Africa - Stanley's Camp and First Game Drives

A WARNING:  From this point on, these posts are going to become very, very picture heavy.  This won't be much fun if you're on a dial up or very slow connection.  Be Told.

The flight in the bush plane was very short - only 15 minutes long - a bare hop from Maun to Stanley's Camp.  The flight from Johannesburg to Maun had only been about an hour and a half.  After the heinous flight from the US of A to South Africa, these short flights were a relief.  

So, wheels down in the Okavanga!  Our first day in a game reserve in Botswana!!  I do not mind telling you I was squeeing inside with excitement.  Nor was it in vain.  We didn't get a half-mile from the landing strip before we saw giraffe, warthogs, and brindled gnu!  But before I get into all of that, let me give you the background on Botswana that A&K gave us in our itinerary.

"Botswana is 213,488 miles in area, slightly smaller than Texas or the Transvaal and a little larger than France.  It is bisected by the Tropic of Capricorn and is land-locked, being situated on the southern African plateau.  It is surrounded by other countries - the Republic of South Africa to the south-east and south; Namibia to the west; Zambia to the north; and Zimbabwe to the northeast.  The nearest coast, which is to the south-west, is about 310 miles distant.  Nearly two-thirds of the international boundary is formed by rivers, although some of these are dry or flow only during the wet season.

Set in an amphitheater of ebony and sausage trees on the Southern tip of Chief's Island, Stanley's Camp sits amidst 260,000 acres of untamed and untrammeled African bush.  Bordering on the southern section of the famous Moremi Game Reserve, this private concession is located by definition in seasonal delta.

Stanley's Camp offers some of the best game viewing in the Okavango, including an abundance of buffalo, elephant, giraffe, lion, leopard, cheetah, and wild dog.  Game drives are conducted early in the mornings and late afternoons in open vehicles which offer unencumbered views.  Night game drives, walking safaris and mokoro (dug out canoe) activities are also offered at the camp."

To put things into chronological order for you - we left our house at noon on April 1st, (right after I called my mother and told her the trip had been cancelled because of civil unrest in Zimbabwe.  For a wonder she believed me.  I get her every year on April Fool's Day...), and we were just now arriving at our safari location on Friday, April 3rd.

Anyway, there we were.  We thanked our pilot, and climbed out of the plane and into the two long open jeeps that were waiting for us.  We met our second driver for the week, T.T.  Gavin would drive one vehicle with half of our party, and T.T. would drive the second half around in the second vehicle.  Although we didn't know it when we first left the plane, this meant that our group would always be separated during game drives - the drivers each head out in different directions to maximize the search potential for game - with radios in the car if someone spots something they can immediately let the other car know where to go.

That's the good aspect of splitting up.  The bad, of course, is that sometimes the other group is way on the other side of the park, and can't make it to the site in time so sometimes half the group gets to see something the other half doesn't.  Also, you miss their perspective on things - Wyatt for example has a very dry sense of humor.  He took photographs of every animal we saw defecating, and is planning a book entitled, "African Animals Poop - Just Like You and Me."

*laughing*

On the other hand, cramming 10 people into one vehicle would have seriously cramped all of our photography...so we all took the attitude of "well...there's always the next time..."

Anyway, there we were, in our jeeps and ready to go.  Let the real adventure begin.

We drove 15 feet from the air strip and then this happened.

Aren't they gorgeous? 

Gavin had this to say about giraffes: "Their expression never changes! Whether they are fighting to the death, or having the wildest bonk of their lives."

We saw neither.  However, whenever we DID see them, they were always making the same face...

Giraffe are, in my opinion, pretty dumb.  I suspect this has something to do with the fact that giraffe give birth standing up - so every giraffe born has basically been dropped on its head.  That and the fact that they only sleep somewhere between 10 minutes and 2 hours a day.  No really.  That's it.  And that cannot be natural.

More on giraffe later.

It was about a half hour drive from the air strip to camp, and in that time we saw impala, giraffe, brindled gnu, warthogs, and blacksmith lapwings.

Love the muddy tail print on her side!

And, of course, a Lilac Breasted Roller. The most photographed bird in South Africa...

We arrived at Stanley's Camp just in time for lunch.  Our hosts and the staff of the camp met us at the entrance to the camp, singing our welcome.  

We sorted out who was in which tent, and which bags belonged to which tent.

The staff had a certain skill I was envious of.

I tried my hand at it. Fail.

I mean that's just sad, isn't it?

*sigh*

Then we all went to check out the main gathering area.

Holy Swiss Family Robinson, Batman!!!

Even the communal bathroom was awesome.

Then we ate lunch!  The standard schedule for a day in the bush was breakfast, game drive from 8 to noon, lunch, then a siesta from the end of lunch to 3:30 or 4 - high tea, and then back for an evening game drive from 4 or 4:30 until dark.  At Stanley's Camp, we'd stop for Sundowners, (a drink and a snack out in the bush someplace while the sun set), and then we'd do night drives, with a spotlight.  That was super cool.

Anyway, lunch.

At lunch we checked out the menu for dinner...

And Sandy ran a pre-flight checklist on his Baby, the giant telephoto lens he sacrificed a huge amount of luggage weight for.

After lunch we went and checked out our "tent."

ARE YOU KIDDING ME???



The view off our "tent's" front porch, (just past the hammock.)



This was the bathroom in our tent.



Now I don't know about you all, but the only previous experience I ever had with showering in a tent involved a rain storm and a leaky seam.

And since we took a little nap at this point in our vacation, that makes a nice breaking point for this travelogue. I'll post about the second half of our first day at Chief's later!