Tag: Safari

Our Special Celebratory Trip to Botswana 2023 Day 2 to Day 4

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Our trip to Botswana in May 2023 was to celebrate Johns 70th birthday and my 60th which had been two years prior to this during the pandemic lockdown. 

Day2 – We flew into Kasane and hired a non 4×4 but high clearance vehicle( for pot hole avoidance). Although I am a reasonably experienced 4×4 driver, I don’t like driving the sand roads in Botswana……they are deep and very soft in the dry season and like driving on a skid pad which sucks you in, in the wet season…. we rented in advance from Avis a Toyota Urban Cruiser…it was a good price and the customer assistant, Ben was a delightfully helpful young man. 

We had booked into Chobe Safari lodge on line with booking.com We had bed, breakfast and evening meal  with a river view in a Safari Room for £175  or Botswana Pula 2300 per night for two people  ….it’s quite luxurious and there are lots of places cheaper in Chobe their sister hotel Chobe Bush Lodge on the same site is considerably cheaper but no river view….booking.com was cheaper than booking direct it was also the cheapest we’ve paid at that lodge for around 9/10 years…so it’s worth investigating.

You wouldn’t drive yourself in Chobe unless you were an extremely experienced 4×4 driver ( a few years ago I thought I was but had to be dug out, an embarrassing moment) Game drives through the activities desk at the hotel are US$45 / P 360 per person and River cruise is US $42/P350 per person, We  just managed to get from the car hire to the lodge in time for the afternoon Safari drive. It was a full jeep load and a driver who wanted to show us everything…hence a fairly fast bumpy drive but lots of excitment as we saw our first wildlife of our trip. 

Day 3 The next day we drove to Gweta. There are only a few tar roads in Northern Botswana so it’s quite straight forward to find one’s way. From Kasane take the road to Francis Town and turn right at Nata to Maun. It’s extremely straight forward  the road towards Francis Town is in good condition…but then I can remember back to when it was a dirt road before becoming a one strip tarred road and now by Botswana Standards it’s practically a motorway…two lane tar all the way !!! After a 5 hour drive on mostly good tar roads, interspersed with a few areas where it was better to drive in the bush at the side of the road than risk falling into a pothole…I think we emerged with all, 4 tyres intact but we’d know when we woke up the next day….at least you get a spare tyre in Botswana….. we arrived at Gweta Lodge for a 4 night stay…….Gweta lodge can only be described as quirky…it’s neither palatial or primitive…..it had electricity and even weak WiFi in the bar area….the en-suite room has mosquito nets over the beds (which is just as well as the door and it’s frame are miles apart) and air conditioning. They were in the process of building luxury rooms…none of which were available when we booked. Somewhere like Gweta lodge in the Salt pan area is about £65  or P1030 per night for the room for 2  ….The lodge had so much going for it but it just lacked management and the workers lacked direction, which meant the rooms and facilities were not shown in the best light. The cleaners did an adhoc job with no structure or routine and no checklist …so some areas of the room looked as if they had never been cleaned, and you may or may not get towels, soap, loo roll etc without having to go to reception and ask…. That evening we had a braii/ barbecue and met a nice Dutch couple, Cynthia and Jooste.  Cynthia Goedhart owns the Facebook page – “Travelling Namibia & Botswana: ideas ~ advice ~ experiences ~ inspiration! “…….with over 42.9K members it is one of the most popular Facebook African travel sites and well worth taking a look if you are travelling in this area. 

Day 4  We got up early as we were off to Ntwetwe Pans, part of the Makgadikgadi  Pans, ( about the size of Switzerland) for a full day of discovery. We had booked a safari from the lodge into Ntwetwe pans to see the furthest north meerkats. It was great not having to worry about the driving and having the whole Safari vehicle to ourselves. 

