We had a late breakfast at 7 this morning. As I walked to breakfast, I saw lots of bushbucks roaming around the camp. We also saw lots of baboons on the premises. I got a lovely photo of our servers, Abigail and Tiisetso.
We left the camp along with our luggage at 8. We had a great drive on our way to Pete’s Pond and the airport. We saw a beautiful bush shrike, a hyrox in the distance on the top of a cliff, a blue heron. Driving down a river bed we had beautiful views of the cliffs with baobob trees on top. Impala, kudu, and klipspringers were grazing along the river banks along with Egyptian geese and male and female kudu. I had more lilac-breasted roller photo opportunities which made me quite happy. That is one of my favorite birds. We herded a flock of guinea fowl down the river bed as they peeled off one by one up the banks. Such noisy, strange birds!
We arrived at Pete’s Pond which was a glorious experience for me since I have watched the web cam here since it started in 2005. Afke, who is currently in charge of the cam at the Pond, met us, and I was thrilled. We got a tour of the hide where the cam is located, and I got real-life photos of the scene I have spent so many hours watching. We didn’t spend too much time here, but it was like a pilgrimage for me.
It was then off to the Limpopo Valley airport where once again we all tried to squeeze into our two places. One is a smaller but faster plane, but it only holds 4-5 of us. Our tall John (6’7”) tried to get into our more cramped plane with much hilarity and insults all around. Bill said John looked like an elephant trying to find a seat. Linda called Bill the hippo on our plane. We finally convinced John he would be much happier on the other plane, and he departed.
At 11:15 we landed at Francisville for a refueling and a potty break. At 12:15 we took off for the Moremi Game Reserve and Xakanaxa main camp. We had a snack lunch on the plane consisting of 3 small crustless sandwiches and an apple. From the air we could see the great Makgadikgadi Pan which was quite impressive.
At 2:10 we arrived at the landing strip. The other plane which was faster than ours landed an hour earlier. We took the truck for the 15 minute drive to Xakanaxa main camp. Lettie greeted us. There were bats sleeping in the thatched roof of the reception area. We were given our tent assignments and given the rules of the camp. Once again, no walking by ourselves after dark.
We walked to our tents (ours was #5, leopard). The camp is run on generators from 5:30am to 7:30 at night. The rest of the time there is no electricity. There are candles and paraffin lamps along with two battery operated bed lights. The wood floor of the tent extends to an outdoor patio in the front overlooking the Okavanga river delta. At the rear of the tent, a door opens to an open-air bathroom area that does have a tarp overhead. We were told not to leave anything in the bathroom area and to keep the door to the tent closed at all times due to the vervet monkeys in the camp.
At 3:45 we met in the main bar area for drinks. They had a self-service open bar with soft drinks, hard drinks, water, coffee available all the time. The guest bathroom is nearby and quite lovely and open. There is a rope to hang across the opening to signify it is in use.
At 4pm we started our afternoon game drive. Moremi is a public use area, so there were many private cars and vehicles driving around. We had to stay on the roads and had to be back at camp by dark. Our driver was Ollie, and this truck had a canvas top. We saw a Pel’s fishing owl, zebra, emerald spotted dove, strangler fig, marula tree (fruit of which makes my favorite African drink, Amarula, and also wonderful marula jelly). We saw a group of lions resting and grooming each other. One of them had a wound on its shoulder. We saw a fish eagle, crocodiles, an African jacama, blacksmith lapwing, yellow-billed stork, a hammerkop, white-faced whistling ducks, a large troop of baboons with babies, giraffe, and a blue heron before we stopped for sundowners by a large lake area. The sunset was quite beautiful. On the way back to camp we saw a pair of giant hornbills.
Arriving back at camp at 6:30, we rested for an hour before we were escorted by our rangers back to the lounge and dining area. We had a lovely happy hour and then dinner which consisted of spinach in lemon sauce, roast pork with apple sauce, fried pork skin, potatoes, red cabbage, carrots, green beans, fruit salad. For dessert we had some sort of light passion fruit dessert. For a tent camp, the dining area is really quite elegant.
At 9, we were escorted back to our tents. Just as we left the lounge area, our ranger got a distressed look on his face and ordered us to the far side of the path. A huge hippo was only 20’ away from us walking to the river. Later Ollie told us he saw blood on the hippo and assumed he had been fighting and was probably not in a good mood. Now we understand why we are escorted everywhere at night.
During the night we heard hippos splashing and huffing and some lions roaring.
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