Your tour starts with a stay at a mobile camp where you will be for 3 nights. On arrival your photo host will supply you with a camera and telephoto lens and show you how to make the most of every photo opportunity on the morning and afternoon game drives that await you. Your photo host will be with you throughout this safari and at the end of your trip you will have book full of new photographic skills at your disposal.
Each of the tents the mobile camp has twin (proper) beds with quality linen and a private ensuite bathroom behind. This comprises a toilet, basin and a bucket shower that can be filled to the brim with warm water straight from the campfire when needed.
The animals of The Chobe are generally very relaxed, which is one of the main reason why photography is so good, and you will often have herds of herbivores like elephants, zebra and buffalo wandering past the camp during the day.
On the fourth day, we will pack up the vehicles and head East towards the Pangolin Chobe Hotel.
After you have finished you fantastic 3 night on mobile safari, you will be transferred across to the Pangolin Chobe Hotel, which is situated on the hill above the town of Kasane, the gateway to the Chobe National Park.
The Chobe National Park is probably one of the best reserves in Africa for wildlife photography. Not only can you enjoy photography from land and water, but the animals tend to be far more relaxed in the Chobe and many other places.
The Pangolin Chobe Hotel sits on the plateau overlooking the Chobe River and the Caprivi Floodplains below. With its proximity to the Chobe river, the majority of the game activities are done on the Pangolin Photo Boats with the same photo host who accompanied you on the first part of the trip. By this time you will have improved your photography and will be feeling confident shooting on the manual camera settings. This will allow you more creative control over your images and you will spend more time on the boats perfecting various techniques.
The boats seat 8 people all in a row down the middle with room for everyone to rotate 360 degrees. Each seat is has a custom camera gimbal on which we mount your camera and lens. We tend to use bigger telephoto lenses (150-600mm) on the river than on the game drives (100-400mm) as you don’t need to hand hold the cameras on the boat.
You will do twice daily game activities on the river and also one or two game drives on a very productive part of the Chobe that we could not get to from the mobile camp.
In between the activities you can relax at the eco-pool or make use of the air-conditioned editing room at the end of the gallery. Your photo host will be on hand during the day to help you with post-production. Access to computers is limited in the Chobe so we suggest that you perhaps bring a laptop with you for image review sessions. Otherwise, we will give you plenty of memory cards to fill throughout the safari to take your images home with you.
The Pangolin bar on the upper floor has spectacular views and the best cocktails in Kasane and is a great place to relax after dinner with your fellow travellers. Alternatively, the sunken fire pit is always a hit!
At an agreed time you will be transferred to Kasane Airport for a short charter flight to your next destination - the magnificent Okavango Delta.
Bushman Plains is a charming traditional bush camp in one of the most game filled and photographically productive parts of Botswana. The Bushmen who own and manage the camp are, as you would expect, amazing guides and trackers and know their homeland better than anyone else.
The camp comprises five tents and a communal dining lounge area. The spacious tents each have a covered area at the front to relax and an ensuite bathroom at the rear. There is electricity in the rooms and hot water at all times.
The camp has two vehicles (with four clients each) and is driven by a guide who is accompanied by a tracker perched on the seat at the front. This combination is a real advantage as the team works tirelessly to decipher the tracks and sign to seek out amazing sightings and photo opportunities. The Photo Host at this stage will rotate between the vehicles on each activity spending equal time on each. The vehicles are in radio contact and tend to explore the same area of the concession on each drive.
One extra activity that’s on offer at Bushman Plains is a walk with one of the guides, dressed in traditional garments, through the bushveld. The guide explains more about Bushman culture and the uses for the plants and trees that are found in the area. This is not to be missed – it’s fascinating and a real insight to a simpler more natural life.
On the final day we head back over to the Kadizora airstrip for onward charter flights either home or onwards to another destination.
At the end of this safari we can guarantee that you will leave a much better photographer than when you arrived with a fistful of memory cards filled with beautiful images that you will treasure forever!