Safari in Botswana

We are back from our trip to Botswana where we enjoyed two weeks away from the hustle and bustle of our daily lives while seeing amazing landscapes and watching animals we had only ever seen in zoos before.  We stayed at four different camps with environments ranging from an inland delta to river front to dry salt pans.  We arose each day around 5:30 to head out for an early morning game drive then back around 10:30 for a short break before lunch.  The afternoon we spent lazing in the heat in our tent or around a pool before heading back out in the late afternoon for another opportunity to see the game with an evening cocktail in the bush watching the sun go down.  Then it was back for an evening meal, an occasional night game drive, and to bed under incredible stars.

  While there we many memorable moments during our trip, the one's that really stuck in our heads were as follows.  Elephants walking outside our tent at 2:30 in the morning.  It is really something to wake up in the middle of the night and see a massive elephant shadow pass by 3 feet away from your canvas tent.  Especially after seeing during the day the full grown trees that they had pushed over.  We had elephants around our tent 3 different nights moving around and eating, and I must say we never really got used to it.  It was a great experience but also a wee bit scary.

Sleeping out under the stars in the salt pans.  The camp had put out cots with just sheets and blankets for cover (that's the sunrise over the pans in the photo).  The complete lack of any man-made noise was amazing not to mention watching the full moon track across the sky along with the star display that you get to see when there aren't any lights.   Watching hyenas feed their young pups, especially when the female hyena passed right by my side of the safari jeep so close that I could have reached out to touch her (which I choose not to do since I really wanted to keep all my limbs attached). 

Enjoying a cocktail while sitting 6 feet away from two lionesses catching a nap.  Getting charged by a female elephant protecting her young.  Fortunately our guide had this well in hand, but not before both Jo and I felt our hearts in our throats.  Since having a multi-ton wild animal with big long tusks running at your side of the vehicle does tend to get one's heart racing.  And lastly, celebrating Jo's birthday under the stars with a private dinner, listening to the animals settling in for the night and enjoying a birthday cake and champagne.

I have included just a small number of photos from our trip and I'll have to leave it at that since we took a little over 1,300 pictures during our trip (a new personal best for us).  We also met a lot of interesting, well traveled people, were hosted by highly knowledgeable guides who were able to track animals through the woods, desert, and grasslands, and ate way too much great food 

The easiest way to express our trip, was it was probably the most memorable trip we have taken  Also, for anyone that visits us in the next year, be prepared to be bored to death watching countless photos of our trip - you were warned.