Into the Wild: My First Safari In Botswana

Valerie Orton is on a year-long “Golden Gap Year,” travelling the world and embracing new adventures. After years in executive leadership and resilience coaching, she decided to swap the boardrooms for bushlands, cityscapes, and far-flung destinations. Here, she shares her first safari experience in Botswana, Africa. In all, Valerie was in Africa for four weeks.

After one night in Maun, in northern Botswana, the major gateway to many of the safari areas including the Okavango Delta and the Moremi Game Reserve; I watched as a strong, medium height San Bushman stepped out of an open-sided Toyota 4 wheel drive truck and walked towards me. 

“Kane. It is a pleasure to meet you,” I said stepping forward with a smile and could not resist hugging him. He put my two soft bags, one 8.5 kilo and the other about 3.5 kilos into the truck and I met Bill and Sue, my companions for the next ten days of our mobile African safari.

We drove in a north-easterly direction out of Maun, past a cart being pulled by two donkeys and people walking along the dirt pot-holed road towards Mababe Depression in Chobe National Park, our first camp. I’d heard many times: “Don’t expect to see animals every day. You may not see anything on a safari”, so I had no expectations.

Not more than half an hour out of the town, Kane exclaimed and stopped the truck in the middle of the road. Heading in the other direction, another truck backed up beside us.  A tall blonde man stepped down and his tall blonde wife walked around from the passenger side and both hugged Kane. The Dutchman had been a client and friend for over ten years and Kane had led many walking safaris through the African bush. After chatting and catching up, they both gave us two pieces of advice which became very useful. Firstly, ‘this is not a holiday, you will work very hard.’ Secondly, ‘any time you think you’ve had enough, let go and trust the universe’.

Another hour or two down the road, before lunch, we saw rare and endangered wild dogs on the road, which is very special. By the end of our safari, we had seen over eighty wild dogs, including two packs in which I counted twenty-seven and thirty-seven dogs.

African wild dog standing on a mound in Chobe National Park, Botswana. African wild dog standing on a mound in Chobe National Park, Botswana.

The Rhythm of Safari Life

Both males and females buffalos have large horns which curve up in a semicircle to a point, however some of the bulls are much larger. The herd face out against danger of predators to protect the young and stare at you, daring you to come any closer.

Photo by Adriaan Greyling

Near the buffalo Kane spotted lions in small groups of two or three, moving around. We estimated about thirteen, both males and females. Away on the horizon were a large herd of impala and another herd of buffalo. Impala are such elegant creatures – medium sized antelopes, soft reddish brown in colour with a dark vertical stripe down each side of its bottom.

We could see that the lions were deciding which group to hunt, the impala or buffalo. Some of the lions moved towards the buffalo, which would put their heads down and take a few steps towards the lions which would then retreat and nonchalantly lie in the sun or the shade of a bush, as if they didn’t have a care in the world. The two groups of animals seemed to be taking it in turns to play the game as it were.

Suddenly Kane started the engine and we flew over the dry grassy flat towards a dust storm as the herd of impala took flight. A couple of lionesses had decided to chase down a meal. We arrived in time to see a group of lions fighting over the carcass of a small impala and then a male claimed a large chunk of hindquarters and sat down by himself to eat it. 

Photo by Hugo Sykes

We drove back to the stand-off between the lions and buffalo, which, we were advised, both parties thought they were winning. By this time, we had been away from camp all morning and it was past lunchtime. Kane radioed to the camp and two staff members, Stagger and Keng brought us our lunch of chicken legs, stuffed squash, pasta, a salad of chickpeas, corn and cucumber in dressing and tinned tuna. Always a good feed.

After lunch, the guys drove back to camp and we resumed our vigil, Kane being certain that there would be a hunt – it was just a matter of time and patience. This is one advantage of this type of safari – there is no strict time frame and if there is something worth waiting for to see and learn, this can be accommodated.

Without warning, there was some sort of signal and the herd was off in a cloud of dust, pursued by our Toyota, Kane with eyes everywhere. All of a sudden, Kane turned the wheel and we were flying back towards the back of the pack.  We pulled up to see a circle of lions around a juvenile buffalo. We watched in fascination as they licked the skin to soften it before being able to bite through the flesh.

Two lions feeding on prey in a natural African landscape, showcasing wildlife behaviour. Photo by Derek Keats

They are very noisy eaters and I counted thirteen lions before one of the male lions walked around the group to sit for a few minutes and then decided he wanted to eat too. He muscled in and others needed to give way to him.

Elephants lock horns in a timeless dance, Botswana’s Chobe National Park

Finding Freedom in the Wild

By the end of the safari, I’d seen more than I ever dreamed possible: over 80 wild dogs, countless elephants, zebras, giraffes, lions, and birds of every hue. And it’s fair to say I left part of my heart back in Africa.

Follow Valerie Orton’s Golden Gap Year in Capetown here.