Liselle’s clients enjoyed a Botswana safari in Africa and combined it a Victoria Falls add on.
Hi Liselle!!
Great to hear from you – we are missing Africa already – despite the fact that we have been there every year since 2008 (madagascar, south africa and now bots).
We missed out on spotting any white/black rhinos and leopards this time round, but it was still a great holiday nonetheless.
Vic Falls – The Vic Falls Hotel was good – very central for the falls and town. Service was very good and the rooms were air conditioned etc. Had no issues at the hotel and loved the proximity to the Falls (only a 5-10 min walk through the bush).
The Zim side was good fun, I must admit I did have reservations at first about choosing Zim over Zam. However, the locals proved my concerns wrong. Shearwater was a great great place to book our white water rafting and we had a great couple from Limpopo doing it with us.
Oddballs – Good camp, and very rustic. The people were nice and the rides were a good experience, if not slightly scary everytime we crossed large channels listening out for hippos! The food was great. We bumped into Enda and Joanna who were helped by you on their honeymoon! I thought that the tents were great, new, and service was good. We had a very young guide there, who had encountered a full sized male lion in the bush 3 days before we arrived and stood his ground. It was a good thing we did not run into lions while walking! Charlene and Rian (not sure how you spell his name) were at Oddballs on a marketing tour. Charlene seemed to know you from my memory.
Meno – The camp was very very chic/cool and the key success factors were David Dugmore’s presence, prime game viewing location (next to the Boteti), and the hide on the edge of the camp/cliff. The Boteti River has been flowing for the last 2 years – we watched large zebra migrations coming to the water and many ellies playing in the river below us! There was a camera crew around, which gave the fantastic viewing a stamp of approval! On the atmosphere, David and some of his friends who were at camp, provided a lot of laughter and stories whilst watching bush tv / listening to wackhead simpson. Food was fantastic.
The only potential downside to the place is again the location – which is now an hour’s drive away from the national park/makgadikgadi. When the river wasnt flowing, the camp used to ferry guests straight across to the park. At the moment, it is an hour’s road transfer which includes a mokoro transfer across the river – this means that out of our 3 nights there, we had two drives in total (this isnt a problem for us). Just as a note, the guests who had 2 nights there didnt like this though, as it meant that they had only one drive / however these guests were rather grumpy people.
Duba Plains – Coming from Oddballs and Meno, this camp was luxurious, with very good sweet talking managers. The company was obviously older, compared to Oddballs and Meno. However, the game sighting was comparable to none. The guide was very knowledgeable and the drive pleasant. Food was great.
In all, we liked our itinerary very much – we got to do our water activities at Vic Falls, followed by a cool break in the Delta at Oddballs. There was a contrast between landscapes at Meno, which was great, and the last camp Duba again provided a very good contrast when we came back to water and cool air.
Hope this helps! We have been bitten by the african bug so will be back soon. Do return customers get a good discount at SUNSAFARIS?
Hope you are well!
Valeri
