If you’ve ever dismissed Botswana as an impossible dream, think again. It’s not all chic designer safari lodges where you pay up to £400 a night for the luxury of air-conditioned tents the size of barns. You can still have the safari of your life for half the price and get up close to the real Africa.
I eat? Mobile camp safaris are the answer, as I just discovered on a wonderful eight-night tour through the Moremi Game Reserve with Letaka Safaris. Letaka is the Setswana word for the tall phragmite reeds that grow around the margins of the Delta lagoons, hence the company name chosen by Brent and Grant Reed, also known as the Letaka Brothers.
Now in their early 30s, the couple grew up in South Africa, where they developed a passion for birds and snakes, but always dreamed of the big game found in neighboring Botswana.
Today, Botswana is their home, and with either Brent or Grant as their guide, Letaka Safaris is becoming synonymous with seeing the wild Africa the way it was meant to be seen, sleeping under a tarpaulin with a mobile camping crew that really knows the ropes. .
There were six of us on the safari: my wife and I, my brother and his wife, and a couple of friends we had known for years. Together we did the perfect numbers to fill the open Toyota Land-Cruiser waiting for us on the dusty Xakanaxa airstrip.
Here we met Letaka’s older brother Brent, who would be our guide and driver, and together we set off through the dry September forests to our first camp at Bodumatau, the place where the lion roars.
My wife and I are safari veterans, but the others were new to mobile camps and I saw them staring in dismay at the dull brown, travel-stained tents in which they would sleep for the next eight nights. The expression on his face said it all. Oh Lord!
I could almost hear their thoughts as they ducked through the doors to inspect their stores. Each one was tall enough to stand upright and furnished with two beds but nothing else, leaving enough space for her suitcases. Outside, under the awning, were a few basic necessities: canvas sinks, khaki towels, and a mirror, and behind each tent, protected by a canvas wall on poles, was the luxury of a private bathroom with a throne. of plastic. Don’t go outside with a torch and a roll of toilet paper on this safari!
And little by little, one by one, I could see my safari companions relax. It was (for them) the unexpected happiness of a hot bucket shower that started it. Then the magic of campfire drinks kicked in, as sparks flew to join the stars and owls twittered in the velvety darkness. And finally, the lamplight dinner, a three-course dinner with a sumptuous chicken casserole for the main course, accompanied by excellent South African wines that tasted all the better because they were included in the price.
No one, myself included, had ever counted on eating so well on a mobile safari. But that was because Brent had hired Frank Nkiwane to cook for us. Frank, a big and jovial Zimbabwean, learned his trade from him at an Italian restaurant in Bulawayo, and for my money he is the best bush chef in Botswana.
In total, we stayed in three private camps and each one was different. Our first camp at Dumatau was set up in a raspberry grove overlooking a lagoon where ospreys screeched and hippos grunted beyond the reeds. Our second camp was in the shade of a camelthorn acacia forest not far from the Khwai River with its bateleur eagles, malachite kingfishers and herds of breeding elephants. And at Maya Pools, our last campsite, overlooked by a sausage tree whose crimson blossoms carpeted the ground, we saw a handsome male leopard and were visited in broad daylight by a magnificent old lion, one of Dead Tree Pride’s two resident males. . .
By the end of the trip, they had all become mobile campers. They had learned that a vacation stripped of all the trivia and unnecessary frills can be just as sweet as any five-star lodging experience; that a tent is simply a safe place to sleep and store your gear while you live outdoors in the sun and wind, sharing the boundless forests and floodplains of Moremi with the lions and elephants that roamed nearly every night. nights at our camp.
Above all, what my safari companions discovered were the true luxuries of mobile camping; not just the hot showers and cool sunsets, same-day laundry and magnificent meals Frank conjured up on beds of hot wood ash, but also the priceless joys of exclusive camping, the total freedom that comes with having your own own private vehicle, and hiring one of Botswana’s most respected guides to reveal the magic of Moremi.
http://www.aardvarksafaris.com/articles-botswana-mobile.htm