MARULA BOTSWANA MIDDLE LEVEL SAFARIS

 EXPLORATORY LEVEL SAFARIS FOR THE ADVENTUROUS MIDDLE-MARKET TRAVELLERWHO NEEDS A BIT MORE CREATURE COMFORT 

For the adventurous traveler who still needs a bit of creature comfort, these safaris provide comfortable ensuite camping accommodation without taking anything away from the true bush experience.

Tents are walk in 3x3m ensuite dome tents and camps are fully backed up by our knowledgeable bush team ensuring personalized service.

This is a fully inclusive safari making the most of the Botswana Wilderness.

Large enought to stand up in, en suite bathroom and shower, proper beds and  4" matress, beds outside chairs, table, mirror, refuse bins,lanterns..

9 Days / 8 nights

Start from Kasane and ending in Maun.

2 Nights Chobe National Park

2 Nights Savuti

2 Nights Moremi Game Reserve

2 Nights Moremi Okavango Delta

Please note:  the above itinerary could change due to seasonal variations. THESE SAFARIS OFFER:

• Exclusive & private camping
• Comfortable, clean and spacious equipment
• Staff to do all the back-up work
• Unspecified licensed and experienced professional guides
• Tailored itineraries – dependent on availability at lodges and camp sites
• Lodge accommodation can be worked into the itinerary at additional cost
• Specified highly experienced professional guides and/or field specialists available on request and at additional cost
• Flexible departure dates (some pre-booked camp sites guaranteed during peak seasons)
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• Medium-sized walk-in tents (3 x 3 m) with built-in floors, mosquito gauze on two door and two windows
• Small shaded front verandah with door mats and chairs
• Proper beds with thin (100 mm / 4 in) mattresses (in a bedroll to keep bedding dust proof when moving camp)
• Full linen (one pillow & pillow case; sheets, duvet, duvet cover and two extra blankets; bath and hand towels & face cloth)
• Toiletries: (soap, toilet paper, mosquito repellant, mirror)
• Bedside tables, lamps, waste bin, floor mats
• Extras: flash lights & batteries, game drive blankets in winter
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Iron beds, en suite batroom, large enough to stand  up in Safari tents

• International flights
• Any lodge accommodation, meals, transfers or excursions not specified
• Travel, cancellation & medical insurance
• Charter flights not specified
• Specialist guides
• Toiletries: (hand cream, sun block, tissues)
• Laundry
• Visas
• Airport departure taxes
• Tips & gratuities for guides and camp staff
• Battery chargers (bring along a 12 Volt charger that can be used in the cigarette light of a vehicle)
• 
  

 Please remember:  it's rough, it's dusty and it's long hours of travelling every day, but, IT IS an adventure of a lifetime! 

ITINERARY DAY 1 – 2 CHOBE NATIONAL PARK - CAMPING         F/BWe meet in Kasane on your arrival and transfer by road to our private campsite in Chobe National Park. The drive to the Chobe River takes about one hour.  

TERRAIN: Along the Chobe riverfront the terrain is that of a typical riverine ecosystem. Away from the river we have mixed miombo and broadleaved woodland that harbours rich avifauna.        

GAME: Northern Chobe is famous for its elephant & buffalo herds, puku, kudu, Chobe bushbuck and hippo. One could also hope to see: lion, leopard, wild dog, giraffe, waterbuck, zebra, impala, baboon, vervet monkeys, warthog, sable, roan, lechwe, banded mongoose, crocodile, leguan. 

ACTIVITIES: Game drives. 

DAY 3 – 4 CHOBE NATIONAL PARK - SAVUTI - CAMPING- F/BWhile the camp staff break camp and load the supply vehicle, we head off on a game drive. When we meet up with the supply vehicle again we drive to Savuti in convoy. The drive lasts approx five hours with a picnic lunch en route. At Savuti the staff will set up camp on the banks of the now dry Savuti Channel while we explore our new environment.   

