Safari and luxury
Lion Sands was the perfect final stop on our safari adventure. We had travelled to two other camps in Botswana before finishing with 3 days at LS.
Staff were warm, welcoming, and tended to our needs. We were privileged to have Landon and Eddie as our guide and tracker. Jeffery also took care of our needs while in camp at every meal----a very humble and funny man.
We were able to view all the animals we wanted to see in close proximity without feeling threatened or disturbing the wildlife. One particular lion pride viewing was spectacular....around 15 lions grooming, playing, and getting VERY close to our vehicle.
The weather was perfect during our trip which was late January into February.
Lion Sands made it extremely easy and fun with travel between camps, airports, and game drives.
Our highlight was viewing an adolescent elephant trying to intimidate our truck by mock charging, flaring his ears, raising his trunk and so on. We all got a good laugh and were treated to this close up encounter ( check my video plus voice over http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69URe-21FO4 ).
My parents also had the opportunity to stay in the 'treehouse' one night. Quite an adventure for them! Extremely beautiful venue and a once in a lifetime opportunity.
And one must not forget Lion Sands Frank....he will send you on your way and greet you on your way back in with quite the song and dance :)
NL
50-65 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Holiday safari
What a lovely holiday it was in South Africa!
The animals made a wonderful impression on us as well as the scenery. The food is excellent and the people are very hospitable. Our guide was very good at showing us around.
35-50 years of age
Organised
I went on the horse workshop in Pakamisa. It was really a stunning experience. Accommodation and food were really fantastic. All the organising into photographing the horses was really well done. Overall it was a really great time. Weather - one cannot control the weather although our weather was relatively good. My highlight were the horses - I love horses and love photographing and being around them.
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Absolute trip of a lifetime!
I have just finished the full 72 day Absolute Safari. We covered an enormous distance seeing and doing so many incredible things.. Game driving in the big yellow truck, crossing boarders, mountain treks and gorillas, islands and beautiful beaches, house boat charters, wild rafting down grade 5 rapids, sleeping under the stars, water holes, desert, mountains, rainforest, 4 seasons... I have hardly scratched the surface! This is a hands on camping safari which is a bit rugged on the edges but well organized covering a great trip route on an itinerary through Africa, and comes with the support of 2 road crew to assist you on your adventure. I highly recommend this company to those with a sense of fun and adventure to get the most out of the people and places visited on this safari.
20-35 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
the crew and office were fantastic! made a great trip - lots of fun and value for money
The trip was varied in what we saw and what we did, animals and scenery were fantastic. My guide and driver were friendly and full of information. The accommodation was basic camping but good - some lovely campsites. The Big Yellow Truck was exciting! food was excellent, i want to go with them again!
20-35 years of age | Experience level: first safari
Incredible wildlife and an amazing lodge experience!
There aren’t enough good things I can say about our time at Mala Mala. It was genuinely a once-in-a-lifetime experience. There were times when it was hard to remember we were in a jeep because our animal encounters were so vivid and personal. For instance, we watched a baby water buffalo born just minutes before our arrival take its first, halted steps. Later, we looked up into a tree and saw a leopard ripping apart an impala it had just killed, while a hyena circled below waiting for scraps. We were only twenty feet or so away from the hyena – too awesome! The impalas, alas, endured another casualty the next day. In the morning, we saw a pack of wild dogs fighting over the pieces of an impala, which gives new meaning to the phrase “pack of wild dogs.” We saw a plethora of giraffes, elephants, rhinos, and zebras, oftentimes only a few feet away from our jeep.
We saw big game everywhere, but one of the more interesting compenents of the safari was learning how a complex ecosystem operates – from the smallest insects to the leopards and lions. For instance, our ranger spoke to us at length about the “life cycle” of rhino droppings, and scooped a small mound off our path to reveal an ant lion hiding in its hole – no larger than the size of a pencil eraser. There was nature all around us, from the elephant herd that walked by my porch only fifty yard away, to the amazing stars in the night sky. I genuinely adored each moment.
One of the more meaningful moments was the morning of our departure, when we went on one last drive to see the only Big Five animal we had left to spot – a lion. After an extensive search involving quite a bit of off-roading with tree branches whipping our faces, we came upon a pride of five lions, lying in the center of the road, asleep. I could now check off the Big Five! I even received a certificate to prove it.
Review about Nxai Pan National Park by Leslie Bialik
It offers everything that the Central Kalahari Game Reserve offers and some very interesting salt pans and baobab trees, too. Kwando Safaris gave us an experience very similar to that of Central Kalahari Game Reserve and I fulfilled a lifelong dream of meeting my first San Bushman who was our tracker. Our guide was Lucky Garenamotse who owns Lucky Tours and Safaris and who was on loan to Kwando for 3 months. I would recommend Lucky to anyone! He knows everything about the birds and plants in Botswana and a whole lot more, too. Sweet guy, great driver, lots of fun.
It was everything we imagined about the Kalahari Desert - wildlife everywhere and intense heat!
This was an amazing place so full of contradictions. It looked like there wouldn't be too much wildlife supported in the desert-like area, but animals were everywhere! There were no rhinos, hippos or buffalo because of the arid environment, but plenty of lions and cheetahs, elephants, giraffes, gemsbok, springbok, zebras, snakes, and so many birds! Kwando Safaris gave us a top notch experience with excellent food, bush walks with San Bushmen, game drives and beautiful accommodations looking out at the waterhole. Our guide was extremely knowledgeable about any questions we had, and our tracker was a San who did an interesting bush walk and was able to identify and locate everything for us. The birds were particularly impressive with their variety and beauty, and the insects were the biggest we've ever seen. We saw lions mating and cheetahs on the hunt. Kwando Safaris is environmentally friendly with all their power from solar energy. They had no internet, no cell coverage, no radio, no tv, but did have power points where we could charge our computers and cameras. There is no air conditioning, but with the thatch-roofed huts and the ceiling fan, we were able to stay reasonably cool during the 110F heat of the day. We weren't expecting such attention from the staff and were treated like royalty. I'd recommend Kwando Safaris and the Central Kalahari Game Reserve to anyone. It provided us with a lifetime of memories to cherish.