We were collected by ‘Chief’ in the Safari jeep. He was a charismatic young man, who originally didn’t take onboard the fact that we had years and years of experience of African Safari  and being in the African bush……he soon learnt the error of his ways when our spotting eyes and knowledge challenged his own less considerable skill, and he realised he was going to have to work for his money, ( US$1000 for the day meant we weren’t going to let him off lightly !!!!), rather than just joy ride!!!! We drove for about 1.15 hrs along what looked like animal tracks through marrula  scrub land….our wildlife viewing consisted of donkeys, horses, cows, we saw absolutely no other vehicle or persons even though we passed several cattle corrals with nothing but some barking dogs guarding them. Finally we got to an area of flat plains behind which was the gleaming white of the salt pans. We turned to drive along the plains and The Chief told us to look out for a man and tell him if we saw one.……we didn’t but he did and soon we were greeted by Como….who was sat on a slightly raised area of the plains. We then sat for a while until a family of meerkats began to pop up…really cute. Evidently there were 14 in the colony although we only saw 6 …delightful, busy, inquisitive little creatures. We had breakfast, if that’s what you call it, while watching the meerkats. Thankfully their antics distracted us from the curled up cheese sandwich, hard boiled egg and bread roll and the metallic tasting coffee. 

After an hour we headed on to the pan where we surprised a pair of jackals.

Our 2 minute drive on the pan was over in a flash and we were soon back on the animal tracks  heading for the famous Chapmans baobab tree. An hour later we pulled up at an area strewn with fibrous tree remains and a heritage national monument sign…the famous huge Chapmans Baobab had collapsed in  2016…yes we had taken an excursion to view a once was but no longer is magnificent tree !!!!!!!! John was polite and descended the vehicle and took a picture of the sign telling us about the tree which isn’t there any more. I am afraid the effort of climbing off and on the vehicle didn’t warrant the ‘nothing left of the tree’ view so I stayed put. 

Sensing our disappointment The Chief told us we were carrying on to see another baobab…I couldn’t contain my delight!!

On the way to our next tree viewing we visited the only 2 pans which still have a small amount of water in. To our surprise both had huge herds of wildebeest which had yet to follow the zebra migration. There was also a large number of vultures spread winged cooling off….it was a magnificent sight and what with the earlier sightings of meerkats it made our day a happy one. 
On the way to our next tree viewing we visited the only 2 pans which still have a small amount of water in. To our surprise both had huge herds of wildebeest which had yet to follow the zebra migration. There was also a large number of vultures spread winged cooling off….it was a magnificent sight and what with the earlier sightings of meerkats it made our day a happy one. 

We continued on to the the next baobab, which was actually still standing.

After a bite of lunch which fared more favourably than the breakfast we were once again subjected to the bone shaking high speed journey back to the lodge. The speed of the return was such that we had no choice but to hang on for dear life and pray. 

A lovely experience with the highlights being the meerkats and the wildebeest.

We enjoyed our evening meal chatting once again to Cynthia and Jooste.

Day 14- 18th February 2024 – Full Day Safari Yala Block 4 & 5

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We were picked up at 7.00 am by a different driver today, because we were going to an area of Yala about 1 hour 15 minutes away. The area is known as block 4 & 5 ( incidentally Block 2 & 3 are not accessible to tourist jeeps). Our driver was a scruffy barefooted elderly man who spent the whole day chewing beetle ( it makes you high, evidently) and he had no interaction with us at all. Once again he provided the lunch which came from the same place as the lunch the day before. We took a packed breakfast from the hotel, their cheese and tomato sandwiches were very pleasant as was their fruit platter.
During our morning Safari we saw the peacock perform its mating dance, a splendid sight, lots of Bee-eaters, buffalo’s, grey Langer monkeys, a selection of herons, storks and eagles, some very young white spotted deer and elephants to name but a few.


During the Safari we went alongside the Weheragala Reservoir and viewed the massive sluice gates. A picture of these appear on the back of the Sri Lanka 5000 Rupee note….On the non-reservoir side of the sluice is a small river. We were amazed to see 3 jeep loads of local people bathing in this river in the middle of the national park. Apparently this is a normal activity for a Sunday.

We stopped for our curry lunch by the same waters edge where we had had breakfast. Suminda is becoming an expert on serving curry from the back seat of the jeep…because unless we go to another designated picnic area you are not allowed to alight from the jeep. Our guide reiterated this to us when we asked to stop there for lunch….the 3 of us promised not to get down. On arriving at the area our guide told us he had recently seen leopard there and then promptly descended from the vehicle and went to the waters edge to wash his hands, face and feet !!!!


