First of all, don’t waste your time doing a self-drive safari unless you have a good idea of where to go and when. Mike and I spent 3 days at Kruger, and only saw lots of animals when we were with a guide. The guides also keep in radio contact with each other, so if something interesting is happening they will be alerted about it. Not to mention its just more fun to have someone drive you around, and give you animal trivia you’ll probably never use.

Typically a safari lodge will have two game drives per day. The first one usually means you have to wake up insanely early, even though its supposed to be a “vacation”. At Kruger NP the game drives depart at 3:45am. But in the Okavanga Delta, our wake up call was at 5:30am–I guess the animals “sleep in” in Botswana compared to their South African counterparts.

Anyways at 5:30, the sun is just breaking and beginning to warm up the day. Amazingly, the temperature is nice and cool in the morning (about 60′), but by mid-morning it can be pretty hot and steamy. The early morning is my favorite because the light from the sun seems to be hitting everything just right–the trees have a nice warm tone, you can see the dew on the tall grass, it isn’t raging hot yet, and the birds are singing in the morning.

After a quick breakfast, we head out in the Land Cruiser where the fresh air and smells of Africa hit you full in the face–the mustiness of grass, the sweetness of wild sage, and the smell of animals (and their dung). As you drive, there are pockets of warm air, mixed with cool breezes. It’s really something else. The time passes quickly even though the game drives can run from 2.5 hours- 4 hours. If you are on a safari at a national park, the vehicle will stay on the tar and dirt roads, which limits your access to the animals– you will only see the animals up close when they are near the road. On the other hand, if you are on a game reserve or a private concession the guides will likely drive off the road in order to track the animals, which makes for a much more exciting time.

Once you return from the morning game drive, there’s usually brunch followed by a few hours to rest (or hang out by the pool) before the evening game drive which begins around 4:30pm. There have been game drives where we’ve seen very little in 3 hours, maybe impala or zebra. And on the other hand, there are times where it’s just one exciting find after another. Like our last morning in the Okavango Delta, we were going on a short game drive before catching our flight.  We weren’t expecting to see much, but we ended up finally seing a leopard. I thought we were tracking a lion, until I realized our guide was looking up in a tree. We sat with the leopard for 1.5hours, just hoping she would come down from the tree.

**note: the only thing that can make a game drive long and tiring, is if you have a group of bird lovers in the car with you.  Stopping for every bird, discussing their coloring (usually brown with white),  where they migrate, what they eat.  Most of the time the bird is so far out in the distance that I can barely even see anything…

Taking a flight into the Delta was a wise decision. In some places the water level was riding up over the bonnet of our Land Cruiser. Once we were through the “puddle,” our guide would open his door to let the water pour out.
We had some very exciting drives while in the Okavango Delta. One in particular was following 8 wild dogs on their hunt. We watched them as they spread out to chase after impalas, but failed on their first attempt. As they regrouped, when each member rejoined the group, they would wimper in a very high pitch which reminded Mike of “yappie dogs,” not vicious carnivores. Next as we were waiting, a group of hyenas approached, hoping to “win” a free meal. After a quick scrap between the two groups, the dogs took off. We were separated from the wild dogs for only about 5 minutes, and by the time we caught up to them, they had already made their kill, and were finishing up their impala. Photo: wild dog with leg of baby impala.

Our intention was to drive to the Okavango Delta until we found out the roads would likely be flooded in parts. And even if they aren’t flooded right now, the roads are rough and slow going. We were also told that it’s easy to get lost since there are few signs to mark the way. So with all the warnings, we took a 1.5hour charter flight, rather than days and days by 4×4. From our tiny four-seater charter plane we could see elephants, hippos and giraffe.
The photo above: you can see tons of these small watering holes as you fly overhead. Interestingly, these are first created by elephants who wallow in small puddles of mud which creates bigger puddles and eventually becomes a watering hole for not only elephants, but all animals. The little white trails leading to the watering hole are also created by elephants. From the plane you can see all of these white trails connecting one watering hole to another. It’s quite a sight.