African Safari 2007

Dan and Assana started with four days in Hong Kong; We traveled through London. We all met in Johannesberg just before 7am on December 1st. It was amazing to have come opposite directions around the globe and landed within 5 minutes of each other. After an hour and a half flight to Maun, we took a 6 seat bush plane to Jack's Camp, about a 50 minute flight away.

We were met at the tiny airstrip by Chubba, our guide at Jack's Camp, which is at the edge of the Makgadikgadi salt pan in the Kalahari desert. It had just rained so there was quite a bit of standing water, but our 4 wheel drive jeep had no trouble.

Cyrus, the camp manager greeted us as we arrived. We had a bit of tea and then were shown our tents. They were wonderful! About 16' x 40' with zippered screens over the front and back entrances. Inside were two elevated beds. The interior was made of dark woods and very ornate. At the back was the bathroom (with a wooden 'throne') and both indoor and outdoor showers. It was really amazing! We took a shower and changed into some light safari clothing.

Chubba took us for a drive in the Jeep across the plains where we saw ostrich, helicopter birds (crazy creatures that squawk whenever they fly and hardly seem able to land), turtles, zebra, flamingo and gazelle. Just before sunset we stopped at a table and chairs that was waiting for us, all set up with a full bar with some snacks. Chubba started a fire and we watched the colorful sunset. Then we heard a strange noise and drove over to find out that it was a large owl up in a tree.  

On our way back we saw lots of eyes lit up in the powerful spotlight that Chubba pointed into the brush. We also saw lots of frogs which had come out from underground in response to the rain. Back at camp we had a wonderful candle lit dinner of ostrich, very tasty! (We had to fight with the 'wine moths' for our cabernet and soup). After chatting with the two other guests for a while we retired to our tent. Chubba escorted us there as we had been instructed not to walk around camp after dark as there are sometimes lions walking through camp(!). It was so dark that we could see a sky full of stars, including an upside down Orion.

Chubba brought us coffee on the front porch of our tent at 5am, and we all met at the jeep at 5:30 to head out to see the meerkats. We drove around for a while looking for Babille. He's a bushman who follows the meerkats around during the day to keep track of them; they can travel several kilometers in a day. When we found him he was surrounded by 20 or so meerkats all prowling around on the brush. They were so cute! They were digging in the dirt to find beetles and frogs. When they'd find a frog it would make a weird gurgling sound, right before they ate it (legs first).  

After watching them for a while we drove a short distance to a baobab tree. It's a huge tree that's between 3000 and 5000 years old! After walking around for a while we headed back to camp, seeing a small herd of zebras along the way. After a delicious lunch, we all lounged in the main tent for the afternoon. Around 3pm four other guests arrived, two newlyweds from Milan and a couple from Barcelona.

At 4:30pm we all met for tea in the main tent, then Chubba took the four of us for a drive to see a brown hyena that lives in a den a few miles from camp. We also saw some black back jackals foraging in the tall grass. We drove along the edge of the pan and saw a large herd of zebras, warily watching us, making sure we didn't get too close. We followed them around a bit, then spotted some wildebeest in the distance. We got a bit closer to them and then stopped for sunset. The colors were amazing! We drove back to camp as it was getting dark.

We sat right down to dinner, which was some really tasty fish (steak for Dan). Tonight we had a large number of Christmas beetles that joined us, buzzing around the table. We opted not to have the lanterns on the table to keep them a bit further away from the food. After walking back to our tent, we went right to sleep. At about 3am we heard some noise outside the tent which we later learned was a porcupine.

We got up a little later and met in the main tent for breakfast at 6am. At 6:30 we headed for the  Makgadikgadi National Park, about an hour's drive away. Along the way we saw ostrich, flamingo, secretary birds (with note pads dangling from their feet), a mozambique spitting cobra, oryx and wildebeest (along with dozens of noisy helicopter birds). Within the park we also saw two different herds of zebra, one with around 200 in it (though Assana thought there were more like 401). On the way back to camp we almost got stuck in some deep mud, but Chubba persevered and we clawed our way out and took a slightly different path. Lunch was a tasty lentil and feta salad. Afterwards Dan and Assana took a quick plunge in the pool while Rick and Randy watched a storm that passed nearby the camp.

After tea we headed back out to see the meerkats again. Along the way we saw a small herd of wildebeest. The pregnant female meerkat from two days before had given birth, so the group was headed back to protect the babies for the night. Tonight they were dining on mostly scorpions and they were quite good at finding them all over the place. Once they were back at the den, they set up a guard post on top, though most of them were too sleepy to stay awake and kept toppling over.

Back at camp we had 14 people around the table as a couple of researchers had dropped in for the night. It was quite lively! During the night we heard the porcupine, but this time we got up and saw it by using a flashlight.

We had breakfast at 6 and then 3 bushman joined us in the main tent to take us on a walk. They were all related, the 87 year old grandfather, his grandson and another relative. The grandfather was even in authentic bushman garb. We walked off from the camp and had demonstrations of digging up scorpions, identifying animal dung (did you know you can smoke rabbit dung?), making fire and playing an animated game of rock, paper, steembok. We all laughed as the grandfather had to pull his grandson out of an aardvark hole that he crawled into.They also demonstrated shooting arrows with amazing accuracy. They whole walk lasted about 3 hours.

At about 11am Chubba took us down to the airstrip for the flight to Kwando Lagoon.

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