Jacky’s Return to Africa

Bill and I just returned from a fantastic trip to the Wilderness Safaris’ camps in   Africa. It never gets old or disappoints and this was no exception. We flew on Emirates directly from Boston via Dubai and their business class is superb. As they offer ‘specials’ quite often during the year, this is definitely the way to go.

We started with our first visit to the new Linkwasha Camp in the Hwange part of northwestern   Zimbabwe – a superb camp with fabulous food and staff, a very active waterhole and luxurious tents. The first morning we saw a male lion chase a cheetah and her four cubs off ‘his land’ and ran for a couple of miles until he sent them packing to new hunting grounds! Nearby camps Davison’s and Little Makalolo are more traditional in style and offer the same excellent game viewing.

We flew via Victoria Falls to  Botswana and DumaTau – one of our all-time favorites. It’s been refurbished since our last visit and the tents all face the Linyanti swamp which had enough water for an afternoon of catch and release tiger fishing.

Highlights included watching baboons chase each other from tree to tree, graceful giraffe, families of ellies, lion, warthog running through the bush, impala and tsesebe and even a bush pig! The evening of our arrival was the night the camp staff put on a wonderful spectacle of music and dance – what talent there is in the bush!

Our third Wilderness camp was Chitabe where we saw a huge pack of wild dog. They are awesome and really hunt as a disciplined group and with the long grass this time of year, had to jump as high as the impala to see their prey. Here again Wilderness runs the operation absolutely flawlessly. Nothing is too much for the staff and we made instant friends with the fellow guests and our guides. No superlatives can do justice to one of the best trips ever!

by: Jacky Keith

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