A few words about my recent Safari...

Somebody e-mailed me and suggested that in addition to the pictures, I should talk a little about this month in Africa. Let me first and foremost tell you, that everybody who can manage it, should, once in their lifetime, take a trip to Africa and go on a Safari.
When I say Africa, I mean East Africa and southern Africa. I only know a tiny little part of this continent:
Kenya, Tanzania, Zimbabwe and Botswana. In Kenya I have visited: The Masai Mara, Amboseli, Tsavo, Mount Kenya and several other Wildlife Sanctuaries. In Tansania it was the Ngorongoro Crater and the Serengeti, All the way from the southernmost point right up to the North, where the Serengeti joins the Masai Mara. In Zimbabwe, we canoed the Zambesi River from the Kariba Dam all the way to just before the border to Mozambique. Zim features Hwange, just a little south of Victoria Falls, which themselves are worth a visit. These Falls are 1.5 km long and the Natives there used to call them: "The Smoke that thunders"
Hwange is a multifaceted Nature Park, containing small Lakes, rivers, grassland, bushland and trees. This Park shelters some 150 species of mammals and I don't know how many other animal types.
Zim has, of course, many other nature reserves. But Hwange, with almost 14,000 square kms is the largest.
From Zim south/westward one gets into Botswana. Right away you are in the Chobe Desert, then in the Okawango Delta. The O.D. is the world's largest Inland River Delta. It contains the "Moremi Game Reserve". Motor in, fly in, canu in, hike in (accompanied by a guide with a gun).. whichever way you explore Moremi and the rest of the Okawango Delta, it is an experience you will not soon forget.
Be sure you restock your supplies in Maun before you explore the Nxai Pan, followed by Makgadikgadi and finally the "Central Kalahari Game Reserve". About all of these I could write pages and pages...suffice to say:
These places are "different".... The Light looks different, the Air smells different, so are the plants and, of course, the animals are very different. Needless to state that the night sky is different. Lieing on your back inside your moscito-tent looking up at the Southern Cross tells you just how different.
When you observe an elephant chasing a pack of "Painted Dogs", seemingly just for fun, when you then have a chance to sit in the sand, eye to eye with these actually quite shy creatures, (the dogs, not the elephants)  taking picture after picture of these expert hunters....When you see a pod of Hippos grunting away in a good sized waterhole and then you notice a Grey Crane casually standing on the back of one of the Hippos, and a turtle having made one of the others its "spot in the sun", or, if you are lucky enough to quietly watch a superb example of a male Lion as he says to his bride: "Let's do it" and she seems to say: "Okay, come on, Big Boy"... When you see all manner of antilopes, monkeys, crocodiles and what not...
When you have seen all of this, photographed it to your heart's content, then you know: This place is different.
Bertstravels.