Botswana – Self Guided Safari & Victoria Falls

When we were planning our trip we talked with some friends, Brady and Lindsey, who did a similar trip a few years ago. They said their favorite part of their trip was a self-guided safari through Botswana. I had done a safari in South Africa before, but Tom never had, so this seemed like an awesome way to go about it. We’re also no strangers to van life, so we were looking forward to a little familiarity to our van Tony. Tom did a bunch of communication with the company Bushlore on how many days, where to stay, etc. Ultimately we decided on a one-way, 9-day trip from Johannesburg, South Africa to Kasane, Botswana. It was going to be pretty cool to be able to drive through an entire county. The company took care of our entire itinerary, where to go per day, and made reservations for us to camp at each national park/game reserve. Being in a foreign country, it was nice that we had a secure spot to crash every night. This was our first big YOLO part of the trip as this wasn’t cheap, but it was so worth it! Definitely an experience you can’t/won’t do all the time. 

Tom decided to get the Toyota Land Cruiser 4×4 that came with a snorkel, plenty of spare tires and a pop-up roof tent that could be accessed from the inside, instead of having to go outside to get in and out of the tent. Being in lion country, that sounded great to me! There was also a toilet inside that came in handy when the sun went down. I had a rule for myself to not leave the back of the truck once the sun went down.. no thank you. This truck was a tank! And that’s what we called him. I had my first real 5-speed driving lesson while driving on the opposite side of the road (and car) but, thankfully it was a diesel so it had plenty of cushion for me learning the clutch and shifting gears.. I didn’t break it! 

We took this thing through some crazy terrain! We drove on highways where it struggled a bit, but things got really fun and interesting in the national parks where there were big sand ruts, or no ruts in the sand, huge puddles (lakes, really) to drive through, not knowing how deep or muddy the bottom was and occasionally having to plow over the shrubs a bit. I was so glad Tom opted for the beefier vehicle! But, of course he would. One day we came upon a guy who was stuck in a huge lake with a less rugged truck. We were going to try and get him out with the winch (yes, Tank even came with a winch) but the Game Reserve help had arrived so we didn’t have to. Being on a self-guided safari entails a lot of driving. I’m so glad Tom doesn’t mind driving much, and the off-road terrain added a little more entertainment for him. 

We didn’t really plan on doing this driving safari during a certain time of year i.e. dry season, wet season, etc. (we’re not quite that good at planning ahead). It just so happened that we did our trip at the tail end of wet season and before everything would get really dry. This played a factor in a number of things. For one, that’s why there were so many lakes to drive through, which made the driving a little more challenging at times. But it helped with the sand, making it a little more wet and grippy than when it’s bone try and you can’t get traction. It also affected where the animals would be. In dry season, there are only a few watering holes that all the animals go to, so if you go to those places, you’re likely to see a lot of animals. In our case, there were so many other places for animals to get water it was a little unpredictable. We lucked out on some of the major watering holes and totally struck out on others. But we were able to see animals all over the place since there were a lot of other places for them to go. 

Right off the bat, day one, in a place everyone said wasn’t very exciting, we saw zebras, giraffes and a number of antelope types. We were already so excited! If this was the worst one, what are the others like? They were pretty incredible. We had no shortage of animal sightings every day. It was so crazy driving on a road in the game reserve and to your left or right there’s a giraffe standing there eating! Or a herd of zebras walking to a watering hole. 

A few of my most memorable moments:

• Tom turned a corner and scared the shit out of a giraffe.. literally! 
• Sitting in one spot for a while, watching the animals do their thing and interacting or ignoring each other. We saw 100 zebras just roam by us and a number of different animals chilling at a watering hole including zebras, elephants, bucks
• Taking a corner and to find an angry elephant defending his herd in the middle of the road! He was shaking his head, flapping his ears, yelling, and stomping towards us. All signs that he’s angry and is protecting his young. Tom reversed quickly out of there and my heart was pounding! I learned I’m slightly scared of elephants, especially because I don’t know if there is a baby hiding that’s being protected. 
• The 20 or so hippos hanging out in a pool that we watched for a while. We later found out that they defend their territory by opening their mouths, which looks like yawning. Yes, they were doing this to us and we thought it was funny. I’m glad we weren’t any closer to them. And fun fact: they can’t swim and stay in the water to protect their skin. 
• We didn’t see any lions but one of my all time favorite moments was hearing them roar and groan every night. It was so unreal! They do it to dominate their area and usually right before sunrise. But man, it was unlike anything I’ve ever heard and wasn’t scary at all but, more fascinating. 
• The bridge to one of the camp grounds was broken so Tom walked through the water, discovered it was mid thigh deep and drove Tank through it and the water came up over the hood of the truck! The snorkel was definitely used then. 
• We drove through one super muddy spot on day 3 or so of the trip, neither of us had our seat belts on (we’re driving really slow on dirt, what could happen?) we drove through some mud and water and there was a huge dip and I went flying and almost landed in Tom’s lap! I hit my head on the ceiling and got a little whip lash, but that gave us a good laugh and I wore my seat belt after that.

On day 6 of our trip, after driving through a ton of lakes with water at various heights to the car, the alternator died and therefore the battery was struggling. Thankfully there was a solar panel on top of the truck so we managed to keep the truck battery powered with that. We cut our trip short a day because we decided it was better to return the truck and not get stuck anywhere, even though the solar panel was doing a great job. Later we found out the alternator died because it was full of mud, water and grass… that sounds pretty accurate. 

After dropping the truck off in Kasane, we made our way across the border into Zimbabwe to Victoria Falls. We ended up staying at a place where we rented a tent instead of a room (it was budget friendly!) and there were cots instead of beds, which were quite comfortable actually. The property lounge and bar was an indoor/outdoor space that looked onto the really nice pool and gardens, so we spent most of our time there. We weren’t sure how different Victoria Falls would be from Iguazu Falls and we were hearing stories of it drying up. But I can assure it, it is vastly different and is not drying up! There was so much water flowing that you couldn’t see the bottom because of all the mist. There was also so much moisture in the air that it was raining on us as we walking along the top of the falls! In Tom’s words “it was an interactive experience”. It was so bizarre stepping 10 feet one way, getting soaked, and 10 feet another and it was dry. Again, we didn’t look up the best time to go to Victoria Falls, but we happened to catch it a few weeks before busy season, which was fine by us. We saw about 10 other people in the national park that day. We could also see why most people don’t go when they can’t see the falls in it’s entirety, but it was a really cool experience seeing to volume of water falling down.