CHOBE- OKAVANGO DELTA- KALAHARI

and meerkats and a helicopter

PART 1: THE CHOBE RIVER

ATTEMPTS TO TURN ME INTO A BIRDER

Around noon the plane lands in Kasane on Botswana’s northern border, Zim & Zam are mere miles away. As we approach the land below us is very green, great rivers and lots of flooded land, they must have had lots of rain here. As there are only about 30 people on the plane the arrival procedure is fast. On we go to the Pangolin Chobe Hotel, which is a famous photo hotel. Great photo pro’s there to assist and guide us, and big lenses for us to try out. Our trip is called the Best of Botswana Photo Safari, check it out here:  https://www.pangolinphoto.com/safaris/11-day-best-of-botswana-safari

We start our first boot tour at 15:00. The jetty is only a 5min drive away, so in no time we are on the photo boat. It is very well equipped, 8 swiveling seats all behind each other, with a giant „arm“ beside it, fix your cam on the gimbal and there you go. But I am not getting along with that thing, can’t move fast enough. At times it is easy so you don’t get a sore arm from holding the camera up all the time, especially for those with the really big, big lenses, but for shooting I mostly take my cam in my hands again. Oh boy, we have some birders on the boat….

The weather is great, around 30°C and when we drive a soft wind cools us. We soon see two young male elephants playing in the water, they are almost totally submerged and are having a ball, playing around, diving down to get grasses from the bottom. The river has risen about 2m in the last two months, below the water is lots of yummy green stuff. I’m testing the 150-600 SIGMA lens, but it is almost too big ! 

A herd of elephants with two tiny ones approach the river and go for a drink, there are lots and lots of birds, (so the birders are happy), a buffalo wallows in the mud, and then there’s the cute little jacanas. Must get a brilliant photo of those. As it seems we will be spending lots of time on the boat, so I will get another chance.  The sunset is amazing, the whole sky is a flaming red and this reflects in the rivers waters. We try to get a bathing elephant in the foreground, but that is easier said than done. 

So now we know, this is our daily routine for the next two weeks. Get up at 05:45, have a quick coffee or tea, and leave at 06:15. Sunrise is at 6:30 and we will have to be ready ! It’s a hard life being a photographer, but so much fun !

Shit, the next morning is windy, real windy, and as soon as the boat moves also freezing cold. I expected Africa to be warm, but winter mornings here are almost like back home, very cold. Thank God I took my rain jacket which is wind proof ! We find a jacana with chicks, the tiny ones are so cute, but so well camouflaged, and they keep moving. We stop for a coffee, I really need to pee but you can’t on a boat, so we head to the shore, but then William spots two lions, shit, no peeing here. Hold. Now they all want to photograph the lions…. Hold much longer, bugger, and the lions aren’t even that close, I would have risked it.

Because of the wind we will be in the jeeps for a proper safari drive in the afternoon. Pity, just when I was getting used to the boat. The game drive is okay but there isn’t that much wildlife here, mainly elephants, buffalo and impala. The lions we saw from the river, (and really put pressure on my bladder), are of course no where to be found. We spend ages with an adorable tiny elephant at the riverside. The birders do birds, I do Ellies. We do birds, and birds, but I will not be a birder, am a little worried about my husband though, he is shooting birds like a pro. Back home we have G&T’s at the fire. Great ! Let’s have two. 

Another rather boring morning game drive, and the next afternoon we are back on the boat. The fun really starts when we find a black heron. Okay, it’s bird and I like it…. Hate to admit it. This bird folds his wings around himself to a prefect circle of feathers, throwing them around like a cloak, creating a circle of shade and hoping to fool the fish. He opens his wings again after a short while, moves on and does the whole show again. We get ahead and wait for him to get closer, re-park about four times. That was fun.

There must not be much going on on the river this afternoon because in the end there are five other boats around us and the poor heron, which then decides to fly away. Time to move on. For sunset we find a pod of hippos, now sit and wait for the sky to turn red again, which it did. I tried some landscape with hippo shots, but in the end did the close up shots of the hippos, the water reflecting the orange-red sunset, ripples, boy I am being creative today.

Tomorrow we move on, but today its river time once again. Jacana time. We try to find jacanas on waterlily leaves, with flowers if possible. We do find them but still I haven’t had the YES feeling yet. The one you have when you know you shot something brilliant. Then there are bee eaters, the usual Egyptian geese and white nosed ducks, yellow billed and open billed storks, the other little brown ones, babblers or something, big darters and other tiny birds. Honest, they are trying to turn me into a birder, but forget it. I prefer the big stuff, the frame-filling kind. 

