We flew from Vancouver to Frankfurt, had a few day stopover in Europe to get over a bit of jet lag. Flew onwards to Maun connecting in JNB (rather than dealing with customs + bags, but made flight purchases more complex).



Maun lodge: unremarkable, got a good rest, transfers worked out, didn’t get sick, basically what we hoped for.



Lagoon: 3 nights. Our favorite camp overall. Best sightings, more game overall, lions roaring in front of us, cheetahs, leopards, nice river cruise. Our guide (Stanley, new to Kwando) + tracker (Vincent) was excellent. Nicest setting with current conditions, lots of hippos at night. Most rustic of the camps, and worst food, but manager was quite nice as were staff, very welcoming. Basically priorities of what we were hoping for in terms of choosing Kwando. There is good cellphone reception in camp, if I had a SIM card for Namibia could have had internet access, but network there wasn’t covered in my Canadian roaming plan. Didn’t really matter this time but could be good for others to know.



Kanana: 2 nights felt a bit more customer service focused. We did have good sightings here, lots of lions, several leopards. Water levels were unseasonably low apparently so didn’t get the full charm of the views from camp, along with some brush fires nearby. Our guide was a good communicator but not on the same level in terms of tracking/spotting as previous team. He got our vehicle stuck in the morning during golden hour of photography one day (and apparently had done the same day prior to our arrival). Food was an improvement, and wifi helpful in terms of being able to check in with work.

Kwara: 3 nights very nice accommodation. Food/staff were fine. Some of the guides were a bit gruff. Unfortunately our guide was simply not good. He was not easy to communicate with and did not have the personality that we felt comfortable giving feedback to. He seems to have been working for them for years so that is a bit disheartening in terms of Kwando. He kept stopping for Buffalo even though no one expressed interest in them, would pause for long periods to slowly state the same stories causing us to miss wild dogs. He talked himself out of doing our wake up call. He did not seem to have good experience working with photographers. I missed my jumping red lechwe photo because he stopped at the wrong angle, would ask if we wanted to stop for photos of hippos walking away in bad light etc… we told him not to rush back to camp on last day as we didn’t want to eat brunch prior to our longer bush flight. This was not communicated to staff and changed the plan without telling us. We had our morning tea time at the airstrip as the single guest in our vehicle had an earlier flight. I thought they could have arranged for her to get picked up somewhere more pleasant and taken to airstrip separately (as kanana did) so we could have continued with game drive.
Delta cruise was quite nice, and we managed to see some rare species like pangolin, and honey badgers. Also witnessed some elephant bathing in mud in some of now flooded areas which made for good photo shots (apparently central and east gets more water now vs west)

Flew out to Kasane then on to Vic falls. One night at Ilila lodge, nice restaurant, close to falls. Went for sunset and sunrise, really enjoyed it. Managed not to ruin my camera with rain cover, lots of on/off with lens cap. Flew home from Vic falls direct (with stop in Namibia but don’t have to deplane) to Frankfurt… now onwards to Vancouver



Comments: was really cool to see Delta. Flight over it saw some of the central part in full glory. I am not sure how this appears from the ground, as some of the epic delta photos seem to be of elephants from helicopters. The mokoro views were nice, just a shortened ride as water levels low. Similarly, there were zones that had a more flooded look to them.

However, nothing comes close to the mind blowing first glimpses of Serengeti . We saw tail end of migration in 2019 (and gorillas in uganda) and I don’t think this trip will leave its mark on us quite as much as first one. Which is somewhat natural I suppose. We brought my mother in law along and botswana was an ideal destination for her, whereas we could venture to more adventurous locals in the future. Guides here in general were not as photography savvy as concession camps we stayed at in Mara (kichechie). Other guests said same thing. There is also less of a cultural element as in other locations perhaps. Some guests seem to prefer okavango due to ease of Safari, safety/logistics, luxury, exclusivity rather than animal experience. Or am I missing something here safari experts?
I don’t recall Kenya being open bar, many guests were guzzling back wine, which I don’t really appreciate paying for. I think private concessions on seregeti are better value overall (the mara/serengeti park camps are of course quite crowded), but I may be tempted to return to okavango at some point in high water season (unless that becomes a victim of global warming) and to see dogs. If going with Kwando I will probably research guide (ideally request our first guide) and book private vehicle. I suspect there can be service failures even at dramatically more expensive camps, but will probably consider other options, without having to factor in single supplement and shoulder season (which drew us to kwando and kanana). In reality, will probably try someplace different next time. Maybe zambia + malawi hiking or namibia, or south tanzania. 8 days of game drives is about our limit , too much inactivity exercise wise, and you don’t appreciate it as much beyond this time.

Very interesting comments. Sounds like you noticed out a lot of the same downsides as we did on our Botswana safari -- having to share a vehicle and the potential of getting screwed by other guests' flight schedules, unmotivated guests who are more interested in pounding drinks at the bar than the game, and inconsistency of service levels at Kwando camps.

Sounds like our guides/trackers were better than yours, overall, and we're very fortunate we got to see dogs. Interesting your Kwara guide kept stopping for buffalo. We couldn't find buffalo in 3 days at Splash and we'd expressed interest in seeing them and specifically went looking for them one afternoon.

Regarding your feeling that your first safari (Serengeti) was much more memorable your second (Botswana), I wonder if that's because the Serengeti is a better safari destination -- or because one's first safari will always be the most memorable one. I could hear the argument that there's nothing like the experience of one's first safari -- getting off a bush flight and seeing a giraffe at the air strip, seeing lions up close for the first time, etc. I wonder if you went to Botswana as your first safari, that would be the most memorable one. (This relates to what I wrote about in my trip report that all these wealthy retiree safari veterans who seemed totally jaded on their fifth or tenth 2+ week safari. To make our next safari memorable, I'd like to wait another 10-15 years before we do it again so that the previous safari is so far in the past that we can hope to replicate the magic of seeing animals in the wild.)