TERRAIN: Savuti Marsh is typical open grassland surrounded by Acacia bush and stony outcrops reminiscent of Serengeti. 

GAME: Savuti is famous for its lions and hyenas, lone elephant bulls, zebra and wildebeest migrations. Other game one can hope to see include: giraffe, tsessebe, warthog, black-backed jackal, leopard, cheetah, bat-eared fox, impala, wild dog, kudu, baboon, steenbok, dwarf, slender and banded mongoose.

ACTIVITIES: Game drives; birding, bushman paintings, elephants at waterhole. 

DAY 5 – 8 MOREMI GAME RESERVE AND OKAVANGO DELTA  - CAMPING – F/BWe transfer by road to our private campsite in Moremi (approx 5 hours’ drive with a picnic lunch en route). The road leads via the Khwai River, which offers good opportunities for close-up game and raptor photography.  

 TERRAIN: Moremi being an extension of the Okavango offers a typical wetland system with grassy plains and pans surrounded by well-developed mopane forests and riverine woodland. While out on the mokoros the terrain will alter to typical Okavango Delta terrain with its grassy flood plains dotted with large termite mounds, small islands fringed with palms and larger islands with riparian forests of sausage and ebony trees. Water lilies adorn the bracken-lined watercourses and streams.  

 WILDLIFE: Elephant, lechwe, waterbuck, impala, hippo, warthog, squirrels, baboon, vervet monkeys and banded mongoose are common. So are crocodiles and leguan. One can also hope to see buffalo, giraffe, bushbuck, lion, wild dog, leopard, cheetah, black-backed and side-striped jackal, zebra, wildebeest, tsessebe, bush babies, fruit bats, sable, kudu, roan, steenbok, duiker, honey badger. The birdlife includes water birds as well as dry land birds. 

ACTIVITIES: game drives; birding;

 DAY 9 TRANSFER TO MAUN                                   B/FAST ONLY

Transfer to Maun in time for your onward fligh    

AREAS VISITED ON MOBILE SAFARIS 

OKAVANGO DELTA 

The Okavango Delta is a unique ecosystem that is situated in the middle of one of the largest stretches of sand in the world the Kalahari basin. It lies like an oasis in an inhospitable landscape. The vegetation is lush and the wildlife is of the very best in Africa. The Delta covers 16000km. The delta is one of the largest inland deltas in the world. The Okavango River starts on the Benguela Plateau in Angola, meanders through Kalahari sand of 1300km before entering Botswana and flows south towards the town Maun in the Thamalakane. The delta forms many islands in high season, which also act as a base camp for your mokoro and walking safari experience. The wildlife of the delta is amongst the best in the world, and certainly situated in the most unspoilt corner of Africa. If you do not wish to view game in an area where safari vehicles often outnumber the animals, The Okavango Delta is the place to visit. The delta offers a wide variety of wild- and- bird life which is not always to be matched anywhere in Africa.  

MOREMI GAME RESERVE Moremi, hunted by the Bushman as long as 10,000 years ago, was initiated by the Batawana tribe and covers some 4,871 km2, as the eastern section of the Okavango Delta. Moremi is mostly described as one of the most beautiful wildlife reserves in Africa. It combines mopane woodland and acacia forests, floodplains and lagoons. It is the great diversity of plant and animal life that makes Moremi so well known.The idea to create a game reserve first originated in 1961 and was approved by the Batawana at a kgotla in 1963. The area was then officially designated as a game reserve in April 1965 and was initially run by the Fauna Conservation Society of Ngamiland. Moremi was then extended to include Chiefs Island in 1976. In August 1979 the reserve was taken over by the Department of Wildlife and National Parks. A further extension was added as recently as 1992 and now the reserve contains within its boundaries approximately twenty percent of the Okavango Delta.  

SAVUTI

The Savuti Marsh is situated in the Chobe National Park. 

