Standard price is $6660; special reflects a savings of 40%!

3 nights in the Moremi Game Reserve & the Okavango Delta:

• A luxurious, private, “Hemingway-style” tented safari camp
• Authentic en suite Meru tents exude old fashioned charm
• Excellent three course meals under the stars
• A pristine wilderness teeming with game
• The best locations for the best wildlife
• More wildlife and bird species than anywhere in Africa!

3 nights in the Makgadikgadi Salt Pans at Camp Kalahari:

• Perfect for fun and adventure in comfort & style
• Meru tents with en suite, outdoor bathrooms
• A traditional thatch library, living & dining area
• Pool with sun deck
• Fresh & tasty home-style menu
• Meet the Meerkats, brown hyena and aardvark… the Kalahari’s rare desert species
• Walk with Bushmen trackers
• Search out ancient stone tools
• Visit Chapman’s Baobab
• In the dry season, quad bike across the pans & watch the horizon-to-horizon stars

Please contact us for more details at info@exploreafrica.net or 970-871-0065.

I recently went on the “Wild Africa: Botswana and Zambia” tour in Sept 2011.  I am retired, have traveled quite a bit, and do occasional contract work to help pay for extra special trips.  This was my first Road Scholar trip.  (I had so much fun that I’m about to sign up for another Road Scholar adventure.)  The blog was started in response to requests from my friends to describe my travels because they wanted to experience my adventures vicariously.  With that in mind, I try to provide a more experiential description than just a dry itinerary.  Please bear in mind, that anything I post on my blog is strictly my own thoughts, which do not necessarily reflect the experience of other travelers.  All my entries about the safari are posted in Sept and Oct 2011.

Enjoy,
Ronya
http://www.willworkforairfare.blogspot.com/

Link for more information on the Wild Africa Road Scholar program or to enroll

Finkelstein Family with Cheetah

Our trip – organized by Explore – to Botswana and Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe in late June was perfectly planned by Elizabeth providing us a myriad of animal life and creature comforts that could not be improved upon.  We – family of 4 with two older children – stayed at four locations: three in Botswana – Pom-Pom Camp, Gunns Camp, and Chobe Safari Lodge and at the Elephant Camp in Zimbabwe.  Each was spectacular yet different from one another.  All provided both wonderful experiences with the African flora and fauna along with terrific food, lodging, and interaction with the staff.

The abundant animal life at Pom-Pom is a highlight we will not forget.  Seeing 7 lion cubs and 4 adult females eating the remains of a giraffe on the very first jeep ride was shocking yet amazing.  Gunns is a smaller camp but our most relaxing stop.  Chobe Safari Lodge is a fine hotel and its design more familiar to us but we enjoyed the camps more.  The Chobe National Park is a treasure but one only needs two jeep rides and one boat trip (lunch boat trip was more fun than the evening one).  We had three days there and spent some time reading by the pool and watching the monkeys try to steal our Fantas.  At no time were we bored.  Lastly, we traveled into Zimbabwe and stayed at the Elephant Camp which was our favorite lodging.  The tent rooms are luxurious and the setting spectacular.  Seeing and interacting with their pet cheetah is a memory we will all cherish.  Getting into Zimbabwe is a pain but worth it despite the visa cost for four people.  Victoria Falls is great fun and the town curio shop prices quite reasonable.  We kept away from the crafts market and the many street hawkers (although I nearly traded my Explore cap for a bowl).  If I was there without my children I may have been a bit more curious.  At no time did we fell unsafe.  All of the camp guides (one or two assigned only to your group) and staff are knowledgeable and go out of their way to assist.  At the Chobe Safari Lodge it is a little different as each trip into the Park is staffed by a different person so the individual connection is somewhat lost.

At each stop, the camp/hotel was expecting us and the small plane flights/auto rides to the next location always on schedule.  All of the journeys into the bush or river at the camps/lodge are perfectly timed. We had two point and shoot cameras (Canon, Olympus) both with up to 80X that took fabulous pictures/movies so spending over $500 ($1000!) for a SLR with a powerful telephoto lens is, in our opinion, not necessary.

~K. Finkelstein

Historic Opening of the Selinda / Zarafa Waterway in Botswana |
A channel now links two Great Plains Camps to the Zibidianja Lagoon

The Selinda Reserve is situated in the Linyanti Region of Northern Botswana and forms a vital conservation link between the Okavango Delta in the North West and Savuti / Chobe areas in the East. A river channel, known as the Selinda Spillway, ribbons through the reserve flowing eastward from the Okavango Delta into the Zibidianja lagoon before splitting into the the Linyanti and Chobe rivers to feed the Savute Channel.

Up until two years ago the Selinda Spillway was not a complete waterway. Through increased rainfall levels in Angola, and theories of substrata seismic activity in 2008, the spillway now runs freely from the Okavango through to the Zibidianja Lagoon.