After lunch things went from rather uncomfortable to an endurance test…fortunately John Suminda and I passed the test ..just….
Having had at least one beetle too many the driver set off on some mission to see how many side roads he could take us down…these were not rock and roll, or even tango side roads more like tsunami wow, wow, wow….. let me tell you holding on for grime life is futile and actually only rips muscles as you are tossed and turned in unexpected directions. It’s better to put your arms out sideways to try and balance and ride the storm on your coccyx, hips and buttocks and just pray that your spine is still attached when you make flat land…ready for the next .. We got badly stuck in the mud twice. The first time Suminda shouted at him where to turn the wheel…the second time we sort of hit a brick wall, crashing our knees into the seat infront and jolting every bone in your body ..we were almost on our left side with the mud over the back wheel and almost into the jeep at the front…he kept going back and forwards in the same place spinning the wheels and showering everything with mud…eventually Suminda instructed him where to turn the wheel and when to accelerate…. At this point John and I decided to call it quits and Suminda told him to take us home… at one point I looked over my shoulder at Suminda and he was holding on with both arms up to the roll bars on the roof and swinging…he looked at me and we both burst out laughing… he shouted over the roar of the engine “I bet I look like a monkey” my reply was “ I Thought you were in the gym doing pull-ups” Even on the dryer roads the ruts were atrocious.

One the way out of the National Park we did see some absolutely amazing Malabar Pied Hornbills, a fantastic sight and some Indian Rollers. Needless to say when we got back to Tringa Villas our driver only got a tiny tip.


During supper that evening the 3 of us couldn’t stop laughing..I think it was the relief of being alive and in one piece as we talked over the days activities and adventures. Our supper was once again not good…if you like dry rice and over fried chicken leg it would be fine, but we don’t. Suminda very kindly took pity on us and offered to drive us to a nearby restaurant the following evening. We all had an early night as our bodies were very sore from the bumping, crashing, bouncing around. I have an extra tip for any ladies who may be stupid enough to do a Safari like this …….put a rolled up pair of socks down the middle of your bra to stop your boobs crashing into each other…… we Safari a lot but this one beats the lot 10x over when it comes to rough roads.

Day 13- 17th February 2024 – Full Day Safari Yala Block 1

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We had decided to go in to Yala main entrance, block 1, a little later than the opening at 6.00am because the queues would be twice as bad as they had been the previous afternoon, and we prefer not to be in a long convoy of safari vehicles all eating each others dust. So we left Tringa Villas at 7.00am armed with a packed breakfast of cheese and tomato sandwiches and fresh fruit. This time “Speedy Gonzales” picked us up from our hotel. He had also provided the lunch for the day.
It was much better and quieter entering the park after “rush hour” and we didn’t start racing around for some time. The roads in the park are not good at all, many partially washed away by the recent heavy rains, lots of really waterlogged roads with thick mud requiring 4×4 driving….but Speedy navigated them well even though he sometimes had little regard for his fellow passengers and we rocked and rolled, bumped and bruised ourselves as he occasionally tossed us around. Unfortunately he seemed to think that if we had seen a type of bird or mammal the previous day we wouldn’t want to stop and watch it again…he soon learnt the error of his ways…..Once again we had several near misses of seeing leopard or bear, but lovely sightings of many other creatures both big and small, a jackal took us by surprise on the way into the park…the good start got better and better. The scenery was magnificent with a clear view of the infamous “Elephant Rock”.

The park has some fairly strict rules, in the fact that if you are doing a whole day Safari you must stop between 12 noon and 2pm so the drivers can rest in the heat of the day. They also don’t let visitors in the park between these hours…morning Safari’s must be out by 12 and afternoon safari’s can’t enter before 2 pm. So at 12.00 we arrived at a newly built visitors centre on the coast of The Indian Ocean. It was amazing to know that there was no land in front of us until you reach the Antarctic. The visitors centre is built on the remains of an old guest house. This got destroyed in the 2004 Tsunami. Unfortunately the 12 Japanese who were staying there also lost their lives. We had never really heard of it affecting Sri Lanka because the focus was on Indonesia and Thailand. In Sri Lanka over 30,000 people died, almost a million were displaced and around 150,000 people lost their main source of livelihood. The new centre, where we stopped for our rather scrumpy lunch of chicken curry, dhal, potato curry and beans provides some seating and a washroom block.

