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Day 1 - Arrival and transfer to Moremi Game Reserve On arrival, you will be met by your Zoologist/Biologist guide and private vehicle at Maun airport and transferred by road into the Moremi Game Reserve. Once in the Moremi, go on a slow meander/game drive to familiarize yourselves with the area and then into your first camp in good time to shower and unpack before sundowners and dinner. Vehicles are top-of-the-range Toyota Land cruisers. They are extremely comfortable, with multiple thoughtful details that make them perfect for game viewing such as roof-top seats, leather bean bags for photography and ponchos to keep one warm on sunrise game drives.
Camp will be comprised of large tents equipped in a luxurious fashion unequalled on any other mobile safari. Real beds, down pillows, pure cotton sheets, flush loos, Persian rugs, bone-handled silver cutlery, damask table linen and teak and brass and classically-styled campaign kit combine comfort with style. The only concessions to roughing it are the bucket showers, which are private and en suite.
Day 2 Breakfast in the first light of day and head out in the safari cars for your introduction to some of the animals of the dry floodplain environment looking for zebra, wildebeest, impala and predators such as wild dog and cheetah. Return to camp for lunch and a siesta.
Head out for sundowners after consuming an embarrassingly large spread of tea and cakes. Park at the edge of a lagoon and watch herds of elephants and a myriad of birds coming down to drink whilst the sun sets and you are given an informal talk on the geological history of the area. Return to camp for a sumptuous dinner. Menus emphasize fresh tastes and originality. Three course meals under the stars include such offerings as fresh tomato and basil soup, ostrich piccata, roast Botswana beef, delectable orange tarts and impossibly rich, but light, chocolate puddings. Teas are indulgent affairs with treats like triple layer, banana caramel cake, tangy lemon curd biscuits and the best brownies in the bush! All bread is baked daily in a trunk oven on the coals of an open fire, and full cooked English breakfasts are on offer every morning. Day 3 After a hearty breakfast, head out for the whole day to explore the wider area around your first camp. Search out the creatures and plants typical of the ecosystem and explore the interrelationships of species and the systems in which they live. Seek out the elusive predators such as lion, cheetah and leopard and observe and interpret their behavior.
Picnic and siesta under a shady mangosteen, and return to camp for dinner - tired, but happy.
Unchartered Botswana OTHER OPTIONS FOR YOUR TIME IN THE WESTERN KALAHARI: CAVING IN SUBTERRANEAN CAVERNS After breakfast, depart by game drive vehicle to Drotsky’s Caves. The journey to the caves will provide a different and more wildlife-orientated experience to that of the past few days. An incredible variety of wild birds have been sighted along the road along with leopard, gemsbok, hartebeest, eland, steenbok, jackal, kudu and many other animal species. After a sumptuous picnic, set off on a subterranean expedition into a series of incredible marble caverns. These caves are completely un-commercialised and are carpeted with a floor of twinkling red Kalahari sand. The soaring ceilings are festooned with swags of stalactites and huge colonies of bats.
TRANCE DANCE This is a deeply spiritual experience for the Bushmen people. It is a great privilege for guests to have the opportunity to observe the mysterious passage of the Healer into a state of semi-consciousness (entirely induced by breathing technique), where he can make contact with his clan’s spirit guides. The women sit bolt upright, clapping and singing into the early hours while the men tirelessly dance a well-worn groove into the earth circle around the fire. The aim of the trance is to provide both healing and to clear the air of conflict and tension.
Day 10 Transfer to Western Kalahari After breakfast, visit a remote cattle-post to learn about the traditional culture of the Batswana people. Close by is the famous Chapman’s Baobab (also known as the Seven Sisters) which is acknowledged to be the largest tree in Africa, and was the campsite of early explorers like Livingstone and Selous when they pioneered the area. This gives you an opportunity to gain a fascinating insight into the history of the early explorers.Depart from the desert – feeling perhaps a little sad, but infinitely enriched. Your guide will be a fully qualified Zoologist/Biologist in consultation with community leaders thus ensuring a unique experience that combines both culture and wildlife in an educational, yet non-intrusive, fashion.Arrive by plane at midday and transfer down a dusty red road to a remote campsite deep in the ancestral gathering lands of the Zu/’hoasi Bushmen. After a delicious and refreshing lunch, head off to your hut for a rest.
