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Entries in Chitabe (13)

Sunday

Jul252010

Day 1 – Johannesburg / Maun / Chitabe Camp, Okavango Delta

Sunday, July 25, 2010 at 08:09AM

We left Joburg this morning on Air Botswana with no hiccups, as usual. The flight is an easy to do 10am flight, which allowed me and my guests to get a good night’s sleep after a long journey to this side of the pond. After our 2 hour flight from Joburg to Maun, Botswana, we grabbed our bags and hopped on our bush plane flights to Chitabe Camp in the Okavango Delta. I normally arrange for an extra plane for additional weight allowances, and this trip was no exception.

The bush plane flight only took about 15 minutes from Maun, and we landed, met our guides BB and Phinley, and headed off to camp. There is much water th is year in the delta, and the normal road back to camp was still underwater. This year has more year than last, and last year had more water than the year before that. I can only anticipate what it will be like in 2011. It isn’t really a bad thing, but it can be challenging when you are trying to take the quickest road to somewhere.

We arrived in to camp, said hello to Dawson the manager, grabbed our rooms and met back in the main area for tea and cookies. Game drive time! Since it was late in the afternoon, we didn’t have a long game drive today. We saw some great congregations of greater kudu, as well as ostrich. What a great day to go from a big city to the wilderness in only a short period of time.

We stopped for a sundowner drink after sunset, in front of a beautiful acacia tree. Wine, beer, sodas and gin and tonics were served, and there were smiles on faces, happy to be in the wilderness of one of Africa’s greatest wildlife gems: the Okavango Delta. After some time jib jabbing away, we headed back to camp, freshened up, and gathered around the campfire in anticipation of a wonderful dinner. After dinner, I am sure it didn’t take long for people to fall fast asleep after a long journey. Tomorrow we will be up at 5:30, and will head out for a morning game drive after a quick breakfast.

Joe and Joan Johnson from Really Right Stuff, excited for their first game drive

Phinley and I take a second to say cheese.

Acacia sunset shoot and time to stop for sundowner drinks.

Palms and Cranes

...and finally, drinks by the campfire before dinner

Andy Biggs

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Safari Reports

Tuesday

Jul132010

Safari-time!

Tuesday, July 13, 2010 at 08:44AM

Ok, I am off for Africa soon, and I will be all over the place. Here are a few places where I will be:

Chitabe Camp, Okavango Delta, Botswana (1st camp on my first safari)
Savuti Camp, Okavango Delta, Botswana (2nd camp on my first safari)
Mashatu Game Reserve, Botswana (1st camp on my African Wildlife Photography Boot Camp)
Rattray's on Mala Mala, South Africa (2nd camp on my African Wildlife Photography Boot Camp)
Tuningi Safari Lodge, Madikwe Game Reserve, South Africa (to spend some time with friend Gerry van der Walt)

Unlike like most of my past safaris, I will be taking a few days off in between my first and second safari, and it will be rest that will be well used. I will have a BGAN satellite system on my safaris, which means I intend to update this blog frequently (daily?) from the bush. I did this a few months ago from Tanzania, however technology was easier there as I could update the blog from my Blackberry Bold mobile phone. I didn't upload any photos, though, as I was shooting film on that safari (long story).

The BGAN satellite is a very nifty piece of technology, as I can surf the web and send emails at 492kbps, which is plenty fast. The kicker is that it costs around $6 per megabyte, so I will only be using the system to read and send emails via a web page. I am renting the system from a friend, and this is a good way of figuring out if I should invest in the technology going forward.

If anybody has called Gura Gear or have sent us an email, you will likely be familiar with who Troy Covey is. Troy is my right hand man, and he will be coming on my second safari to shoot video. I am a video dummy, so Troy is coming to gather footage that we can use for marketing purposes. We want to convey what it is like to be on one of my photo safaris, as well as how people use our Gura Gear Kiboko bag. I know he is going to have to do tons of audio editing, as I tend to laugh a little too much. It is a personality flaw of mine, and now that I have admitted it I only have 11 more steps to go. :-)

Leslie will be joining me near the end of my second safari, and this will be the first time since 2004 that Leslie has been able to join me. Why the long wait? Let's just say that our having 2 boys in the span of 28 months can alter one's adventures in life. Leslie will be at Mala Mala and Madikwe with me, and I cannot tell you how happy this makes me to have her back on another adventure with me. Shared experiences is a good thing.

While in Madikwe, we will be spending some time with friend and photographer Gerry van der Walt, who runs Photo-Africa.com. I am not sure what kind of trouble we will find, but I am sure it will be fun whatever we end up doing. I just think that all Leslie wants to do is to sleep late and to not have little boys climbing all over her. At the same time I don't even know how to relax, as it isn't in my vocabulary. Relaxing usually means being out on game drives by myself with a guide and perhaps another friend or two.

I have tons to do before I leave next week, and near the top of that list is to update my 2011 safaris on andybiggs.com. I have a few more safaris to add, such as a June 2011 Tanzania trip with Chris Gamel, and an August Tanzania safari with Randy Hanna. If you haven't met Chris or Randy before, you should know that they are excellent trip leaders, photographers, instructors and all around good guys. I couldn't be more happy to be working side by side with them.

Andy Biggs

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