This incredible change has already had a marked impact on the activities of the Selinda Reserve. The most substantial is the four day/three night Selinda Canoe Trail down the spillway, ending close to Selinda Camp during May to October. Fishing and boat cruises are expanded on the spillway and guests can arrive in camp by boat from the airstrip.

Between Selinda Camp and the Zibidianja lagoon lies a 4 kilometre stretch of the channel, previously blocked by floating reed beds. Now the reeds are cleared there is a channel from the Okavango Delta to the mouth of the Savuti Channel, eliminating the two hour drive between the camps. Guests can now find themselves in either the north or southern parts of the reserve in less than thirty minutes.

The newly expansive channel between Selinda and Zarafa camps is a stunning, deep waterway surrounded by high reeds. This untainted part of the spillway hides many rare birds and a Black Crowned Night Heronry.

Great Plains Conservation will move the Selinda Camp canoes further along the new channel. Opening up walking areas on the islands between the channels linking to a Selinda Hide. On the Zarafa side it opens up the Zibidianja Lagoon to the Selinda Spillway. HMS Zibidianja, a large platform boat for guests, has a new water system to explore.

Game viewing without boundaries will have a profound impact on both camps in the Selinda Reserve. At Great Plains we like to explore new boundaries and provide adventure for our guests. This breakthrough will certainly provide that.

Click to find the latest news of the newly opened waterway between Zarafa and Selinda camps.

Click here to see the photographs of Stephen Frink’s daughter, Alexa (http://stephenfrink.blogspot.com/2010/07/alexa-shoots-africa.html):

I’ve recently come home from an extraordinarily productive photo tour, on safari in Southern Africa, Zambia and Botswana specifically. Organized by our friends at Explore Africa, http://www.exploreafrica.net, this tour began at Lion Camp in Zambia, and then went on to Selinda and Jao camps in Botswana.

Here is a brief photo diary of the trip and its many, many highlights:

Our first camp was Lion Camp in Zambia. We specifically chose that because the game viewing is so very good there. Elizabeth at Explore suggested it, knowing that we would likely get enough stellar images the first few days that part of our photo imperative might be satisfied. She was so right! The first night we witnessed a leopard killing an impala. Good for us and our photo-ops. Not so great for the impala. Of course, that was on top of all the other general game (in the bush and along the rivers) we shot during the day.

The second night we witnessed another leopard kill, and the third night a lion kill. This kind of trifecta of predation I’ve never seen anywhere else on safari, and this was the 8th safari we’ve conducted in both southern Africa and East Africa.

Leaving Lion Camp and Zambia we flew into Botswana, cleared customs and then were flown via private aircraft to Selinda Camp, a private game reserve and lodge owned and operated by renown wildlife photography and cinema team, Beverly and Dereck Joubert. We’d met on safari three years previously, when I was leading a tour to Mombo Camp in Botswana and the Jouberts had just to shoot some stock footage. Coincidentally, the same day we’d earlier seen a beautiful scenario of a young leopard cub and mother in a nearby den. Dereck began filming this cub as it grew, for over three years actually, an experience which eventually evolved into a film, Eye of the Leopard, for National Geographic.

I’ve always been impressed with the Joubert’s visions of Africa, so intimate and respectful of the wildlife, and I figured if they felt the game opportunities were motivation to run a camp here, I would confidently follow their lead. Selinda did not disappoint!

A brief tip of the hat to Explore again for the air arrangements. We had private aircraft for our group of 19 at each camp, and they operated on time with the utmost courtesy and professionalism. When you are far away and in remote locations, that is great comfort.

Selinda offered the opportunity for game viewing from vehicles or boats, and because there is so much water in the Delta where they operate, Derek has chosen vehicles equipped with snorkels so they operate in water deeper than the floorboards. From hippos in the river to lions prowling the high grasses, this was an very productive camp, that operates at the highest level of service.

The highlight of our Selinda experience was watching a pride of lions with their young leaving for a night’s hunt. We photographed them in the gorgeous late afternoon light and into the dark as the searched for game, and eventually rendezvoused with the dominant male lion.

Like Selinda, Jao Camp is one of the premier safari properties operated by Wilderness Safaris. I’ve come to expect nothing but the best from a Wilderness Safaris property, and since Jao offered both excellent game viewing and an upscale spa ambiance, this is where we chose as our final camp.

This was a year of exceptional rain in the Okavango Delta, not while we were there, as is was beautifully sunny the whole time. But earlier in the year they had their most rain in several decades, and it meant that some of the roads near camp that might normally offer game viewing were underwater. However, the best game opportunities are but a 45-minute boat ride away anyway, at Hunda Island. Here we saw vast plains of grasses with elephants, giraffe, zebra, and of course the cats, both leopard and lion.