The campsite will be comprised of traditional style Bushmen grass shelters designed to provide an authentic and non-intrusive interaction and replete with all the accoutrements of a proper safari. Guests will sleep on proper beds between pure cotton sheets and old-fashioned army blankets and duvets. Wooden ladder shelves for hanging and stacking clothing and a woodentrunk for a bedside table will provide space for storage. Private bucket showers and bush loos are situated adjacent to each shelter. Should you prefer, tented accommodation is also available. After a delicious tea, walk through the bush to the nearby Bushmen village where you will be met in a traditional manner by the elders of the community. Around the fire before dinner, listen to the history of the Bushmen people whose origins can be traced back to 30 000 years ago and learn about the complex political challenges that are confronting them today. Enjoy a delicious dinner under the stars. Sleep peacefully through the night under a fragrant shelter of wild grass thatch. Day 11 In the morning, walk out into the bush with the men, women, children and your guides. The focus of the walk will be to provide a gentle introduction to the Kalahari and Bushmen way of life. Your guide will point out the distinct ecological characteristics of this area and its animal and bird species.
Spontaneous gathering and discussions about the uses of plants and wildlife by your Bushmen guides provide the link between culture and wild environment that we seek to offer on these very special safaris. An adolescent Bushman girl knows more than 200 species of usable plants and an extraordinary variety of plants and herbs with both culinary and medicinal value will be found. Find suitable rhygozum plants from which your digging stick, the most important tool of the Bushmen can be harvested. Back at the village, prepare your gathering tool for the next few days by the fire. After lunch and a siesta, return to the Bushmen village where you will learn from the women how to prepare their bush foods using only the most basic of tools and an open fire. You will be able to sample a variety of foods from wild spinach and roast beetles to ostrich egg omelette cooked on the coals. Some of the women will show you how they make beads from ostrich eggs and the simple, but striking jewellery that they make from porcupine quills, seeds and ostrich eggs. Leather is also decorated with both glass and ostrich beads to complex and beautiful effect.
As the sun sets, and the evening draws close, the women can be requested to perform the melon dance, around the evening fire. This unselfconscious and free-spirited traditional dance represents the joyful celebration of a successful harvest. Return to camp for a rather more conventional, but still delicious, meal and retire to bed. Day 12 After a restful night’s sleep meet the men after breakfast to prepare for a traditional hunt. Walk into the bush and search out the poison grub beetle. Gathering suitable fruits, sanseveria leaves and branches for the manufacturer of ropes, bows and arrows. Return to Camp for a lunch and siesta. After tea, return to the Bushmen village to watch the men prepare bows, arrows and quivers while young boys demonstrate various traditional games that provide training for the hand-to-eye coordination skills that will be so necessary when on the hunt. Retire to bed in excited anticipation of the next day’s hunt. Day 13 Depart early after a hearty cooked breakfast for a day’s traditional hunting with the men. Track, stalk and, hopefully, hunt down some wild quarry using traditional bows and arrows.
A picnic on the way under a shady tree enables one to be flexible and react fast to the day’s events. Return to camp hopefully bearing the results of a day’s hunt and prepare the meat to share and sample around the fire. Overnight Bushman Camp Day 14 Bid the community farewell and drive by vehicle to the airstrip to meet up with your light aircraft transfer for your onward journey.
Day 7 Transfer to Kalahari Say your farewells to the camp and transfer out of the Delta. Arrive at Jack’s Camp, surely one of the most romantic camps on earth. The camp is pitched on a low grassland knoll amongst an oasis of dignified desert palms and Kalahari acacia.