On our last morning here before we move on we have Janine to guide us. She has some very cool ideas ! First hippos in dark water and wait for them to breath out and catch the spray. It was always the one you were not focussing on that did that, so I only got one with a few droplets in the air but I’ve set my hopes on Jürg, he’s really good at those things. Then an underexposed low key shot of a pied kingfisher, and right after that one from the other side, a backlit and sun rimmed one. The black heron was there again so we gave that one a go. We tried jacanas again, then back to the hotel. Forget it, I am not turning into a birder guys, but I had a great time anyway. Now we have a plane to catch.

PART 2: THE OKAVANGO DELTA

LIONS, LEOPARDS AND LECHWE, I LOVED IT

The Pangolin Photo Camp we were supposed to go to, is not set up yet because there has been so much flooding. Lucky us, we are upgraded to Selinda Explorers Camp, “clamping“ as we are told. Oh boy it was ! Check out the link:   https://greatplainsconservation.com/safari/selinda-explorers-camp/  We will have Sabine with us as a photo host, which turned out to be really great. After a brilliant 40min flight over the flooded Chobe delta we are picked up at the Selinda airstrip by Stich, our guide for the next three days. The drive to camp is about 90min. We see three male lions, well, just flat lions, but still not bad for a transfer sighting, then two elephant roadblocks. One subadult elephant just stays and stays, keeps mock charging us, trumpeting cloudy during the process, he’s trying hard to be impressive, to us he is just cute. At some point we decide we’ve waited long enough, start driving and he scares and runs off into the bush, still trumpeting loudly. 

The camp is more than cool, boy this is a lovely place. Our tent is huge, an open air shower at the back. There is a lounge tent, a dining tent and a circle of chairs at the fire place, even a small plunge pool but we will hardly have time for that. This turned out to be my favorite place of the whole trip, and not just because of the amazing camp and great sightings, the chef was extremely good as well, yummy food !

The next day was like birthday and Christmas on one day. But it didn’t start like that ! Wake up call at 05:30, we leave at 6:00. It is hard to get out of the nice warm bed but the fresh coffee helps. It is bloody cold, we have four layers on and even then,  it’s not very warm. When you breath out the fog of your breath is like a cloud of steam, must buy a beanie as soon as I can before my ears freeze off. We leave and start searching for the four male lions, fat chance, not a trace of them. A rather boring morning, until we get a radio message, they’ve found lions and a leopard. The lion family chased the leopard up a tree, now that sounds great.

It is far, so Stitch steps on it, but even then it takes about 40min to get there. The leopard is way up in the top of a tree, we get cramps in or necks and arms from looking up for so long. It is hard to get a good shot but at one time the leopard gets up and looks around before lying down again with its head in the other direction. But we got it ! Just on the other side of the bush are the lions, a male, two females and the best part: four cubs ! This is so cool ! I just love cubs. We stay as long as we can, until they all lie down to sleep.

Day three we go to the plains, it isn’t called great plains for nothing, they have huge plains here ! Now we try to find the red lechwe, they are the most beautiful antelopes. The idea is to shoot these antelopes running in the swamp, hoping for them to do their crazy enormously high jumps. Well they ran, but no jumps today. Right behind us the hippos are making a hell of a noise, they are fighting. So we turn to them and try to get them fighting, biting, splashing. Cool ! There is always something to see.

After that a lovely bush breakfast which takes place rather late because at every pond or pan we go to, there are either elephants or lions, even if they are just flat, we can’t get out of the car there. Back to camp and time to download and shower before we have to eat again, a lovely salad lunch, this chef really is my favorite ! At 15:30 we leave again but bad luck this time, we don’t see much. We do get a few cool zebra shots and have elephants walk right in front and behind our car, have a baby elephant mock charge us, and as the sky turns red again we stop for our daily G&T. End of another great day.

PART 3 : THE KALAHARI

SHOOTING FROM HIDES, AND A BED UNDER A 1000 STARS

Our plane leaves at 10:00. The plane is on time but the route has changed. Instead of a direct flight of 45min we do two stops in the delta. No problem, flying over it is amazing, fifty shades of green, and we even see elephants from above, thats how low we are. I love the flights in the small planes, there is so much to see, could fly here much much longer it is so beautiful.

