From Maun, Moremi South Gate is around 90 Km and you loose the paved road after about 4o Km. From here on we won’t see a tar road until we get close to the end near Kasane but that’s what we came here for, to romp around the raw bush in search of it’s natural habitat. While I felt comfortable surrounded by scrub like Mopani trees it was rather intimidating to realize that we would be driving these sandy “roads” for the next 350 Km and we, the customers, were relying completely on our guide, DT, and his bush navigational skills to get us there. No GPS on the dashboard, he seemed to have every fork in the road programmed into his head and there was never a doubt whether it is left, right or straight ahead.
Now I knew this would happen and also that I would be super curious as to what our path would be so I invoked my trusty navigation app, gaiagps, and asked it to collect a track of where we went each day.
Going through one of the many gates is an opportunity to stretch, walk around and investigate the condition of the ablutions, could be anything from flushing toilets that really flush to one case where the toilet was filled with jugs of water and you had to fill up the urn in order to flush. Such is the African bush.
We drove into the park and then up to the north west to our campsite located in the middle of the second map above. Our game drives either went westerly over Fourth Bridge or north easterly to Paradise Pools in the east and some 4 star lodges in the north, one being Camp Xakanaxa. Now it is nice to have hot showers every day, a bar and air conditioning but the flip side is cost – the 4 star will run you between $700 to $1,000 per NIGHT whereas we paid $3,000 for our 16 day mobile camping with the animals safari, the choice is yours.
The Paradise Pools area was nice, why? Because of the pools of water around which made it less of a hostile environment for me. There was this solitary lion taking a nap and a string of vehicles would drive up, pause for photos and then drive off. The lion? He just laid there as if he was a paid prop for the area.
The heron above would bend over with his head close to the water and then spread his wings like an umbrella. Seems like the shade he creates gives him an advantage by attracting fish for him to hunt.
Jackals pair for life and if you see one roaming around you will also find his or her mate close by. If one dies then the surviving one does not “remarry” but leads a solitary life thereafter
Along the way we came upon a lioness and her two adorable cubs. They were like kittens and the impulse was to run over and cuddle them! The mother was content to let them play around while she dozed under a tree.
On the 20th of October we packed up our Moremi camp, swung past Paradise Pools, and headed east and to the south banks of the Kwai River.