Being a Delta camp, Jao delivers the water activities quite well, including stable boats large enough for 8-10 photographers, and less stable but more intimate merkoros (like narrow dug-out canoes, but made of fiberglass these days) to offer a water-level view of the the vegetation of the Okavango.

Thanks to Explore and Lion Camp, Selinda, and Jao. This was the greatest safari experience yet, and we look forward now to the next one, hopefully soon!

To see the amazing images our 17-year old daughter Alexa took on this same safari, please visit my earlier blog post from July, here at http://stephenfrink.blogspot.com/2010/07/alexa-shoots-africa.html. It is easier to simply scroll up to the “July” tab on this page, and click on “Alexa Shoots Africa”. Yeah, I know, she kicked my butt. I’d say “beginner’s luck” but she had a terrific shoot on our last safari too. She has a great eye for composition, very instinctive.

-Stephen Frink, Photographer, www.stephenfrink.com

While staying at Kwando’s Nxai Pan camp, Stuart Arnold, a Botswana-based professional photographer was amazed to spot an unusual elephant drinking at the waterhole at the front of the camp.  Upon closer inspection it was discovered that the elephant carried an amazing 3 tusks!!

The tusks of an African Elephant grow continuously throughout their life –  a bull elephant’s tusks can grow up to 18 cm in a year. Tusks are an elephant’s tool and they are used for a variety of tasks including digging for water and roots or to strip bark from trees.

All elephant’s, like humans are either right- or left-handed, favoring a right or left tusk. The most often used tusk, is generally shorter due to wear and tear.  While the majority of elephants have two tusks, occasionally individual elephants exhibit abnormal growth which can include additional tusks.  Such examples are extremely rare.  As one can see from the images, the elephant is a mature bull and therefore has managed to live a long life despite his unusual third tusk.

Our intimate journey through Southern Africa will be led by Singer Rankin, founder of WorldWomenWork (WWW).  “I had been traveling extensively in Africa and Asia for 25 years and was becoming increasingly concerned about the loss of habitat for wildlife and the seemingly endless cycle of poverty.  One day as I was trekking on Kanchenjunga in Nepal, the world’s third largest mountain, and the idea just came to me:  buy beautiful things made by indigenous women and sell them to my friends and women who love hand-crafted, quality goods.  Then donate the profits to conservation and towards education projects for women.  A simple way to change lives and help the environment!”…and thus WorldWomenWork was born.

For ten years, Singer has combined Africa and Asia, meeting women artisans who make beautiful, unusual things and help them organize to market their goods to the outside world.  WorldWomenWork provides a steady stream of income which grows local women’s enterprises, sells their products, and ultimately donates all proceeds from the sales to projects that educate girls, build economic independence for women and their families, and protect the natural world.  On this extraordinary trip you visit some of Singer’s favorite places in Africa, experience the best of African wilderness and wildlife, and meet the remarkable women who are gaining economic independence through their work with WWW.

Click here for more information on this special journey!

Singer Rankin, World Women Work

While all of our guides varied in background, personality and guiding experience, all were excellent.  We learned a lot and had much pleasure doing so.  Private guides/vehicles gave us the flexibility and pace we enjoy.  We wanted to have lots of time viewing leopards and our experiences were surpassed.

After multiple trips we continue to appreciate EXPLORE’s knowledge, experience, enthusiasm and responsiveness.”

-Madeleine Cohen, Spring 2009

The contemporary design of the boat is a nice contrast after experiencing some of Botswana’s classic safari lodges. It offers 14 opulent cabins, a small outdoor plunge pool for cooling off in the hot months, a very chic bar with a classy/cool lounge area and wood-burning fireplace, an air-conditioned library filled with documentaries on African history and wildlife and meals created by qualified South African chefs.

From your cabin balcony or the top deck you have outstanding game viewing.  You also have the option of participating in land excursions on either the Botswana or Namibian side (which are included in the price).  The area is home to over 400 different species of bird, 120,000 elephant, buffalo, leopard, lion and the rare puku among others.

Make sure when you’re booking with us to ask for advice regarding which rooms are cooler (only the reading room has air conditioning).  This is a great option to combine with Zambia, Zimbabwe or other parts of Botswana such as the Eden-like Utopia of the Okavango Delta!

The mysterious river created in the Spillway is very rarely seen in its full color and its flowing brings new life to this region of Botswana, creating an interexchange of species between the Okavango and Kwando-Linyanti systems. Dried up for the better part of the past three decades, the spillway is as wide as 100 yards in some places but mostly shallow and has become an absolute magnet for the wildlife in the area.

To fully experience this rare event guests in the Selinda Reserve, the 320,000 acre private wildlife sanctuary, are now able to canoe through the Spillway, bringing them closer to the flora and fauna than ever before.