US
50-65 years of age | Experience level: 2-5 safaris
An astounding bush experience marked by spectacular wildlife...like living in an IMAX movie!
Although technically the most rustic of the places we stayed, our camp in Musanza was situated in an idyllic riverbank setting, and was surrounded by mopane (which actually look similar to ironwood trees and were unknown to us, although they are rather common in the area) and checkerwood trees. It ended up surpassing our expectations and was our favorite of all the camps we have visited. The staff were wonderful and the cook was great; the food was superb. There was something amazing about having the opportunity to lounge in collapsable "director's chairs" just outside our tent before high tea in the late afternoon, watching the exotic birds in the tree and vines, reading, or occasionally seeing or hearing hippos splash in the Lufupa river fifty feet away.
Yes, hearing hippos. I had never before thought about hippos making noise, but they actually make a very distinctive (and rather loud) sound that marked our days and nights and that we had never before experienced. It is an expansive and deep laughing sound, as if someone had recorded a guffaw and then played it back --much louder-- at a slower speed. At the risk of dating myself, I would liken it to a 45 rpm record being played back at 33 rpm. The hippos frolic and splash in the water, submerge themselves for a few minutes, then resurface and bellow out HOOOO HAR HAR. (One person in our group posited that they go under the water to share fart jokes, then come back to the surface to laugh over them. If you ever have the chance to hear this sound you will find this explanation strangely.
The beasts splash around in the water, submerge for a minute or two, then surface and call out HOOOOO HAR HAR HAR. (One wag in our tour group suggested that they go underwater to tell fart jokes, then surface to laugh at them. If you ever get to hear this sound you will find that theory strangely conceivable.)
We really wanted to walk that fifty feet and sit on the river bank, but were told to keep a distance of at least ten feet from the water at all times, since that is the striking point of the crocodiles who share the water with the hippos. We did not need to be instructed on this twice.
One of Musanza's afternoon activities was a boat ride up the river that lasted a few hours, in an outboard aluminum skiff that accommodated roughly seven. There was a plethora of birds, and as we meandered up river our boat driver made sure to maneuver around the hippos. You would think since the hippos are fairly large targets that this might be an easy task, however, since they occupy a fair amount of time underwater is more difficult (and more dangerous) than it appears. There were times when he would spot bubbles further down the river and would simply steer us in a compact circle for a few minutes until the underwater hippos had vacated. There was an occasion where he misjudged, and a hippo reared just under the surface about two feet to the left of the rig, causing a huge ripple and provoking a not entirely uncalled for shout from a woman who had the distinction of sitting right at that point of the boat.
Hippos look funny, and their laugh adds to that picture, but they are genuinely dangerous because of their inclination for capsizing boats. They are close to the top of the list of large animals that routinely cause human deaths. (This being around here of course; there are not very many hippo-related casualties in our neighborhood). They are also threatening to each other, with a social structure that features a lot of the alpha-male, "are YOU lookin' at ME?" stuff. A couple miles upstream from our camp on the river bank, we happened upon a severely injured young male hippo limping through the brush and into the river. He had a nasty wound on his left rear flank, which most likely arose from a brush with the wrong adult male.
A stop at the Treetops school was including on our boat trip. This school is where more affluent parents, mostly from the capital Lusaka, send their children for four to five days of seeing the animals, living in the bush, etc. It is basically a summer camp featuring elephants. There was a larger variety of ethnic diversity than we expected (Indian, black, and white), until we were given the explanation behind "affluent": these were al children of the diplomats and other "upper crust" in Lusaka. The school had a classroom and separate, camp-style dorm buildings, and was situated in a clearing close by the riverbank. The setting was dominated by a giant baobab tree, which also merits some discussion.
If you have ever studied French in school then you probably read "The Little Prince," By St. Exupéry, in which case you have already conjured up a mental image of a baobab tree as a vine-draped thing that has roots drooping from all its branches and thus spreads itself over a very wide area. Well, delete that image because St. Exupéry was entirely wrong in confusing a baobab tree with a banyan. A baobab is defined by a very wide trunk and comparatively thin branches - in fact, it looks as if someone chopped off all the branches from a much older tree and they have only been growing back over the past couple years. The trunks are of such great diameter that in old times poorer residents of the village would hollow them out and use the still living tree as a home; in some instances the community would use them as prisons. The baobab at Treetops could probably have served as a small maximum security jail: the tree was roughly 150' high and easily 25'-30' wide at its base. (We have a picture of us standing at the base - it's so big that you have to look two times to see us.)
We left Musanza (and Zambia) with heavy hearts; it had truly been an Edenic three days and we really bonded with the staff there (it probably didn't hurt that we were the only guests). As seems to be the standard procedure at every camp we have visited, the last night included musical performance by the staff, a lively drum display that had everyone up on their feet.
Review about Botswana by Leslie Bialik
Botswana is a very friendly place. The government is stable and doesn't tolerate corruption. There are many locals who have small safari services and some larger safari companies, too. There are good choices and the prices are fair. The country has so much to offer - the wetlands of the Okavango Delta, the salt pans of Nxai Pan National Park, the bushveld of the Central Kalahari Game Reserve. I'd go back to Botswana in a heartbeat! But if you go in their summer, be prepared for blistering heat!