Title to be spoken using “Bane voice” (Batman Returns, Christopher Nolan)…

The morning drive starts out leisurely. Lasty spotted leopard tracks in the road a couple of places so we crawled along seeing if we could spot it. We did not. A couple of hours in we were in a beautiful set of lagoons with gray and goliath herons fishing for frogs and all kinds of other birds fluttering about. Coffee time.

Back in the truck and a call comes in that wild dogs have been spotted with a fresh impala kill. The Ferrari Safari begins. Lasty gets to show off his driving skills again getting us through all the deep sand tracks and twists and turns in time for us to see three of the dogs playing tug of war with the hind quarters of a mostly devoured impala right in the midst of the self-drivers campground, and then the full pack of five trotting around.

It is fun to see dogs yet again and keep our streak of seeing them at every camp alive. However, we are now further away from the camp than Lasty had expected, so we have to Ferrari Safari for another hour to get back around 11:45. Not a ton of sightings along the way other than a couple of very nice looking lions, male and female.

We are all pretty tired when we get back to the camp. But no rest for the weary. Quick lunch at 12:30 with an espresso and our ride to our next camp arrives right on time and we depart Moremi to a lack luster goodbye at 13:35.

Our driver, guide, and host for the next 4 nights is James Stenner co owner and founder of Barclay and Stenner. Ex-pat brit who lived in Australia for 10 years doing some kind of marine stuff and now in Botswana for 11 years doing safaris, mostly mobile and private guiding. From the moment we enter the truck we feel a change in speed from our last few days. It is going to be slower, more methodical, more appreciation of the total environment, and frankly more luxurious. We are driving into a previously unexplored section of the reserve to us, but in basically the same road conditions and speed and it is immediately clear that this Land Cruiser has been outfitted with more premium seats and, most noticeably, suspension. It no longer feels like we are just constantly playing the neck accordion (as Tom calls it), but going to a nice relaxing drive through a beautiful African landscape.

First priority is to get out of the central area of the reserve where all the lodge guides roam and into the more far reaching and secluded sections. Around 3 o’clock James parks the truck so that we are all comfortably in the shade, hops out of the vehicle to reveal he is wearing shorts and no socks or shoes, then wades across a small lagoon to meet a truck that appears on the other side. This is the first time in 6+ weeks traveling in Africa that we’ve seen a person enter a waterway. James takes possession of a quilted canvas covered cooler, wades back across the lagoon, and stores it in the back. Second lunch is chicken wraps with a little Chenin Blanc while we sit parked watching a popular elephant watering hole. Although we’d just seen more than 25 elephants drinking in lagoons from a vista a little earlier, no elephants arrive during our lunch.

Nature is inherently unpredictable. James had been expecting to dazzle us with elephants on our first meal, but he wasn’t planning to immediately locate 4 lionesses in a thicket 5 minutes after lunch! The lions had just attempted to ambush some impala, unsuccessfully. James had noticed the impala fleeing and, being the pro he is, gone to investigate. The lions are now laying around and resting. So not the most exciting. But we have them all to ourselves with not another person to be seen or engine to be heard.

After spending some time with lions including scouting around to make sure we’d located the entire pride, we roam around taking in the beautiful surroundings and wildlife waiting for evening and a chance that the lionesses might get up to hunt. The pace is refreshingly slow and deliberate. James will position us a generous distance away from a herd of elephants, but in their path. We will sit there, engine off, quietly, as they approach. Elephants are accustomed to everything else giving way for them, so they get quite close before they realize we are an immovable object, at which point they just turn and walk around us. It’s a bit intimidating at first but quite astonishing. Much better to let the elephants come to you then the other way around, declares James.

Taking it slow reveals all kinds of interesting experiences and observations not available when you are flying from one sighting to another. We sat and watched a family of 5 elephants digging up grass. They would swing their front leg back and forth kicking the dirt like a bored young boy, then once they’d exposed enough of the roots they could pull the grass out with their trunk, shake off the dust, and down the hatch. Mesmerizing.

