Super spots The Hollidays were delighted to – eventually – catch sight of a leopard
VICTORIA FALLS & BOTSWANA
Simon & Sarah Holliday visited Victoria Falls & Botswana with Audley
W
e recently returned from our safari honeymoon in Botswana. Our first stop was Victoria Falls on the ZambiaZimbabwe border. Here, we stayed at the Ilala Lodge, a beautiful hotel with traditional African decor and rolling gardens where we were able to watch the spray from the falls rising majestically on the horizon. We got our first glimpses of wildlife that evening, as we enjoyed a sunset cruise on the Zambezi River where an elephant splashed about on the riverbank and a pod of hippo basked. We woke up early the next day and set off on a short walk to the area’s pièce de résistance. Upon arriving at the falls’ entrance we politely refused the friendly offers of local traders selling ponchos, instead
choosing to march on in our shorts and t-shirts, camera at the ready. As we wandered along the paths of the surrounding Victoria Falls National Park, we were soon greeted by the tremendous roar of the ‘Smoke that Thunders’. Its sheer power was breathtaking. Having been drenched from head to toe with spray from the world’s largest sheet of falling water, we couldn’t help but think that perhaps those ponchos may well have been a good idea! The grins on the faces of the locals as we headed back to the hotel said it all.
TRACKING IN CHOBE
Later that morning we traveled by road through Zambezi National Park and on to Chobe National Park in Botswana. Chobe
Elephant Camp was to be our base for the next few days. The lodge has a truly spectacular setting, perched on a ridge above the Chobe River. The views and sunsets over the surrounding landscape are stunning. As soon as we arrived, we were whisked out on a game drive with our knowledgeable guide, Mike. We were soon lucky enough to get close to a very large herd of buffalo, already closely watched by a male lion. But we saw so many different species in Chobe; ‘Giraffe Valley’, as Mike described it, took us to within a few feet of perhaps 30 giraffe that were licking the soil for vital minerals. We also regularly spotted large herds of elephant, hippo, crocodiles, impala, kudu, zebra, warthog, jackal, and on one evening, a pride of lion feeding on a kill at a small watering hole.
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