Finally after 3,5 hrs we arrive at the Dinaka airstrip and are picked up by our driver Bathusi. The camp is only 10min away and it is the most luxurious so far. Look at it here: https://www.kerdowneybotswana.com/our-camps/dinaka/. The lounge and dining room area are amazing, they look out over a waterhole where kudu gather as we sit and eat our lunch. After that there are warthogs, and lots and lots of zebra. Must get those on camera ! After lunch Jürg takes a nap and I sit in the lounge with camera and laptop. Can’t miss a minute of this. Tomorrow I must try position myself closer to the waterhole, let’s see if they allow me to go hide behind a tree close to the waterhole. Now that I am positioned perfectly the waterhole is deserted.

The bush is really dense here. We drive through miles of bushman grasses, soft beige and waving in the breeze, then there are long stretches of trumpet thorns, they sort of look like short scorched and dried out olive trees. There are Shepard trees, and different acacias, boy there are so many places to hide here, I wonder if we will see anything. We drive to „the hide“, this one is on the northern border of the concession, quite a drive away from camp. As the waterhole at the lodge, it is like a busy, big city, street crossing. We see a family of kudu, impala, a jackal, then a huge group of kudu arrive in the last light, there are more than 30 and at least 6 males with their beautifully curved horns, plus females with big eyes and fluffy ears and lots of young ones. The light fades but it is a pleasure just watching them.

New drill at this camp….wake up call at 05:00 the next morning, shit, it is still dark and really cold. We drink our coffee in bed with the jackets on. Don’t want to get out, it is so cold. We warm up at the fire before we drive. Soon after we leave we find the lions we heard calling around four in the morning. Boy, oh boy it is freezing, I am wearing all I have, which adds up to five layers. Added to that two hot water bottles and blankets, this is almost like a polar expedition, it can’t be much above 0°C, and that on an open jeep !

The lions look absolutely gorgeous coming at you through the grasses so we try to get in front, but they keep moving. So do we, we are like huge lawn mowers, crashing through the bush, mowing down whatever is in front, including medium sized trees. The young ones kept playing, jumping on each others necks, frolicking around, mum kept her course. This is brilliant, even though my fingers are almost frozen to the camera and my teeth are chattering. Can sit on the hot water bottle afterwards and warm up again, don’t be a sissy.

Later we are at the other hide, “the bunker“which is close to camp. We photograph from water level, like at the Mashatu hide. There is room for six people to sit, and the slit we look through is about 40cm high, perfect. From the bunker we go to the other hide, it is busy from 9:30 on, one kudu family after the next shows up, this is definitely the kudu meeting place. The temperature is rising, and slowly but surely it is getting nice and warm. At lunch we wear a shirt and shorts, but beware of the evenings and especially the mornings, those are freezing cold in May.

This evening we are driven to the star bed. Just Jürg and me on the platform in the middle of the Kalahari, with merely the light of a few solar lamps. Okay, our guide Bathusi sleeps in his tent close by, and we have radios, but other than that we are alone with thousands of stars. It is already rather cold so we quickly get into bed. We take our clothes into the bed so they won’t be so ice cold when we have to get into them tomorrow morning. The three water bottles each are also very welcome, but we share and give Bathusi two of them. The light of the moon is extremely bright, it is only a half moon, but we feel like saying please turn the lights off ! Jürg gets up at 02:00 when the moon has set, to do a star shot and later a star trail. I sleep.

At 06:00 the horizon turns red and Bathusi calls us on the radio, time to get up. Now this is a problem, it is freezing ! We have no desire at all to get out from under the four blankets. Good thing we had the clothes in the bed, that makes it a little bit more bearable. Put on everything we have again, plus my new beanie which I love and urgently needed. Had use for it in the delta, but here you really have to have one. Sorry Jürg, I got the last one from the camp shop.

Off to the hide where today we find giraffes drinking ! Such good luck. There are 8 of them, I am quite sure it is the same group we saw yesterday. Got some nice shots of two young males banging their necks together, a fight-practice session.

For lunch we are back at camp where they have set the table under the tree near the waterhole. I go a bit earlier and have a chair right behind the tree closest to the water, this is a perfect spot. I get my zebra, and wildebeest and of course kudu shots, I am so happy. But I am happy anyway.

