Photos can be seen by location. Please click the title to see the photos from my camera.
Uganda, Zambia, Botswana, & South Africa
I am so honored and excited to be traveling with professional photographer, Paul Renner on safari for the third time. Click here to view his amazing photographs.
Photos will be posted as soon as I get there, the countdown is on. Departing LAX 9/9, Dubai bound, then Nairobi, then Uganda… Stay tuned.
With only five days until I leave, I thought I’d post the itinerary as a linkable PDF. I’m very excited to start this next adventure. Please click on this link for the itinerary.
9/9 – LAX to Dubai, flying on Emirates was a delight, between the staff, the comfort and the meals – the 15 plus hour flight, over 9,000 miles went fast. May have been business class, but i felt like I was in first class all the way.
Waiting for my visa to enter Kenya (I must have miss that most important note in the directions 🤔🤣. Will know more in the morning but hoping to make my connecting flight to Nairobi. If not, we’ll that’s why it’s called an adventure. Stay tuned.
Made it to Kenya, safe and sound, tomorrow we visit the giraffe center and the elephant orphanage.
Tuesday, Sept 12, made it to the Giraffe Center next door to Giraffe Manor, in Nairobi, Kenya. After a little visit with the giraffes, feeding them – their tongue were very much like sand paper, but the giraffes were excited to have us there and happy to eat what we offered them, and they were so gentle. From there we went to the Sheldrick Wildlife Trust and were treated to seeing an orphaned rhino as well as about 25 orphaned elephants. I have a couple videos that I’ll add to the photos, but in the meantime, enjoy these few. I’ve added links to the points of interest if you care to read/learn more about the places we visited today.
Then we traveled by propeller plane from Nairobi, Kenya to Kigali, Rwanda, staying over night and then tomorrow morning we head by jeep to Bwindi Lodge. Our first trek will be Thursday, Sept 14.
Here are a couple of maps to give you an idea of where we are, where we were and where we are going.
Thursday, Sept 14 – our first trek. Amazing, breath taking, and in the words of Bill and Ted (probably misquoted), a most excellent adventure. Here is one photo (from my iPhone ) to hold you over until I get somewhere where the internet is stronger.
Saturday, 9/16 (I was sick 9/15). It’s a long story and you’re here for photos 🤣. Todays trek was brutal (having been sick may have made it more difficult. Thank goodness for the porters. These are the few I got on my iPhone, the camera photo will be updated after editing and access to better wifi/internet.
Traveled to South Africa today… a new adventure starts tomorrow.
Made it Madikwe and the Impodimo Lodge, went on a afternoon/sundowner game drive. Then the lightening started – oh it’s not going to rain tonight, maybe in the morning. All said with a lovely South African accent… and low and behold, it starts to get windy, dust blowing all over the place and then the rain starts. Please know these jeeps do not, that’s right, do not have roofs, we are out in the open. 🤣 Guide drives as fast as he can back to the lodge and mind you, the tracker is sitting in the front tracker seat (photo to follow). I was cracking up trying to keep my cameras dry and my eyes closed. To top it off, when we got to our room, our electricity was off. It’s a long story – hysterical really – but I am grateful it’s over now. Morning game drive, brunch and then in to the “elephant hide” I go. Enjoy the photos!!!
Friday, Sept 22, is a travel day, heading to South Luangwa tomorrow for three days. Not a lot of time for editing photos. But I did want to share this short video of Dennis the Menace, an older gentleman elephant, that decided to treat all of us with a visit to the pool area. That video is too big to post right now. However, as I was walking the path to my room, Dennis was on the path, in my way. OMGosh!!! I jumped off the path into the bush, with my camera and everything. Shaking in my boots and trying to call for help 🤣. So grateful I can laugh about it now.
Then, this morning as we were packing and getting ready to leave, this amazing moment happened.
After a full day of travel yesterday, we started our day at the hotel seeing weaver birds, then our flight to Mfuwe, then drove to South Laungwa, and the amazing permanent tented camp, Kukaya. Then our first game drive and we were treated to the very rare sighting of wild dogs. After the sun sets we drive with a spotter and it’s amazing what they can see. We saw hippos, owls, gerets (also rare) and so much more that we could see but not necessarily able to take photos.
More tomorrow…
Sunday, Sept. 24, morning game drive… all photos taken with my iPhone 12 MaxPro… so much to see… from the baboons in the morning to a pride of lions with their feast, a leopard and her breakfast, elephants, elephants, hippos and crocs in the river, giraffes, a Jeep on the road and an elephant in front of our tent.
Monday, September 25, two wonderful game drives. Again, these are the photos from my iPhone… camera photos will have to wait 😂
After leaving South Luangwa, we headed to Victoria Falls in Zambia for the night. On 9/26, we were able to walk to the falls on the Zambia side, then took a bus to the Botswana border, went through immigrations and took a very small plane for an hour flight to Camp Xakanaxa, located in Moremi Game Reserve, in the Okavango Delta.
Lots of exciting things. When we arrived the lions were enjoying their Cape buffalo on the road into the camp, then the next morning we had a game drive and the lions were finishing up and leaving behind the remainder for the vultures. The landscape is very interesting, lots of birds, elephants, zebras, baboons, hippos and so much more. Here are photos from the last few days.
Friday, Sept 29, morning game drive – immediately spotted leopard paw prints. Our guide and driver kept attacking and tracking and we found a male up in a tree. He was very skittish, only got photos with my camera. Here are a few phone photos.
Saturday, 9/30, another quick flight back to Kasane and then a 40 minute drive to Chobe Lodge and game reserve, home to the largest number of elephants on the continent (about 80,000), truly a sight to behold. An afternoon solar boat ride on the Chobe river, saw lots of … you guessed it elephants, African fish eagles, crocodiles, impala and it was so cool to see the herd of elephants swim across the river.
Also, it was Botswana’s Independence Day, 57 years of independence.
Sunday, Oct 1 started way, way too early (5:30am), but was totally worth it. We saw a bunch of vultures on an elephant carcass (died from old age), Honey Badgers, bat eared fox, sunrise, giraffe, lions having a morning snack, another group of lions with two cubs, a leopard in a tree and then on the way back a young male lion walking.
2nd game drive for today was a 2hr boat ride. We watched a herd of elephants cross the river… I’m sure there’s a joke in there somewhere. The video is over 5minutes, right at the end we were blocked by another boat 😫 so I didn’t get to see them get out of the water😳🐘. Amazing sight though, watching them swim and walk across.
3rd game drive for the day was amazing. We saw more of the park, a tower of giraffe (become a journey of giraffe when on the move), baboons, impalas, birds galore, and then it happened… a pride of lions on the move hunting. The video at the end shows the stand off, which is when we had to leave. WOW, just wow!!
Last game drive, this part of the adventure is over, but not yet… as we left the lodge, we saw striped (?) mongoose, elephants (of course), herds of impala, zebras, giraffes and elephants by the river and a beautiful sunset!
Traveling from Chobe Game Lodge / Chobe Game reserve the animals came to say good bye. A sable antelope (then a herb), the elephants, a tsessebe, and giraffes. Only had my iPhone, but the images are imprinted in my mind for all time. What a send off. Thank you Botswana 🐾💙
In Cape Town (10/4 and 10/5) heading to wine country tomorrow (10/6) and heading home (10/7)… Will catch up when I return to the states, and have time to review my camera photos. Hope you have enjoyed my travels as much as I have. Thanks for joining me!
October 25 – I’m diligently working on my photos (there are lots of them) and will be posting within the next few weeks. I will update the page a bit as well at the same time, so you don’t have to scroll all the way to the bottom (LOL).
My Adventures 