Natasha Allan planned a wonderful trip for her guests Sara & Mark in Botswana where they stayed over at Chobe Game Lodge in Chobe National Park, Haina Kalahari Lodge in Central Kalahari Reserve and Sango Camp in the Moremi Game Reserve. Sara shared the following guest feedback:
“Hi,
As promised please see attached pics. I haven’t sorted through all pics yet but will forward the link to my album when I do.
I really enjoyed the trip we saw loads and loads of animals including the Spotted Hyena which was on the wishlist – unfortunately we missed the African Wild Dogs – but that’s OK it gives us an excuse to go back; not that I need one! ;-). We do wild life watching here in the UK so we don’t expect them to be standing around waiting for us and understand perfectly that there are some things that whilst we would like to see them it is unlikely at best. (Badgers are a good example of that). As such if there were things we missed we really don’t blame anyone.
The camps were all very different experiences but we were very happy with all of them.
Chobe Game Lodge was perhaps not one we would have chosen on balance (too civilised & in no way a reflection on the staff or accommodation) but nevertheless we really enjoyed our time there and it was a good introduction to safaris. The staff were great and the guides were very knowledgeable and helpful. Our guide was Cidy and she was very good giving us plenty of time to take pictures and told us about the various animals we saw. We had 2 main servers for meals – Tsugemo (apologies if spelt wrongly – she told us it meant blessed) and Neo who were both lovely people and looked after us very well.
Haina camp – Wanda & Adrian made us feel very at home. The usual guide was on holiday so Adrian did all of the game drives and he did his best to ensure we got to see some interesting things despite the animals being very “unco-operative”. He was determined to get us a sighting of a couple of male lions that had wandered into the territory and we spent some time tracking them – which was interesting and great fun because you got really caught up in it. And yes he did get us our sighting! The food at Haina was very good – Adrian told us that Wanda trained the chefs; she certainly did a good job. Also really enjoyed the introduction the Bushman’s way of life. The staff were brilliant.
Sango camp – The introduction: well what can one say? Totally unexpected but very entertaining. The staff again very good. Really enjoyed being able to wake up open the tent window & see elephants walking by. Our guide, Ace, was very informative, stopping and pointing out things of interest during the drives. He did his level best to fulfil our wishlist of beasties. There was very good communication between the guides reporting the location of various animals which meant that you were able to see, for example, a pride of lions at a kill. The food was again very good and the staff a pleasure to be around.
If you were to ask me would I do it again – oh yes. We are now considering doing anther trip at a different time to see how the place looks after the rains. This will probably be in a year or two’s time – we want to try & give ourselves a break from the anti-malarials next year at least. The world is so big and there are so many places to go.. & not enough time! We will definitely give you guys a shout when we fit it in though.
Thanks for everything.
Cheers
Sara”
