spend more time here!

02. Ghoha Hills Savuti Lodge - 2 nights - The same as above, very nice & knowledgeable proprietor who spent time with us looking at the stars and learning the history of Botswana. Our guide was also knowledgeable and friendly, nice accommodations, food and refreshments were great, intimate experience, good game viewing after a long drive but well worth it and quite interesting location especially with the pan below the lodge itself attracting different wildlife each day and night. 2 nights was appropriate for this camp.

03. Chobe Game Lodge - 3 nights - The  lodge here is more like a nice hotel, but with an excellent location & also within the park. Again, Our guide was very knowledgeable, good at finding wildlife and fun to be with. The lodge area, and refreshments were great, the food not so good, just OK, but the staff were very friendly and helpful. The location was optimal for land or river excursions and the overall experience was fabulous. Wanted to spend more time here!

04. Victoria Falls Hotel - 2 nights - This was a culture shock after Botswana, but it's a nice hotel with a good view and location - just a lot of civilization after the first 3 camps. Hotel drinks A+, food C-. We did the hike around the falls, lunch at the overlook and a chopper ride above the falls which was excellent and the sunset cruise on the Zambezi was really the highlight of this experience where we could return to the wilderness on the river and observe the wildlife, the boat staff was excellent and the snacks & refreshments were great - as was the wildlife viewing. 2 nights was appropriate for this place.

05. Camp Hwange - 3 nights - This experience had some great highs and some low points as well. Upon arriving at the camp from Vic Falls we were picked up by an excellent, knowledgeable and friendly guide who wore a Camp Hwange uniform. We had a long ride into the camp from the entrance in which we viewed a lot of wildlife and made several stops. The lodge had a very nice staff and excellent location for viewing the pan directly in front of the camp for wildlife, the accommodations, food and refreshments were also great. Our same guide took us out that afternoon for a nice sundowner and animal viewing that included some spectacular nighlife immediately after dinner.  At dinner the first night at dinner we met our next guide and learned that he was one of two contract guides, and not part of the regular staff.

The next day with this new contract guide we spent the morning hiking without much success in wildlife viewing and searching for a buffalo herd. He did not have his radio turned on to communicate back with the lodge or other guides during the morning but finally turned the radio on at noon to notify the lodge that we were returning for lunch at which time we immediately learned of some lions to go see from another guide.  The afternoon was similar in that we were still in search of the elusive buffalo herd and didn't really see much wildlife. We learned at dinner that the other contract guide and his group seen a multitude of wildlife over the course of the entire day, but without our radio communication we never had a heads up.

The third day we went on a day trip heading out the road towards the entrance we came in on the first day, again our guide did not have his radio on and was searching for the buffalo herd without success. We did a morning hike and saw practically nothing, then found a spot for a late lunch during which our guide went and took a nap under a tree. After lunch we we finally drove to a large pan filled with elephants which we viewed for 2 hours, then drove back to our camp, stopping at a pan with a herd of hippos briefly for photos. It was nightfall when we arrived for an very nice picnic style dinner away from the camp. We also viewed some nighlife that evening which was spectacular.

The next morning we left, and we had our original official Camp Hwange guide from the day we arrived doing the driving - and again saw an abundance of wildlife along the way which included several stops along the way.

Bottom line - we saw more wildlife with the official camp guide going in and out of the camp than we did in two days with our contract guide. This guide was knowledgable but also a bit crabby, a little too in your face and interested in discussing peoples politics and complained that he expected bad reviews - understandably after our experience - so we left feeling that we wasted a day and a half with this guide when we could have been viewing a lot more of what Camp Hwange is known for. I am optimistic that 3-4 nights in this park is appropriate, but you need a decent guide - that makes all the difference

We had a great trip.  I talked with our safari travel agent a few times on the phone and email to talk about what we wanted to do and she recommended places that turned out to be exactly what we wanted.  I felt that our travel agent really listened to what I wanted to get out of the trip.  It was a once in a lifetime Adventure so we wanted to get it right.  Thanks!  We had three nights at each location – Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe, Ngoma Lodge in Botswana and Dulini Lodge in South Africa.  We were taken care of from beginning to end with people at each place to get us where we needed to go.  Generally speaking, I can’t say enough about how well we were treated during the whole trip.

Victoria Falls is spectacular!  We took the guided walk to see all the viewing sites on the Zimbabwe side of the falls.  They will rent you a poncho for $3.  I’m so glad we got them because in some places we got soaked.  Our agent recommended that if we go into town we should stop at the Elephant Walk shopping mall.  We did and ended up getting several things.  It had artists who did various crafts, so I knew we were getting original and unique mementos from our stay there.  I was really happy with the place we stayed in Victoria Falls.  When we got there, there was a mixup with the rooms.  Our agent stepped in and got it fixed right away.  Our rooms had decks that overlooked the watering hole.  It was amazing to get up in the morning, step out on my deck and see elephants, impalas and crocodiles meandering around the watering hole.  One night for dinner we had a Boma, which is kind of like an African luau with local dancing and singing.  They get everybody involved so it was a lot of fun. 

Next we drove to Ngoma Lodge in Botswana.  It was truly in the middle of nowhere so I wasn’t sure what to expect.  Every aspect of it was wonderful.  The lodge was on higher ground so we overlooked the flood plains of the Chobe River.  They had a multi-level deck with lots of places to sit and enjoy the view.  In our rooms the whole wall was windows so we had a view that just went on and on.  And we had a deck with a plunge pool.  We never got to use it because we were so busy.  Near the lodge, there was a watering hole.  Each morning the zebras, giraffes, impala and more came to the watering hole to drink.  We took our meals on the deck so we could enjoy it all while we ate.  The food and the service were good.  They really pampered us.  We went on game drives each day.  One thing I really wanted to see was elephants crossing the Chobe River.  I had heard about it and seen pictures.  We saw a herd of what must have been over 100 elephants crossing the river.  It was one of my favorite highlights.  We saw lots of impalas, kudus, elephants, giraffes, and so much more.  We saw a lion stalking a kudu.  Nearby there was a herd of giraffes that got scared and ran away.  They are so graceful when they run.  They really went out of their way to ensure we had a good stay.  Our game driver grew up in a nearby village so was really familiar with the area and knew exactly where to take us for the best game viewing.

Our last stop was at Dulini Lodge.  It is a private game reserve outside of Kruger National Park in South Africa.  The room was huge with an extra-large bathroom, living room and large deck with a plunge pool.  Elephants walked in the dry river bed off of our deck.  The grounds were all grassy and covered with trees.  It was beautiful.  Every day animals came up and grazed on the grass.  We ate outside here too with elegant dinners and excellent service.  Sometimes we ate by ourselves and sometimes in small groups.  Try the kudu steak and the wart hog.  They were both delicious.  We tried lots of foods we had never heard of.  Most of them were really good.  Both lodges had expert chefs.  We went on game drives every day.  We would tell our game driver what we wanted to see and he and his tracker would look for tracks.  One time we saw three lions resting after eating their fresh kill.  In another part of the park we saw a leopard with her cub and a fresh kill in the tree.  Then we saw a lion with three cubs.  We saw so much on every game drive.

I was really pleased with the whole trip.  The locations were just what we wanted.  We were really pampered with the food, service and amenities.  We saw game on every single drive we went on.  Three nights in each place worked out really well.  I would whole heartedly recommend this safari travel company to plan your trip.