A Lucky Safari

A LUCKY SAFARI

            When Americans or Europeans travel to see the great African wild animals, they usually end up with some kind of package tour that includes airfare, transfers, accommodations and guided excursions through a game park. It’s not cheap, but there is a wide range of prices for these package tours. The destinations are usually in East Africa (probably Kenya and/or Tanzania) or southern Africa (South Africa and/or Botswana).  Safari companies along with government tourist agencies promote these options. The Botswana tourism folks made the decision a long while ago to focus on the development of small, high-end facilities. It is a better animal conservation strategy, and it is more profitable. So, in Botswana, you are less likely to find hotel style lodges overlooking a watering hole and more likely to find small luxury tented camps or cabins near a private air strip that can go for up to $2000 per person per night.

            Peace Corps volunteers use money from home (or from their parents) to fund their safari adventures. I previously talked about our June trip to Mashatu tented camp, which we visited off-season at Botswana resident rates. For our children’s visit, we wanted to do something different. We had heard good things about a guide from northern Botswana who organized customized safaris for a number of Peace Corps volunteers with visiting family. We made contact and hired the guide, Lucky Mokgowe, for what turned out to be a memorable eight-day adventure.

            Lucky started out his career working for one of the larger lodges in northern Botswana. He wanted to branch out on his own, and a Peace Corps volunteer customer gave him some advice to get started. Over the past few years, satisfied Peace Corps volunteers have helped Lucky create a business plan, develop a web site and register a trade name. I may end up helping him stop a competitor from using his business name, which is Lucky Adventure Safaris, www.luckyadventuresafaris.com.

            After our children stayed with us for four days in Goodhope, we all piled into a crowded combi bound for the capital, Gaborone. There, we boarded a plane for Kasane, a village in northern Botswana close to the borders with Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe. Lucky met us at the airport with his official golden yellow safari vehicle: an older Toyota Land Cruiser, customized with seating for 8 in the back and a pop up top that shields the sun. Fun Fact #1: the place on the Zambezi River where these four countries meet (give or take 150 meters) is the only quadripoint national border in the world.  

 

So many countries, so little time

            Lucky arranged for us to take a motorboat ride that afternoon along the Chobe River. It reminded us of the Scarborough (Maine) Marsh, with winding channels and tall green marsh grasses hosting many water birds. The difference was, of course, that the Chobe River also features hippos and crocodiles. Also many varieties of antelopes and other animals parade to the river’s edge for a drink. Our son (who works on a boat) was interested in the triple decked luxury hotel boats that ply up and down the Chobe to its confluence with the Zambezi. After our cruise, we spent the night at an inn in Kasane.

 

Just like the Scarborough Marsh, except for hippos (like these) and crocodiles

            The next morning, Lucky picked us up for our four-hour journey deep into Chobe National Park, to the area known as the Savuti River marsh (really, an area of meadows amidst the prevailing scrubby landscape). The paved road shortly gave way to gravel, and then to dirt as we bumped along deep into the bush. By mid-afternoon, we arrived at our home for the next three nights: a private campsite alongside a pool of the intermittently flowing Savuti River. Yes, Lucky specializes in camping safaris, where you really get close to the animals.

            Lucky’s two staffers, the cook and the assistant, had already set up camp by the time we got there. They had traveled earlier in the official Lucky Adventure Safaris support vehicle, which is another Land Cruiser outfitted to carry lots of gear. Our camp featured two khaki-colored tents, one for us and one for the children. Each tent contained two cots with mattresses, sheets and blankets. Lucky and his helpers pitched their own tents on the other end of the campsite. In the middle of the assemblage was a dining table and chairs shielded by an open-sided tent. In a corner of the campsite, hanging by rope from a tree branch, was a canvas water cylinder with a nozzle at the bottom. It made for a great shower, and for privacy there was a canvas wall frame around it. The kitchen area far from our tents featured portable propane gas cooktops along with large insulated picnic coolers to store food. There was even a small fridge that ran off a spare battery in the safari truck. The assistant dug a hole into the sandy red earth to form a small pit latrine, then crowned it with a metal frame holding a toilet seat and screened it by another canvas wall frame.

