Our Zimbabwe highlights – The history of the falls and experiencing the spray coming back up from the bottom. Because so much rain has fallen in the last 3 months the power of this water spraying back up meant parts of the view points were closed as you couldn’t see anything through the mist, which fell back down as heavy rain.
Our Botswana highlights – Chobe National Park: Our first day in a National Park and first look at so many animals on the drive through to our tented campsite – the animals were all there, you didn’t need to search for them. Instead of a morning land game drive on the 2nd day we had a half day trip down the Chobe river in a boat where we were all provided with a high powered camera each on a stand that rotated 360 degrees to take as many photos as possible. At the end of the tour the memory stick was given to us loaded with all the photos we had taken – so many elephants spotted at the river with plenty of hippos. &Beyond Tented Campsite was a great way to start our African safari.
Sandibe Safari Lodge: The afternoon our lunch was interrupted by a juvenile elephant that decided to enter the outdoor restaurant and destroy some of the furniture and joined his family that prevented us from accessing our room for over 1 hour.
Xudum Delta Lodge: Following 4 female lions and 6 cubs on a hunt for food, eventually catching a warthog and demolishing it before our eyes – gruesomely exciting – one of the advantages of being able to travel off the beaten tracks to view this unlike the National Parks where you had to stay on the roads or tracks.
Our whole time in Botswana was one of our favourite times and the organisation, service, food options and presentation, staff friendliness by the &Beyond company would rate as the best over the 5 weeks – the extras like coming to a open space on the afternoon game drives where we could watch the sunset with a bar set up to enjoy the daily sun downer.