We dutifully waited our two hours watching a fair few drivers sleeping, and enjoying conversations with Suminda before we set off on our afternoon “rallying in the jungle”!!!! However, it was a fruitful afternoon. Lots of vehicles were hanging around a certain area because a bear had been seen on previous days in the area. We were very fortunate to suddenly spot a baby bear …before we had managed to take many photos our driver was shouting to the other drivers as to his find…we then had trouble jostling for a decent position to see the mama bear who was deeper in the jungle. The shouting and yelling between drivers was unreal, there were over 30 vehicles all trying to see the bears, who actually seemed to take no notice of the furore they were causing amongst the jeep fraternity. We soon tired of this unethical, unnatural situation, but not before taking a good few shots, and moved on….our next commotion was a huge bull elephant, who had taken to attacking vehicles if he could smell fruit, walking down the road. We very quickly put all our bags in the front cab and shut the windows. The driver was obviously scared of this notoriously angry fruit lover and put his foot down speeding past until he was at a distance of safety.

It had been an eventful day and we returned back to the hotel, hot, sweaty, dusty but contented.
Our evening meal was Kottu a sort of chopped bread with vegetables in spices with chopped chicken and egg…however this one arrived with the fried egg laid across the top rather than chopped into it. I had asked the cook not to make it too dry so he served it with some rather tasteless dhal. We had loved this dish in Kandy but this was one of the most unsavoury meals we had, had during our time in Sri Lanka. Dry and tasteless we ended up leaving more than we had eaten. With such a limiting menu of only 3 fixed meals and Kottu we were a little at a loss for choice….not even a Sri Lankan curry on offer…or in fact any curry…We once again ended up going to bed a bit on the hungry side.

Day 12 – 16th February 2024- Ella to Yala

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I have to admit I was quite pleased to leave The Eminence Shires Hotel. I had kept waking up hearing noises behind the back door of the room and at 3.15 am the light which shone under this door and the front doors patio lights were turned off..it all made me a bit jittery. However, our breakfast was served on the patio and was very pleasant…fried eggs on toast, waffles and fresh fruit and a decent cup of coffee. Then we lugged our overnight bags back up the metal steps squeezed into the tuk-tuk and hurtled down the 1 in 3 track to the main road…where I was eternally grateful to find Suminda waiting for us.
We set off on our journey of around 4 hours, stopping at some magnificent waterfalls just outside Ella.

On arriving at Tringa Villas near Yala at around midday we were met by a rather cross looking man. He took us to reception and booked us in. Before going to our room I asked for the Wi-Fi pass word. He told us that the Wi-Fi was only available in reception….which was a few settees around an open small room. I told him the booking information specifically said every room had Wi-Fi on and that was why we had booked this accommodation. To which his reply was “ go then” which was accompanied by dismissive hand gestures. I replied that was fine we would find somewhere else to stay because we needed Wi-Fi to blog our vacation and I showed him the previous days blog…at this point he became vaguely pleasant…obviously the fear of being badly thought of on the internet allowed him to tolerate this “pushy” English woman. He instantly said he would move the router to our room so we could have internet. I thanked him perfusion and he showed us our room and set the router up for us. As he left he asked if we required anything else my response was. “only a smile” to which he smiled and justified his ill humour by telling us he was very busy as he was the cook ….what too busy to greet your customers with a smile…ummmm!!! he also told us the owner would be back after 4…I said we’d see him after 6 as we were going on Safari.

Suminda had managed to book us a half day Safari which was in addition to the ones we’d already booked as part of the package. National Parks in Sri Lanka are not cheap. By the time you’ve added the entrance fees and the hire of the jeep and driver it’s about £100 for a half day. We met our driver and jeep at the gate and hauled ourselves into the vehicle. We were going into Yala Block 1 which was only 20 minutes from our hotel. Our driver we renamed as “Speedy Gonzales”. He set off at a cracking pace constantly getting information from other drivers and racing to the spot only to find we had “just missed” the sighting…still we saw some fabulous sights…wild boar, jackal, buffalo, elephant, white spotted deer, samba dear, iguanas and a whole array of wonderfully colourful birds including the national bird of Sri Lanka, the Jungle Fowl, storks, herons and a variety of different eagles.

