Botswana Wildlife Safari Wonderful, but issues
Botswana Wildlife Safari
Our 14th Explore tour.
Travelled as a couple. 10, incl ourselves, on tour + guide - 2 couples, 1 family 3-some, 3 singles, + 1 guide/driver.
This Explore Botswana Wildlife Safari had many wonderful aspects. But wasn't without issues, some in Explore's control, others less so.
A very big up to Titus, one of the best guides we have had. What with 1 party's late arrival, the family group's "missing in transit" luggage, and the camp attack - see later - he kept the tour on track and found many outstanding wildlife encounters.
Surprised though that Titus was solo. He did ALL driving & guiding. All our other Explore trips have had a driver in addition to the guide. It is concerning the number of working hours he has to do during the trip.
Bush camping was better than expected (we have an Explore reference point, having camp-safari with them in Kenya 15 years ago). Roomy tents, comfortable bed/bedding - though the single pillow needed padding. And the personal toilet/shower at the rear of each tent worked fairly well, though hot water for shower limited.
I won't list all the wildlife seen. Everything you'd expect, much of it several times eg multiple prides of lions, multiple elephant herds with many young, even rare wild dog families. 1 leopard, eventually. Regrettably no cheetah - but that's safari for you.
And a good feel for a multitude of different environments - river side, open plains, forested, bush,...
On the downside... we found food very disappointing. The occasional "processed meat" dish were quite nice - BBQ burgers, once, lamb mince, once - as was camp made bread, and breakfasts. But the many evening meat dishes had tough, dry, poor cut meat. Unsauced, only bottle table sauces. All would have been better as stews, and easier for camp cooks to manage. Most veg were almost raw, especially cauliflower and broccoli, of which there was a lot, and tepid! And the meagre 2 spoonfuls of "soup" were baby-food puree and barely tepid. The "minestrone" was essentially congealed gravy. All the soups would have been improved by the simple addition of a cup of boiling water. Puddings barely amounted to a meagre amount.
Not aware of anyone in group having any "hygiene" issues but there was no visible group hygiene precautions insisted upon (unlike compulsory pre-meal hand washing on our Kenya trip) . No encouragement to group to sanitise before communal food. And no Titus hygiene precautions when setting out in-transit shared picnic lunches.
Comparing Explore trip notes to actual - day journey times often vastly underestimated, to the significant detriment of the tour's enjoyment. In particular day 9 "We should arrive at Thamo Telele around lunchtime." and day 10 to houseboat for "lunch" were VASTLY underestimated. In both cases it was midafternoon 3pm-ish when we arrived. In fact unless we had left at stupid-o-clock in the morning there is no way we could have arrived at either location "for lunch".
At Thamo there was no time even for any freshen up after a 7am start and 8 hour open vehicle journey, but straight into buffet "lunch" (actually 3pm), which we had to pay for even though there was no alternative (many kms outside Maun).
I would question Thamo as a stop. Whilst the accommodation was luxurious, the tour of their captive animals (mostly giraffes) in a confined environment felt at odds with the "wildlife safari" of the whole tour.
Timing wise, similarly we did not arrive for "lunch" on houseboat. Merely mid afternoon tea and cake.
The cave painting trip, from boat on day 11, took over 7 hours return - it's not just up the road.
The houseboat "cruise" itself was only 1 mile upstream, moor up for night, 1 mile return. But the wildlife river cruise from the houseboat was memorable.
The most significant incident was overnight day 2 in our fixed (luxury) tents near Chobe. 4 of group's 6 tents, including ours, were broken into, access gained by a knife slit to the canvas of each tent. I heard a noise and sat up, and that probably stopped entry into our tent, and we lost nothing. However, significant goods - cameras, electronics, binoculars, day bags, cash & cards, and 1 passport (thankfully later recovered) were stolen from the other 3.
Titus/Explore moved us to a holiday villas gated compound for the following night. And over the following days noticeable time was spent, for those who had losses, sorting out police visits, reports etc.
Overall it is a recommendation. The night 2 incident was unfortunate external factors (though hopefully that camp had improved it's security measures). But some of the timetable / timescale needs a rethink. And the food rethought, even with the same ingredients.
Reply from Explore Worldwide
Thank you for taking the time to leave a review for your trip to Botswana with us!
We were disappointed to see you felt you could only rate the trip three stars; however, we understand this was in part due to the incredibly rare situation described in Chobe. As you will know, Explore was assisting from the outset with police reports, item recovery and post tour support.
We also want to thank you for the kind words left about Titus, rest assured this has been passed on to him and the rest of the team behind the Botswana Wildlife Safari trip.
As for your other concerns raised regarding other accommodation and the food, these have been raised and are currently being reviewed against other feedback to see if any changes are necessary.
I want to thank you again for taking the time to leave such a detailed review of your experience and we do hope to see you on another Explore adventure again soon!
