I am back in Africa after a five year hiatus.  This time my sister and I are starting in Botswana, which I visited seven years ago and loved it.

We met in Atlanta and took the nonstop flight to Johannesburg.  The following day we flew from JNB to Maun, Botswana and connected up with Mack Air, one of the camp to camp small plane services.

The Airport Terminal:

Our arrival into the dirt strip at our first camp, Kadizora was at 430 pm on Tues, a full 48 hours after beginning my travels in Florida.  We were greeted by our guide and driver OC, who said he would drive us to camp, just 10 minutes away, and we could have a snack and settle in.  But we said, “No, we want to do a game drive.”  He hesitated, but a radio call to the camp approved our request and we headed directly out into Africa.  Three male lions had been seen earlier in the day, and we made our way to that spot, 1 ½ hours of driving over dirt and sand tracks.  Lions usually sleep all day, so there was a pretty good chance they were still in that spot.

On our way to the lion spot we saw elephants, giraffes, ostrich, zebra and wort hogs.  And then we saw the lions, still sleeping.  They were unconcerned with the vehicle, snoozing and sighing, and looking like large house cats.

We watched the sleeping cats for a bit then had to head to the camp, as it would take one and thirty minutes to get back.  We passed through a buffalo herd, cruised a bunch of wildebeest, and watched a dazzle of zebra cross a swampy area.   The light is perfect in the late evening in Africa, the colors beautiful.

We pulled into camp at 730, three hours after we left the airstrip.  Dinner was being served.  The tent is great and we have running water and solar lighting.  We kept the tent flaps open, (screens keep the bugs out) and listened to hippos as we went to sleep our first night.

This photo was taken from our deck, with a 20 second shutter: