Travels with Kathryn

Ah, the delights of 9 hours sleep. I awoke feeling refreshed and ready to tackle the world, or at least to actually start the holiday properly.

Today we are flying from Maun (the huge civilisation/second largest village in Botswana) to we thought, somewhere in the Moremi Game Reserve. However, we found out later that because the rains have come early (more on this later) that Moremi Game Reserve is underwater and therefore we were flying to Santawani. More detailed map below:

But first breakfast, very much your traditional hotel breakfast but you can tell you are in a former British Protectorate (note not part of the British Empire) when baked beans are available. Although there was also mince which I suspect is perhaps more the safari option:

Check out was 10am so we did indeed check out and had a little walk down to the river. As predicted by many safari experts, from not giving a flying whatever about birds, we suddenly became very interested in various birds: a red headed one, some ducky things, a white one etc.

At 11am we were transferred back to Maun airport. This is my first ever experience of taking a non-scheduled flight. Well, it all seems rather easy – we knew we were flying with Mack Air and located the Mack office. We were met by a man who asked us where we were flying to – we looked at him blankly, then the name of the lodge we were staying at, more blank looks, finally he asked for the booking name and there we were on his spreadsheet and he confirmed we were flying to Santawani (which is either a 15 or 50 minute flight). We nodded like we knew that was where we were going. He then escorted us to check-in, presented us with boarding passes, and directed us through security. As previously written, I had a last minue panic when I realised that I am over the human weight limit. Not by much, but still. Well, no one gave me a second glance. One of things one has to accept as being a member of the plus-size (or as I usually say, fat) community is that sometimes you are not going to fit into things (chairs with arms, theme park rides) or be told you are too heavy for things (insubstantial looking furniture, planes) so it is something I was mentally prepared for. I had just hoped that as me+ checked in luggage + hand luggage was under the limit, and certainly the combined me + Mum + Keith + bags was way under the limit. But anyway, none seemed to care. Maybe they would have done if I was on my own with massive bags? Anyway, phew.

We are now in the domestic terminal, which may be something of an overstatement as I have been in Ryanair holding pens that were bigger and with more people. However, plenty of seats, toilets, free water, quiet and wifi, its perfectly delightful. Also Keith’s dream of wild dog now has a purpose:

Around 30 minutes before we were due to take off we were told there had been an issue and we would instead be flying closer to 3pm. We were asked whether we would like to leave the holdaing pen, which we said we would and were escorted out of the pen, around the back of the airport building, back through the doors we entered through yesterday but turning left to bypass immigration and through doors back into the outside world. Now, as I have said Maun is not very big, but there were a few tourist/handcraft shops which Mum and I said we would browse in whilst Keith aimed for a drink in the little cafe/vending cart outside the airport (which, obviously sold alcohol or he would not been interested!). Well, turns out this is a concession stand for an actual cafe so Keith found us and we met him there after our browse. Obviously this still feels too early in the trip to purchase anything, but there are lots of nice fabrc-y things and more of the people statutes we saw in Johannesburg airport so I am hoping for similar things in Victoria Falls.

Anyway, we had been sat in the cafe for about 10 minutes when the local safari operator arrived. Apologising for the delay to the flight (still not 100% sure why), explaining that the guide who was meant to be at the airport was not there as there had been a flooded road/broken down vehicle problem (specifically the switch between 2 and 4 gear was broken and it is rather essentaial in the terrain we will be driving on), but that he would meet us off the plane. It all felt very classic travels with Kathryn. However, they did offer to take us on a your of the sites of Maun which we eagerly accepted saying they would go and fetch a vehicle and come back to pick us up. Well, we had our drinks and waited knowing we had about 90 minutes before we had been told to be back in the airport. This was our first experience of the concept of elastic Botwana time. At about 2.05pm (15 miunutes before we were told to be in the airport) the local team returned to collect us and the rest of the group.

Yes, the group. Botswana is eye-wateringly expensive, and one way to minimise the costs a little is to share a safari vehicle/camp rather than have one to ourselves. However, the gropu is 6 people in total and everyone gets a window seat! So, we were joined by aa Swiss honeymooning couple and an older Swiss lady. All very nice, and similarly confused around the timing. This boded well I thought.

The sites of Maun opened with a trip to a basket making cooperative. Local women make baskets in variuos sizes, shapes and patterns and bring them here to be sold. The basket-making process goes something like this:

• Leaves of the Mokolwane palm are harvested twice a year in January and July. When the leaves are harvested, local dye colours are made and grasses (motsikiri).
• The palm leaves are split into thin strips and are boiled with the dye components in water.
• The leaves are then washed, dried and bundled along with the motsikiri ready for weaving.
• The weaving is a similar process to crochet whereby a the leaves are coiled in a bundle, and then wrapped using another leaf with a needle being used to pull the wrapping thread through a central circle.

The baskets are pretty lovely, but not quite the thing to then take on a 2 week semi-camping safari trip.

