Pat and Norm's World Cruises and other adventures

April 7 – 9, 2023

After our morning game drive at Chief’s Camp, Chief and Sky helped us get our bags to the safari vehicles and on our Mack Air charter to Kasane Airport for our next adventure at Chobe Chilwero.  This camp is named for its panoramic views over the Chobe River, islands and floodplain.

We met our guides at the airstrip and they drove us to the camp.  Our guides were Innocent (for our vehicle) and Leonard for the other vehicle.  Both were great and as knowledgeable as the ones we already miss. We had a drink and short orientation and our bags were taken to our rooms.  These rooms were also wonderful – no individual small pools or outdoor shower, but otherwise almost the same.  We had a nice front deck.  One of the differences is that this camp is fenced so almost all the animals you see from your deck or the main building are outside the fence.  We still need to be escorted to our rooms after dark, though, just in case there is an unexpected visitor.

We arrived in time for lunch and to our surprise, it was “make your own pizza day”.  We each got a pizza pan with a thin crust already on it, they added the sauce and there were at least 10 different toppings to choose from. They were cooked in the wood fired pizza  oven – it only took about 5 minutes for each – and it was a delicious start to our stay here.

After lunch we were able to unpack and rest before our afternoon game drive.  We had quite a show of baboons, monkeys and mongoose right outside of our room.

Our afternoon game drive took us to the river.  We enter the Chobe reserve through the gates, and in this reserve, the vehicles must stay on the rough roads.  Once outside the reserve, we can go off road.  We also must leave the reserve by 6 PM.  Chief’s camp had no restrictions and most of our exploration was off road.

Right away we noticed the different terrain – this area is very much more hilly with more trees and far fewer termite mounds.  We also saw fewer animals here than at Chief’s camp.

Here are some of the sightings near the river.

We did have our sundowners here in the bush, and returned to the lodge where we had an amazing group of native performers while we had pre-dinner drinks.  There were many more people at this camp – probably due to the fact it was Easter weekend. There were groups of young people and some families with children.  These performers got many of the group up and dancing.

After dinner (again, delicious), we headed back for a good night’s sleep.

We had breakfast, then headed out on the game drive.  Another difference here was lots of vehicles coming in from Zimbabwe for safaris.

Here are some of the day’s sightings.

I can imagine that none of the readers of this blog will know what this object is… none of us knew until Innocent told us.  I will give the answer at the end!

This is a dung beetle – it rolls balls of dung along the road! 

Elephant dung is food for baboons.  The baboons and impala sort of protect each  other – baboons warn impalas when danger is near.  There are also bird calls that the guides use to tell when predators like lions are near.  We were in search of the elusive leopard, but we didn’t find any at either camp. Giraffes and some of the other animals are often seen with birds on them – the birds pick off the insects.

We returned for lunch and rest.  Internet service here was practically non existent – better in the main building, but not great at all. Just as well because we are mostly free of the disturbing news of the world!

We had another afternoon adventure – it was a boat trip on the river.  We had our own private boat and had our sundowners on the river.  What a spectacular adventure seeing elephants swimming and going back across the water to land and seeing hippos for the first time.

There were many boats on the river, but the area is so big, it never felt crowded.

We got back to the lodge and had cocktails and dinner. After dinner, we got some confusing messages from the camp manager – we were told that our planned 11:50 departure to get to Kasane airport (which is only a 10 minute drive away) was changed to 9:30 and would be instead be picked up and taken to Livingston airport which is in Zambia.  Then she said it was in Zimbabwe (it is in Zambia) – so some people were getting pretty concerned about the change which would include buying a Zimbabwe visa at the border, how long it would take, etc.  To me, it didn’t make much sense since there were other groups of Oceania passengers on overland trips, some to Victoria Falls which is right near that airport while Kasane is so close.   Maybe they got us confused with another group?  And no one could get on the wifi to find out anything about the airport, etc. Later we got the word that we were indeed leaving from Kasane at 11:50 AM so we would have time for a morning game drive and an early lunch before leaving for the airport.

So it was a time to pack (including our newly laundered clothes) and get a restful sleep.

After breakfast, we had a game drive and a coffee stop. Dianne and Phil stayed back at camp.  The guides had gotten the word that there was a pride of lions in the area so we tried to track them  Innocent saw many prints and we went many places both inside and outside of the reserve, but could not find them.  We never found the elusive leopard either.  But the 5 days were simply magical.  Anyone would love this experience.

We left Kasane airport without a hitch at just after 2 PM – after going through immigration – since we were flying from Botswana into Johannesburg in South Africa and then on to Durban where we will meet our home away from home, the Oceania Insignia. 

And the picture?  It is a porcupine quill.  Did you identify it??

April 5-7, 2023

We had an early morning in Cape Town to make sure we were all packed and ready to go for our flight from Cape Town to Maun International, the airport where we got the small charter flight to land at the strip close to Chief’s Camp. Nine of us were on this trip and we were a very compatible group! Chief’s Camp is in the world renowned Moremi Game Reserve. Chief’s Island is one of the many islands created by the seasonal flood waters of the Okavango Delta and is well known for the finest game viewing in Southern Africa.

Our guides, Sky and Chief, picked us up at the air strip in the safari vehicles and drove us the 25 minutes to the camp.  We started seeing some animals right away!

The impalas are everywhere and are food for lots of the other animals.  Our only ostrich sighting was here.

Once at the camp, we were met with many staff members who all greeted us.  We had a drink and a snack, got our orientation and were taken to our rooms.  Each room is a separate cabin and they were very luxurious.  Each had both an inside and outside shower, a huge tub, a small outside pool and a porch overlooking game lands. Our room number 5 had its own internet access but it wasn’t too good and I had no time to post anything anyway.  Here are some pictures.