On game drives in the area you also discover the very interesting history of this area. Often described as one of, if not the best, wildlife-viewing area in Africa today. Savuti boasts one of the highest concentrations of wildlife left on the African continent. Animals are present during all seasons, and at certain times of the year their numbers can be staggering. If you allow yourself adequate time here you will probably see nearly all the major species: giraffe, elephant, zebra, impala, tsessebe, roan, sable, wildebeest, kudu, buffalo, waterbuck, warthog, eland and accompanying predators including lion, hyena, jackal, bat-eared fox and possibly even cheetah and wild dog.Savuti is famous for its predators, particularly its resident lions and spotted hyena populations.

 Sometimes you will have them uncomfortably close, as both they and marauding hyenas do wander through the campsite. Do NOT feed them. Almost certainly you will hear lion at night.Geographically, Savuti is an area of many unknowns. One of the greatest mysteries is the Savuti Channel itself, which has over the past 100 years inexplicably dried up and recommenced its flow several times.

The present dry period started in 1982.The Savuti Marsh is situated near the Magwikhwe Sand Ridge, which forms part of the ancient shoreline of an enormous inland sea, which was formed in the area an estimated 2-5 million years ago.  Situated close to this ridge/shoreline are the Savuti Hills (“kopjes”) where we can find Bushman paintings on the vertical rock faces.   

CHOBE NATIONAL PARK

 The Chobe National Park, which is the second largest national park in Botswana and covers 10,566 square kilometres, has one of the greatest concentrations of game found on the African continent. Its uniqueness in the abundance of wildlife and the true African nature of the region, offers a safari experience of a lifetime.

The park is divided into four distinctly different eco systems: Serondela with its lush plains and dense forests in the Chobe River area in the extreme north-east; the Savuti Marsh in the west about fifty kilometres north of Mababe gate; the Linyanti Swamps in the north-west and the hot dry hinterland in between.The original inhabitants of what is now the park were the San people, otherwise known in Botswana as the Basarwa. They were hunter-gatherers who lived by moving from one area to another in search of water, wild fruits and wild animals.

The San were later joined by groups of the Basubiya people and later still, around 1911, by a group of Batawana led by Sekgoma. When the country was divided into various land tenure systems, late last century and early this century, the larger part of the area that is now the national park was classified as crown land. In 1931 the idea of creating a national park in the area was first mooted, in order to protect the wildlife from extinction and to attract visitors. In 1932, an area of some 24,000 square kilometres in the Chobe district was declared a non-hunting area and the following year, the protected area was increased to 31,600 square kilometres. However, heavy tsetse fly infestations resulted in the whole idea lapsing in 1943. In 1957, the idea of a national park was raised again when an area of about 21,000 square kilometres was proposed as a game reserve and eventually a reduced area was gazetted in 1960 as Chobe Game Reserve. Later, in 1967, the reserve was declared a national park - the first national park in Botswana.

There was a large settlement, based on the timber industry, at Serondela, some remains of which can still be seen today. This settlement was gradually moved out and the Chobe National Park was finally empty of human occupation in 1975. In 1980 and again in 1987, the boundaries were altered, increasing the park to its present size.A major feature of Chobe National Park is its elephant population. First of all, the Chobe elephant comprise part of what is probably the largest surviving continuous elephant population. This population covers most of northern Botswana plus northwestern Zimbabwe.

The Botswana's elephant population is currently estimated at around 120,000. This elephant population has built up steadily from a few thousand since the early 1900s and has escaped the massive illegal off take that has decimated other populations in the 1970s and 1980s. The Chobe elephant are migratory, making seasonal movements of up to 200 kilometres from the Chobe and Linyanti rivers, where they concentrate in the dry season, to the pans in the southeast of the park, to which they disperse in the rains. The elephants, in this area have the distinction of being the largest in body size of all living elephants though the ivory is brittle and you will not see many huge tuskers among these rangy monsters.            .