After the rains, when the sea of grass is still high and feathery, the camp is all but invisible until seconds before your arrival! The camp's hub is a romantic canvas pavilion of low spires and finials, with a fluttering valance beneath its eaves and could be the site for a medieval jousting tourney, were it not a deciduous green. Three poles support the main chamber where everyone meets for meals at a long communal dining table. Ten green roomy and stylish canvas tents with en-suite bathrooms, indoor and outdoor showers (for those who want to feel the Kalahari breeze on their skin) have been fashioned in classical 1940’s style creating an oasis of civilization in what can be the harshest of stark environments. Persian rugs underfoot, cool cotton sheets and mahogany and brass campaign style kit from the family safari stores form a striking contrast with the rugged wilderness viewed from the comfort of one’s own verandah. Drive out after tea through the verdant grasslands to the edge of the pans. Stop to watch the sunset, and listen to an explanation of how the Makgadikgadi pans, the remnants of the world’s largest ever superlake, were formed. Return to camp for a lavish dinner in the elegant mess tent. Day 8 Head off for a full day in the Makgadikgadi National Park (weather permitting). While enjoying a lavish picnic lunch in the shade of a grove of trees, you will see the awe-inspiring spectacle of the last surviving Zebra and Wildebeest migration in Southern Africa spread out on the plains before you.
Your guide will explain in great detail how mammals evolved. This process having been shaped by the complex but, fascinating relationship between predator and prey. The origins of hunting and water sourcing and its influence on man’s development will also be explained. Many of your guides are fully qualified Zoologists/Geologists, often working on PhD research. As such, they are able to convey all the nuances of the desert and the adaptations of its inhabitants that we consider one of the most interesting features of the environment. Day 9 Set off in the morning to visit some of the Kalahari’s sexiest meerkats. (‘suricate’ to science-minded people and ‘Timon’ to Lion King fans). Get up close and personal with these captivating creatures. On chilly mornings, you might well find a meerkat snuggling up to you for warmth, or, in the absence of a termite mound or tree, using your head as a sentry lookout post. By spending quality time with these incredibly social, superbly adapted animals, you will be able to see how they interact with each other and their environment. You also get the chance to see the desert through the eyes of a meerkat – which, despite the fact that it’s only a foot off the ground, is a pretty spectacular vantage point, and definitely one of the most special and memorable game experiences you will encounter in Botswana.
Return to camp for a rest and refreshing lunch.
Day 4 After breakfast, take a slow drive to the lagoon's edge and board a boat to explore the waters of the Delta. The deep open lagoons provide a wonderful contrast in habitat after the dry forest areas and floodplains of your first camp. Putt along the maze of channels, stopping to admire rare birds and the diversity of aquatic life.
Spot small crocodiles basking in the sun on sparkling white sandbanks and hippos jousting for territories with spectacular splashes and clashes of jaws and some serious dental equipment. Learn about the ecology of the waters and look at all the important components of the ecosystem. Have a picnic lunch on a sandy bank in the river and cool off at a safe swimming spot. Day 5 Rise early and after a short walk around the island, hop back into your boat for a meander through the waterways, absorbing the tranquility of the lagoons and narrow, papyrus-fringed, hippo trails and immersing yourself completely in the incredible spectacles that the Delta has to offer.
Search out hippo and bathing elephants to understand the importance of the Okavango to these enormous creatures. Marvel at the majesty of elephants from only a few yards away as they wash and feed on the roots of aquatic plants. Drift back to the vehicles. Picnic and siesta in the arms of a giant shady baobab. Spend the afternoon seeking out hyaena dens and, as the day cools down, watch for hunting cats. Head on to your third and final camp (which has been moved to a completely different habitat during your island stay) for a refreshing shower and a delectable dinner. Day 6 All day predator hunt. Spend the last day indulging yourself completely in seeking out your favorite species. Leopard spotting, lion tracking, cheetah chasing and dog discovering. If you want to watch lions mating for two hours or prefer to watch bee-eaters hawking insects on the wing then so be it. Return to camp for your last night in this incredible Eden.
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