Affrrriicccaaarrrr!!

It's important we started almost immediately on the post about THE TRIP OF OUR LIFETIME!

We're known to love the sun and sea, but an African safari had long been on our wish list. After our dear friends Alvin & Elaine returned from a beautiful African honeymoon some years ago, they'd kindly shared their contacts at A2A Safaris and their travel resources with us. Soon after we had moved to Darwin, we booked an exclusive 6-day safari in Botswana for June 2017. As things panned out, it happened to clash with my brother's wedding. The trip was then shifted to June 2018. As we'd been on some outdoor adventures since moving to Darwin, we decided to extend our trip with a 8-day self drive camping trip around Namibia. That's what we did, and here's all we have to share about an amazing 19 days!

We stopped by in Singapore for a day of quick catch ups with immediate family and a few friends before flying to Johannesburg. It's the longest flight I've been on and I'm thankful it was an SQ flight - Added about 10 movies to my favourites list, but fell asleep halfway through the second movie!

Dinner with family

Farewell at the airport

Asleep in Joburg airport

We waited about 5 hours in the Jo burg airport for our flight to Maun in Botswana, pleased to see some decent food and shopping outlets at the airport while we killed time. Although USD was accepted, the exchange was 1USD to 10 RAND, instead of the 15 RAND that's on the exchange. So reminder to tourists to use the foreign exchange and lose less.

Some use of free Wi-fi and a quick nap later, we were ready for Botswana.

Botswana

We arrived in Maun, but hadn't arranged for pick up by the Airport hotel where we were to spend the night. Fortunately, we met a lady from Kwando Safaris who was aware of our booking for the next day. She arranged for a pick up, that was going to ferry us 500m - had we discovered this earlier, we'd have walked.

The Maun Airport Hotel was simple, yet comfortable. Exhausted from the flights and hustle bustle in getting to the hotel, we decided to take a nap before heading out about 5pm to check out the shops nearby and hopefully get some supplies for the safari. Next thing we knew, it was 4am the next day! We were wide awake as it was almost noon Darwin time and starving after having missed dinner. We briefly repacked our baggage and made our way to breakfast. Before which, we checked with the reception about our flight to our safari accommodation which was to be around 2pm that afternoon. There had been no messages left and so we decided we'll ring them once we're done with breakfast. The receptionist walks in midway through breakfast and calmly whispers " You need to get to the airport now. Your flight leaves in ten minutes.."

In what felt like a fast forward video, we packed our bags and got ourselves to the airport where, to our surprise, the service staff and pilot all seemed rather calm. A 30 minute flight gave us a preview of the beautiful landscape we were about to explore during the next 6 days.

We were greeted by Leso who took us on a 40 minute informal safari drive to Splash camp

At Splash Camp, we were warmly welcomed by a beautiful team of staff who introduced themselves, their roles and how they would be of assistance to us during our stay. After welcome drinks and quick check in procedures, we were escorted to our rooms and advised to be back for high tea at 330.

Splash camp is the newest of the Kwando safaris' camps and is located at the heart of the Okavango Delta. It had only begun operations a few weeks ago so the rooms and facilities were spacious, clean and luxurious.

Our guide at Splash camp was Tahbo with a 20-year guiding experience and an amazing personality. Our tracker, Luke, who also made sure we were comfortable on our rides. 

Rita, Michael, Isabel & husband joined us for the last day.

On the third day, we were transported to the airstrip for our transfer flight to Lagoon Camp, also one of Kwando Safari's signature camps. Lagoon Camp has been around for about ten years and has 8 lovely villas located on the bank of the Kwando River.

There we were welcomed by another amazing duo, Vasco, our guide and Kern, our tracker. Our safari buddies here were Vivienne & Steve, and John and Maureen from the UK.

Our six days with Kwando Safaris followed the same routine :

6am wake up call - 630 breakfast - 7am safari - 1130 brunch - 330 high tea - 4pm safari - 8 pm family dinner. Not forgetting the morning teas and sundowner drinks during each safari!

Navin's cameras and lenses were conversation starters with almost all guests at both camps, and of course this led to lots of photography talk. The safari gave us many amazing experiences from witnessing animal behaviour to learning about plants and the natural environment and how man and animals have evolved over time. 

We were charged at by elephants twice, had an elephant chilling out around our room, heard hippos grunting through the night, heard from staff of two lions that were walking through the resort while we were out on safari. It was comforting that our guides escort us back to our rooms when dark, and that they are trained in managing wild encounters - though the fear did linger.

Our favourite times aside from the safari rides, were the beautiful gatherings around the campfire, large family dinners and learning from the experiences of people from various walks of life. It was wonderful having staff join us at meals and talk to us about their experiences too! Sharing our stories and aspirations and making new friends has really opened up the world for us.

Here's a preview of the amazing wildlife we encountered! For more photos of our Botswana trip, check out our Facebook pages.

Kern teaching us how to identify animal prints

Vasco, Kern, Viv, Steve & us!

Alright, I was hoping to fit the entire trip into one blog post but the first 7 days have already taken up so much. Will see you with Namibia in the next post! Cheers!