We were then taken to the one “site” of Maun which is the old bridge. This is the Old Maltapana Bridge and was originally built in the late 1930s using local logs and crushed gravel by hand as a vital crossing over the Thamalakane River to replace an old raft system. One gets the impression that they were struggling somewhat with where to bring us, so here we went. Nice enough to see, but I can see why it is not an essential stop.

By now it was already the time we were went to back at the airport so there was some hightailing it, including via a back road which gave us our first taste of off roading.

Back through security, back into the holding area which now included rather more people than before and we went out the main doors, joined by another family of 3 which was rather confusing and I did not like the look of them, particularly when they boarded the mini bus (to take us to the plane) and sat in the front row, including the seat in the door way so we had to clamber over him. I thought, here we go… Anyway, it was a bus journey of all of 2 minutes to the plane – we were asked to identify our luggage and boarded from the back. I am pleased to report that because said group thought they were clever standaing at the front, we were all able to get in front of them and I had the seat directly behind the pilot. This was my first experiece of flying in a tiny plane and its all very tiny, and whilst it was amazing to see the view from the air, it actually made me a little quesy.

The flight was all of 15 minutes (which was quite long enough for me) and then we landed in a remote airstrip (literally in the bush). At this point the 3 people I did not like were collected and off the went never to be seen again (hurrah), however, our driver was not here yet so we waited with the plane/pilot with much hope. Luckily, it was not too hot. However, the pilot enjoyed me making a point of standing in the shade as I showed him my watch tan line that I was practically black.

It didn’t take long for a jeep to approach and we were met by Issac of Lewis Safari who will be our guide for the next 10 days. The plan was that we would have a game drive to our camp for the night. It was at this point that we learnt that we would not be visiting/staying in Moremi Game Reserve. This is officially the dry season , but the rains have come early and Moremi hasn’t actully dried from previous years. Therefore we would be staying in various (what are called) “community” reserves, the first being the Sankuyo Tshwaragano Commimity for 2 nights.

[Confession Time: normally, TravelswithKathryn is written in real time, or at least almost real time. However, due to the sheer non-stop nature of the safari, it is now 9 days later… I shall at least try and catch up.]

As mentioned, my priority for this safari was elephants – other animals are nice, and yes, we know that Keith would like to see a wild dog, but for me, it is going to be all about the elephants. However, I appreciated that safaris involve a lot of looking around hopefully and seeing nothing. This was certainly how we started off on this first game drive, so I started a rather boring list (the lists have kept throughout, so here goes):

• Lilac breasted roller (this is a nice bird, now at the end of the trip, I am still far from being interested in birds, but these are nice).
• Impala (these are everywhere, to the point that I stopped listing them out – but I was very excited the first time.
• Guinea fowl.
• Tree squirrel.
• Slender mongoose
• Fish eagle.
• Elephant poo (yes, desperation was sinking in at this point).

At this point, we stopped for a little sundowner. Luckily, the jeep comes with a drop -own table in the front, and Issac had stocked us with snacks and drinks – including gin and tonic number 1 of the trip. I had 2 in total throughout the trip, Keith lost count by about day 2…

We set off again, and thats when things got good:

This was a family group of about 20 elephants including babies.  I was very happy.

But continuing on we had:

• More impalas.
• Another elephant (first bull elephant).
• Giraffes.
• Another elephant.
• Giraffes again (giraffes are great, but genuinely, it is difficult to understand how something that struggles to get down low enough to drink and then gets a head rush in doing so is alive!).
• Wilderbeast.
• 3 more elephants.
• Lion!
• Steenbok (small antelope)
• Wild dogs – Keith was very pleased. I will go so far as to say they were very pretty colours and interesting to see.
• Zebra.

So, even though with the various delays (we probably set off 2 hours late) we had an amazingly wide variety of sightings, and I got my elephants. By the time we arrived at the campsite (Kaziikini camp) it was dark, this made it rather challenging as we were introduced to the camp team who would be with us for the next 10 days. Over time, we would come to learn their names, but as of this first night, it was 3 very tall guys and one short (this was Onch – we could always pick out him!). It also made it rather challenging to work out how to unpack and how our tents actually worked! In summary, whilst this is undoubtedly glamping, it is perhaps a little more basic than I/we were expecting – there was an ensuite bathroom (including a toilet), but showers are on request only and the “sink” is a jug and a bowl. More photos will follow (as I took them in daylight), but for now:

Shortly after arriving, we were served dinner. This was a surprise – the first of many excellent soups, tomato with a bread roll, then fish pie with vegetable stir fry and a greek salad, pudding was a roasted banana with chocolate and a generous pour of Amarula. I had expected randomly barbecued antelope-y things.

That was the end of a tiring day, but with an alarm call scheduled for 5.30am the next morning, I returned to my tent, found my pyjamas, had my first experience of a wet toilet visitation, and rolled into bed. Overnight, we had our first thunder storm…