Camp Kanana

8/31/09

Our flight to Maun was very smooth on a brand new Air Botswana plane. Maun doesn't seem that big from the air (picture dirt roads and sparsely distributed rickety-looking houses) and the airport is quite tiny. It's exactly one room big. Our Air Botswana plane sat right outside the one-room airport and it was the only big plane there. Lots of 4- and 6-seater planes lined up outside though! Customs looked like it happened in a garage back home. Airport employees here were wearing face masks - the first ones we'd seen and we'd already been to 5 airports!

We were immediately met by Julius (love the 5-star luxury treatment of being met off of every single flight with a bottle of water and an airport guide) and transferred to small aircraft for our flight to camp Kanana. The plane was actually a 10-seater and not any more bumpy than a normal flight, we thought. But, holy man are those small planes HOT. It's in the 90's and hot in Botswana, and those small planes have no air circulation in them so you just sit in them and sweat. And look out the windows. You see lots of elephants and giraffes and unidentifiable beasts from the planes since they fly so low to the ground. You can also see the houses that make up the bustling metropolis of Maun in this pic taken from our first small plane ride:



Upon arrival at Kanana, about 10 staff members were standing out front singing to us. Not in English so they could have been singing anything but I'm sure it was welcoming. Then they bombarded us with their names, which we remembered one or two of (very embarrassing spending 3 days somewhere not knowing anybody's names). The staff at Kanana sang a lot, in Setswana which is one of the national languages of Botswana (along with English). The traditional singing and dancing, which we often had to join in on, was a very nice touch and we only found it at Kanana. After we were greeted, we were fed lunch. Lunch was enormous. This day it was tacos. The camps always worked to cook a variety of dishes from all over the world for meals so people could feel more at home. And, wine is served with lunch every day.
After lunch we set out on our very first game drive. Within five minutes we saw a family of elephants, complete with a baby, and a baby giraffe not too far away from them. Though whenever you see a baby by itself it's sad because it means something happened to the mother for her to not be near her baby. Later in the drive we saw some buffalo, but only 3 of them, not a whole herd. Little did we know that elephant and buffalo are fairly rare sightings at Kanana! We then had sundowners (cocktails and snacks at sunset) by a hippo pool, where all the hippos were constantly grunting at us and sticking their heads out of the pool and watching us and "yawning" at us. They don't come out until nightfall though, when it's cooler outside.

This is a bridge in Botswana:



Baobab trees:



And below is a termite mound, which were *everywhere*. After awhile I stopped noticing them so much, but when we first arrived they were really impressive. Our guide Shakapira told us that if you catch a bunch of termites and fry them up and eat them, you won't be hungry for the next day because they are so filling. Good to know, when you need to survive on your own in the middle of Botswana. Fortunately, these were all dormant while we were there.



After sunset, we continued our game drive with a large spotlight. After dark, you follow the spotlight around until you see a pair of eyes reflecting the light. That's how you spot critters. Some of the cutest things in Africa are nocturnal, like genets and springhares. We even spotted some hippos.

Kanana had the most activities of any of the camps. The next morning we went on a mokoro (traditional canoe) ride. We didn't see much wildlife but it was a new experience. You ride around through lots of tall grass that is filled with spiderwebs and you basically just get covered with it all. We saw a very tiny frog though. And on the boatride to the mokoros we saw a bunch of hippos ... which we got quite close to but thankfully they didn't feel like charging us that day.



That night, we went on a boat ride to the heronry, which is a place out in the Delta where many large birds come to mate in September and October. They nest in trees in the middle of the water because they're safe from predators there. We came at the right time of year to see it! So many birds, and all so big - storks, herons, egrets, pelicans. 50-100 of them in each tree. Absolutely amazing. Then we had sundowners on the water while the sun set. Gorgeous. The sunsets in Africa are beautiful every single night. Blood red, due to all the dust and sand in the air. Unfortunately we did not learn how to fully capture sunsets on our new camera before we left for the honeymoon so we never got a sunset shot that accurately depicted the colors.





This is a pic of our Spanish friends, Angel and Victor, in their mokoro wearing their lily pad hats the guides made for us.



That night the two of us were taken off for a romantic candlelit dinner. We sat at a table for two under the stars by the pool, and we were surrounded by candles and tealights floating in the pool. With our own personal waiter, of course, who was really just there as a guard to make sure no lions or hippos ran out from the woods and ate us. Our travel agent was pretty spectacular to get us this special treatment for our honeymoon. We were told by some friends before we left to tell everybody we met that we were on our honeymoon to see how much special treatment it got us ... and we weren't disappointed. Although we tried it at the airport to get an upgrade to first class and just got a "congratulations" instead. Worth a try!

And the next morning, we went for a bush walk. So many activities to do here!! The walk was exciting because it felt dangerous. You're just out on your feet with your guide who has a big gun "just in case". He gives you this advice before you start:

If you see a lion, stand still.
If you see a buffalo, run, find a tree, and climb it.
If you see an elephant, run to the nearest termite mound and gather around it.

Then you're off on your walk with all those wonderful things to think about. Thankfully on our walk we only saw giraffe and warthogs. We saw an imprint where a hippo had slept the night before but thankfully no big things charging at us. But we walked through a lot of tall grass where you could just picture a lion hiding, ready to pounce on you.



Our last night in Kanana we were loaded into cars and driven into the bush for a traditional African dinner around a big fire. With a full bar, of course. There were lanterns lit all around this open meadow, and a table set filled with candlelight, and dinner was cooking over the fire. We sat around the fire and the staff sang to us, then we danced a bit and then had dinner. Not even sure what we ate that night ... although what they do with maize is quite delectable. We tried many new dishes in Africa, and were not disappointed in any of them.

The staff at this camp worked so hard. They had to drive all of the things for our dinner - tables, chairs, booze, food, dishes, lanterns, etc. out into the bush so we could have that different experience. No other camp did that.