We indeed had a fabulous time in
Botswana! It was different from all the other places we have been to in
Africa so far. Our boys saw their first cheetah and that was definitely a highlight! It seems already so long ago but I will try to give you some feedback. It is hard to compare our Botswana trip with the other places we have been to in Africa because they have all been so different. The one thing that was definitely the best that we have experienced so far was the guiding/tracking in especially
Lebala and
Lagoon camp.
Some general remarks:
In all
Kwando lodges, all meals are eaten together with all the guests and the guides. Even though most of the guests and guides are interesting people sometimes it can be hard work to make conversation. I would have preferred to also have some meals with only my own family. I liked how it was organised in
Jongomero where lunches were eaten together with all guests and dinner was a family thing. Also what we really liked in
Siwandu and Jongomero was the way they set up the dinner table in a different spot every night and the breakfast and lunches in the bush were lovely too. In the Kwando camps dinner and lunch were always at the same table.
The guiding in the Kwando camps we thought was excellent, especially when the tracker was really good at doing his job. Our guides and trackers in Lagoon and Lebala were very knowledgeable. The guides would strictly follow the 3 cars-at-a- view policy and that was good (but luckily there were not more then 3 cars in the concessions most of the time). Compared to our safaris in
Zambia and
Tanzania I think the guiding was really superb here.
The food was the same quality in all the Kwando camps, it was good but never really special.
The swimming pools were small but worked great for the boys (and for us!) to cool off.
A good place to start our trip. The tracks we could drive were limited, no off road driving here and we had to be back in camp before dark. Our guide was Tabo. The friendly tracker Obi took us on the little nature walk in the camp and told us many things about the Bushman culture. I felt they could do more with the cultural experience.
Beautiful setting, our guide was a bit grumpy and not engaged with us (and then it is hard work to have lunch and dinner with him as well…) and the tracker was a lovely young man but he was rather unexperienced (TG and Tbone).
Lebala:
Great guide and tracker (Bali and TT). Great sense of humour, very knowledgeable. They seemed just as keen as we were to find that leopard (and we did find it!!)!
Lagoon:
This was our favourite camp! The location was great, the guide and tracker were very nice and we had some great sightings (Matt and .. ). It was great to spend our last days in Botswana with these wonderful people.
In Lagoon camp we had the family room and 1 double room. Having the additional double room was not really necessary because the family room could easily have fitted all 5 of us . The campmanager told us that this family room can be booked for 5 people. This is probably good to know for you because families can save some money this way.
Jo’burg:
On our last day we arrived in Joburg (from Kasane) around 4pm. We took the shuttle to the Peermont D’Oreale Grande at Emperors and checked in 1 double room to spend the time until our flight left to Amsterdam at 11.45 pm. This way we could take a shower, the boys went for a swim and we had a nice last dinner in the hotel restaurant. It would be nice if this was included in the package because it is a relaxing way to end the holiday.