Although the roads were very “shake, rattle and roll”, it was a great Safari. We returned to Tringa Villas to be met by the owner. He tried hard to explain that all rooms did have Wi-Fi but because the incoming signal was weak and the wind blew a lot the Wi-Fi wasn’t always good. I pointed out that even with the router in our room we didn’t have a strong enough signal to upload to our web site or even post pictures on Facebook…. We had to agree to differ in that I don’t think he should be advertising Wi-Fi in each room when it’s not and he believes it is but the incoming signal is too weak and that’s not his fault that’s the fault of the supplier…. Anyway he agreed we could keep the router for our 4 nights, so at least we could access emails and attempt WhatsApp calls even if we couldn’t blog….
Later that evening he came back to ask how we had found the room…it is obvious that he has spent 12 years working in the UK because he does understand what the international traveller wants and he has tried hard to provide it…the bathroom was totally functional in that the shower had reasonable power and there was plenty of hot water, white fluffy towels, space around the sink to put the wash bag. There were loads of UK plug sockets in convenient places in the room, tv (which we didn’t put on), kettle and coffee/tea and a hair dryer as well as a reasonably comfortable bed.
We had a supper of fried chicken and fried rice in their restaurant. We were still a little unsure how the cook had been so busy earlier in the day because there was only us, Suminda and two other people eating all evening.

Day 4 & 5 – February 8th & 9th 2024 – Wilpattu National Park

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We bade Brenda, and Ron at the Ayubowan Guest House a fond farewell. It was definitely a place to recommend, very clean, very convenient to restaurants in Negombo, a nice place to stay with a refreshing pool.

We headed up north for our first experience in a Sri Lankan National Park. It was about a 3 hour drive through interesting villages and countryside. We stopped to have a look at a roadside temple.

We arrived at the Cloud Nine hotel around lunchtime. It had been advertised as a luxury hotel with views of the lagoon. We think someone was using poetic verse when they wrote the description. We entered our super deluxe room to see a giant corner spa bath and a massive bed and very little else. The balcony overlooked the forest/ jungle which evidently went down to the lagoon….we would have needed a machete to actually see the lagoon. The spa bath would have been heavenly for John if the taps actually worked and when we finally got some water out of them we’d have had to wait 2 hours for it to fill up !! The evening light show in the room was unexpected, the lights dipped, flickered or went out completely when the fridge tripped in and out..but hey! It was different.

We had a quick freshen up in our room before heading off to the Wilpattu National Park. The drive to the gate was 25 minutes. On arrival you walk across a bridge not dissimilar to those used to exit the jungle on “I am a Celebrity get me out of here”. Our Safari driver met us in a very beaten up Jeep. Evidently a bull elephant had taken a dislike to him 2 days prior and it had actually lifted the front wheels off the ground with its tusks, causing quite a mess to the front of the vehicle.

Climbing aboard was not for the faint hearted. We’ve boarded hundreds of Safari vehicles before but never one quite like this one where one really needed tiny feet, long legs, and a back able to bend in all directions…phew finally in and ready to go.
Over the following day and a half, we bumped around having Sri Lankan massages, over the very rough roads, through deep water, traversing the jungle and plains. We spotted a superb assortment of wildlife and bird life. One of our first spots was wild boar quickly followed by small herds of elephant. We also saw Spotted deer, Sambar Deer, Barking deer( muntjac), iguanas, buffaloes, mongooses, crocodiles, and the much sort after sighting of a leopard.

The bird life included the most magnificent peacocks, peahens, wooly necked storks, lesser adjutant storks, Indian pond herons, Indian rollers, egrets, herons, serpent eagles, bee eaters, Bitterns, pelicans, sitting ducks, lapwings, jungle fowl (the national bird) and many, many more. A real birders paradise.

On one occasion a frog leapt from the ground and landed on my trouser leg. It was quickly dispatched to whence it had come by Suminda who was sat behind me. Thankfully Suminda was with us and translated brilliantly, as the driver’s English was very limited.

On returning to Cloud Nine each evening we were offered a choice of two set menus…both at a price of LKR 3500 each ( approx £10 each) Our first night was leek and potato soup followed by crab curry and fruit salad or ice cream for dessert. Yummy you probably think and so did we. A plate with two sets of crab crackers, picks and scoops were put on the table. Our expectations were high…even the right equipment for the job…..but alas we really were on “I am a Celebrity”, the crab was the size of an egg cup and the amount of meat we managed to extract was minuscule, not even enough to wet our whistle let alone fill our tummies… The following night we opted for tandoori chicken and the obligatory rice but once again the chicken must have died of starvation or suffered with anorexia because it’s leg had next to no meat on it….so rice and more rice was once again our main meal. We again went to bed hungry and lacking protein.

Our over all opinion of Wilpattu National Park is that it is a total delight, full of surprises, a wonderful place to start our tour of Wildlife Parks. However! It really isn’t for the faint hearted, not just because of the struggle with getting in and out of Safari vehicles but because of the high level of rock and rolling which takes place due to the state of the roads.