The main pool and surrounding deck.

At 4:30 we met our guide, Chief, and set out on our first game drive.  The animals rest in the heat of the day, so the game drives are always in the early morning and late afternoon.

We were in Toyota safari vehicles.  5 in one vehicle and we had 4 in ours.  Dianne and Jim were our travel companions.

What can I say except that the first day was already magical.  We saw so many animals, up close!  We knew from our previous safari that the animals only see the vehicle and are not threatened by it, but that we shouldn’t stand up, shout or otherwise let them know that there is something unexpected about the vehicle that could alarm them.

I am going to share probably way too many pictures, but I just can’t help myself!

This is Chief with an elephant skull.

The cape buffalo is one of the most dangerous animals.

A baboon on a termite mound.

A stork

We spotted four female lions and stopped to watch them for a while.

Even the guides call the warthogs “Pumba”!

Near sunset, we met the other group and stopped for “sundowners”, drinks and snacks. Chief had asked us when we arrived what drinks we liked, and he had everything we asked for and more.

Safari sunsets are wonderful! Both groups celebrate together.

We came back to camp and freshened up for dinner. We were not allowed to walk anywhere after dark since the property is not fenced in and any wild animals could be there at any time.  We needed to call someone when we went to and from dinner, but it was already light in the mornings.

We had dinner outside near the fire pit and we had a local group of singers and dancers who entertained us.  All drinks and food are included here, and our rooms were stocked with more alcohol then we could have had in weeks! And the food is delicious with many selections. I had no problem with not eating meat, the vegetable dishes were just wonderful.

After dinner, we got to sleep by 10 since we have a 5 AM wake-up call.

The next morning, we spotted these giraffes under the full morning moon, right near the camp. There were 7 of them out there.

On Thursday, we had breakfast, followed by a morning game drive, with a coffee break in the bush.  Again, so many wonderful sightings of animals and Chief provided us with descriptions and answered our many questions.  A bonus was seeing the male lions – we spotted something moving, and Chief followed the motion.  We watched them for quite a while.  The guides are very dependent on the tracks they see and can pretty much determine where the animals might be headed, but in the thick of the bush it is more tricky.  The vehicles can go everywhere – even in water.

Here are some of our sightings.  They have more than 500 species of birds here too, but most were too quick for my photo abilities. I did capture ostrich, Egyptian geese, herons, ibis, egrets and storks.

They do your laundry every day.  Here are two staff members heading to the laundry, and here is how it comes back to your room.

We stopped for our coffee break and resumed our game drive.

We returned for lunch and had some leisure time.

In the afternoon, I cooled off in our own individual pool, and we were entertained by baboons, monkeys and mongoose just off of our deck.  Later, two baboons came to our pool and even took a drink.

Our afternoon game drive was just as wonderful with many sightings of animals.  One thing we found out was that the rhinos we expected to see here were targeted by poachers during Covid when there were no guests or game drives.  They are hunted for their horns and the numbers were drastically reduced.  So they moved the rest of the to a sanctuary to have them breed and increase the numbers when hopefully they will be brought back to this area. Norm had been waiting for the elephants, and we saw lots of them.

We again had our sundowners and another beautiful sunset, then returned to the camp for drinks and dinner. This time we had drinks around the firepit and dinner on the open air deck. 

We had another fairly early night because we had another 5 AM wake up so we could have breakfast and another game drive before departing on a small charter plane to Kasane airport and our next safari camp, Chobe Chilwero.

April 1, 2023

What a wonderful day we had!  It has been on the cool side here (in the 60s) so we dressed in layers for our Seal and Pelican Adventure.  We did a similar tour 8 years ago and just loved it, so we signed up for this one on this trip.

It was a very short drive from our ship to the yacht club area where our group of 16 boarded a small boat for our trip into Walvis Bay to view the wildlife there. 

Our guides were terrific.  The best thing was how they got so excited to show us everything.  Of course, the boat captain and was very knowledgeable and got so excited to show and tell us everything. Here he is showing us the Sedgwick’s Old Brown Sherry, which, of course, we all got to drink.

Good thing we dressed in layers – but they were well equipped with warm blankets for those who needed them.  There was seating on the front and back of the boat and also under cover and we could climb the ladder to the top of the boat too, which we did for some good pictures.

A bucket of fish immediately attracted many seals (these are fur seals – their ears are on the outside of their heads) and pelicans.  They came right on and into the boat and we got amazing pictures.  I probably have hundreds but won’t post them all!  More than 3 million seals live here.  We learned that the main predator for seals is surprisingly, the seagull.  They pick on the weak or ill seals or the babies and they first peck their eyes out and then eat the rest.  There are also jackals that attack the seals and we got to see one on the shore – in the first picture.

We saw more flamingos, dolphins and all types of birds including flocks of thousands of cape cormorants. The last picture is one of thousands of terns  – we waited a while for that special sight.

We got to pet the pelicans (one got mad at me and tried to pick my sunglasses off!) and the seals and just had a great day.

On our way back to the harbor, we had sparkling wine and snacks, including the local oysters.

After we got back from the trip, we spent a short while in one of the pier side shops.  I bought two pairs of African socks.

These Himba women wanted money to have us take their picture so we obliged.

And here are two women from the shops.

As you can see, the sun came out and it warmed up nicely.  We walked back to the ship. I would highly recommend visiting Namibia.  Wonderful people and very diverse sights. 8 years ago, we had an around the world event here out in the desert – they put luminarias all up and down the dunes and it was a very special night.

Tomorrow we visit another port in Namibia, Luderitz, where we will do a walking tour.