PART 4 : MEERKAT MANIA

THIS WAS THE PART I REALLY LOOKED FORWARD TO

By 10:00 we’ve had breakfast, chased two steenbokkies and a jackal off the Dinaka runway, and after a beautiful 25min flight in a tiny Chessna 210, we land in Maun. But no driver from Planet Baobab…. Our very helpful porter will organise things and  tells us to go walk around a bit, he will come find us. Bad idea, we land in the gift shop, even worse, we drop into the helicopter scenic & photographic flight place. The pictures in the window looked so great, I want to do this ! Doors off  like in Namibia ! Maybe just before we fly to Jo’burg…. After that we sit down at the Duck, a cool restaurant right across from the airport, where they have brilliant coffee and super fast wifi, so no problem, we wait. 

An hour later the driver shows up and we drive the very boring, very straight road to Planet Baobab. Three hours later we arrive. It is basic here, but totally okay. here’s the link: https://planetbaobab.travel.   There are about ten huge baobabs on the property, the biggest one is absolutely huge, I guess it will need 8-10 people holding hands to surround it. 

We end up at the poolside with our laptops and a cold St.Louis beer for some writing and editing. As it seems we are the only two people going to the meerkats tomorrow so thats’s perfect, we’ll have them all to ourselves. Plus there are about 15 of them here, and at the much more expensive Camp Kalahari, where I originally wanted to go, they only have 8, ha ha, bargain !

Meerkats here we come. It is a 90min drive and it is as freezing as in the Kalahari. We came prepared, plus got a poncho each so we’re fine, just my feet are very cold. There is no wildlife here, just cows and goats, horses and donkeys. As we get close to the Ntwetwe salt pan, we pass a small village, then suddenly around the next hill there is a guy standing in the middle of no where, pointing at the ground. Here they are. 

For starters just one, looking straight into the sun, warming his belly. Soon a few more heads pop up and they all line up and stand there to warm up in the sun. All 15 of them are there, mostly adults and a few younger ones. They are so cute. At first they just stand there, then one after the other scurries off in search of food. Later they run around our legs chasing each other and we have a great time.

We have a breakfast there then move on to the actual Ntwetwe salt pan, it is white and flat and goes on forever. There is still too much water, it is too wet to continue, the jeep would sink in, so we stop. Get out and enjoy the very empty view, do some silly photos, then drive the 90min back to Planet Baobab. This was a brilliant excursion !

The next day we do it all again. Except now the jeep is filled to the brim, 6 Germans, 2 girls from the USA plus the two of us. Jürg quickly hops in the front, I get in the first row, let the others bounce in the back. Bad luck, new driver. An elderly man, who is intent on doing the tourist tour, stops for a baobab, weaverbirds and elephant tracks, even though there will not be elephants here for the next month or so. Then he takes the wrong track and we have to drive off-road, very slowly, to get back on track. So much time wasted.

So, as expected, we miss the best part, that’s when they come out of the burrow and stand up one beside the other. The meerkats are already out and spread all over the place, soon they start foraging and running around all. The tourists don’t seem to mind and find it all very cute, guess they don’t know they just missed the best part. We get the driver to leave us there with the meerkat watchman as they move on to the salt pan. They can pick us up on the way back. Got some nice shots after all when a dog walked by and the meerkats all stood together and watched until the dog was out of sight. It is getting bloody hot and we are glad when they finally come back to pick us up.

THE BONUS

Drive back to Maun and straight to the Helicopter Horizons office. Check them out, it is fabulous: https://www.helicopterhorizons.com.   I only booked yesterday and was lucky to get this one hour slot. A one hour flight in a helicopter without doors over the Okavango Delta, this is so unbelievably cool. We stay at about 200 foot (70m) so we see everything beautifully. There are burnt black plains full of zebras and gnus, elephants and hippos in, and around, the water. Shoot from the right, from the left, please circle again, we’re getting good at this. Then we go higher to do the abstract landscape shots from above. The best ones are those of the hippo highways, dark tracks in the very green channels. 

After that it’s more hippos and elephants, giraffe and some red lechwes on a tiny island in a flooded plain. They say the floods will come in a week or two-three, everything will be underwater by then. This is much cooler, we’ve unknowingly picked such a perfect time ! All to soon the fun ends, and we head back to Maun. I could have kept flying for hours, this is like a game drive from a very special angle and no bumps at all. In Maun we check our luggage in, and head back to the Duck for a last Botswana beer before we fly home. 

A big thank you to the Pangolin Photo hosts, especially Sabine, and to Stich and Bathusi our drivers and guides.

Botswana is simply the best !

For our favorite photos: go to gallery

 

copyright 2022: Astrid Blümel for bluemelphoto.ch