 

Dining tent, with other tents in the background

            Late that afternoon we began what would become a twice daily ritual: piling into the back of Lucky’s Land Cruiser for a 3 to 4 hour game drive. HE drove us all over the remote Savuti part of the park, stopping to watch lions sleeping and occasionally hunting, leopards feasting on a dead elephant, giraffes mating (hey, we weren’t alone, there was an elephant watching too), zebras, wildebeests and cape buffaloes grazing in large herds, elephants following their matriarch marching silently to a watering hole, impalas, waterbucks, kudus and other antelopes nervously watching their newborns as they munched on the new green grass, and solitary warthogs jogging along through all of this action, as if they were the stage managers for the drama taking place in the park. During the morning drive, Lucky would stop the Land Cruiser so we could get out and enjoy a cup of coffee. During the evening drive, he would stop at a scenic sunset overlook and serve us a glass of wine. One day we hiked up a small hill to see ancient rock paintings left by the San (Bushmen), the original inhabitants of southern Africa, now largely relegated to remote corners of the Kalahari.

Lucky, Pat and I on a hillside in front of San (Bushmen) rock paintings

 

Elephant with her calf near Chobe River. Botswana may have more elephants than any other African country.

Female lions walking in front of the Lucky official safari vehicle. They were hunting as a pair to take down a warthog, but a herd of elephants got in the way.

            After returning from the morning drive, we would eat a hearty brunch, then lay around the camp during the heat of the day. We did not venture far off. We could see droppings from a variety of animals nearby, and occasionally an animal would appear and drink from the pool. We had a campfire each night, and that kept animals away while we ate our dinner. Lucky warned us about the dangers of relieving ourselves during the night, after the fire went dark. We were told to survey the outside of the tent with a flashlight before emerging, and then we were advised to do our business close by, and not to venture all the way to the pit latrine. That was a good recommendation. Each night, we sensed steps outside of our tents, and heard the sounds of hyenas, baboons, elephants and zebras. It was not so much frightening as exciting, and moving. We could imagine the European explorers from 150 years ago encountering similar nighttime noises.

            After three nights at Savuti, we broke camp (actually, Lucky and his crew did all of the work) and we headed north for two nights at a campsite closer to the Chobe River itself. There the team again set up camp for us, and we enjoyed more game drives and more adventures. Closer to the river there were many Vervet monkeys and baboons. Among all of us primates, it was not clear who was watching whom. The monkeys crashed our evening wine event, grabbing errant crumbs of potato chips that fell on the ground.

            This camping safari was well worth the time and effort to get to Kasane. But Lucky had even more in store for us. After leaving the Chobe River camp, he drove us back through Kasane, across the Zimbabwe border, and on to Victoria Falls. We stayed there one night, enjoying both civilization and some of the finery of the colonial era. We had lunch on the verandah at the stately Victoria Falls Hotel (think of a tropical Mount Washington Hotel). We then walked along the paths around the Zimbabwe side of the mighty cascade. We declined many thrill-seeking opportunities: bungee jumping off the Zambezi River bridge, category 5+ white water rafting below the falls and swimming just barely above the falls in a place called Devil’s Pool. Fun Fact #2: Zimbabwe’s economy is such a basket case that it now uses the American dollar as its currency. I even got a Benjamin out of an ATM machine in Victoria Falls.

 

Victoria Falls, from the Zimbabwe side

            We said our goodbyes to Lucky at Kasane Airport and then headed back to Gaborone. The following evening, we said our farewells to Kate and Pat as they began their long journey home, through Johannesburg, London and Boston. The final verdict from the two of us: a wonderful safari and, more important, a wonderful visit with our children.

 

Here we are with Lucky and his official safari vehicle