After watching the herd of 20 or so elephants pass through a lagoon and have a drink, we circle back to the lionesses. It is 5 pm and they are starting to yawn and start their wake up rituals. Cold drinks come out the built in refrigerator on the truck. We wait patiently, a luxury only available when you have an exclusive guide and aren’t on a camp’s rigorous schedule or having to let other trucks have a chance to see. Eventually the cats begin to get up and walk slowly out of the bush. Unfortunately, once outside they lay down again and look like they are going to wait until after sundown to get going in earnest. James is a bit anxious to get us to camp for the first time since acquainting us with our new living environment will be easier with a bit of natural light left. Even so, we have one false start where he starts driving away, then doubled back just to check that the lionesses weren’t going to give it a go.

We arrive at camp just as the sun is passing below the tree line. Any lingering concern about the quality or standard of our living conditions immediately evaporated as we saw the 25×25 ft canvas mess tent, with full bar, couches, chests (one of which turns out to be a full refrigerator), coffee and tea station, and two waiters waiting for us, one holding damp towels to wipe our faces and the other a silver platter with cut crystal glasses with a refreshing welcome beverage (Kalahari cooler). There is a mopani wood fire burning nearby with chairs around it and a large lagoon in the near distance with the silhouettes of hippos, lechwes, and warthogs in the fading light.

After we wash our hands with warm water poured from a copper pitcher over a canvas catch bason, James shows us to our tents. They each have a large octagonal main room with hanging shelves for clothes, table and mirror, chest, and queen sized elevated bed. The ensuite has a canvas sink with water from a bucket and spigot, shower powered by 10L bag of warm water hoisted on a post outside, and a full flush privy (I don’t know how it works😅). In total there is the main living area tent, our two sleeping tents, a kitchen, and then sleeping tents for James and the staff further in the bush. In total there are 7 folks supporting us: two waiters, two workers, a driver, a cook, our guide. This camp is fully mobile, which means that it was set up the day before we arrived and will be completely removed after our three night stay! The site is managed by the game reserve and Barclay and Stenner have to secure these reservations 2 years in advance. It takes seven people about 9 hours to fully setup the camp. What a privilege we have to be here.

Gin and tonics by the fire with nibbles of popcorn, spicy cashews, and delicious biltong (African dried beef/meat/jerky – the softest variety we’ve had yet which is delightful). Dinner is a plated meal served in the big tent on white plates on white tablecloth, embroidered napkins, and sliver flatware with crystal water glasses and stemless wine glasses. Butternut squash soup starter, beef steak cooked over mopani wood grill, mashed potatoes, vinegar greens, carrots, and a chocolate torte dessert.

Part of the experience is taking our meals with our host James. He regales us with some tales the most intense of which involved a bar mitzvah. The story started because we were asking about guests that didn’t appreciate the wild surroundings and observation that various children we’ve observed through the trip having a terrible time (e.g. sleeping on the drives and complaining it was boring and “nothing to see”). Our running joke is when something epic happens we turn to each other and say “is this all we are doing today”? The bar mitzvah story takes an unexpected turn when the youths want to return from sundowners early to play on their phones, it is a large group so there are multiple guides / drivers, and they end up getting stuck crossing a lagoon. James comes to free them and wades out into the dark water to attach the towline. It turns out the truck is actually stuck on a giant crocodile that snaps at James, catching his hand and nearing biting it off. He is lucky it was a “defensive bite” so it snapped its teeth closed then open again, only partially severing most of the fingers in his right hand. James shoved his mangled hand under his arm, finished securing the tow line and dragged the truck out of the water. 😵. It was night, so he had to wait to be driven out to the nearest hospital until the next day. Because of the extreme bacteria in a crocodiles mouth, the protocol is to submerse the wound in simmering water for 30 minutes to postpone the spread of infection. James attests that was by far the worst part. Wrapping up each finger in gauze and duct tape and keeping it elevated made for quite the scene that night. This was a bar mitzvah no one would forget. All’s well that ends well, James’ hand was saved and healed fully, just missing feeling in a few fingers. We won’t be going near the water… at least not until James tries it first.

Finishing dinner, we hear the sound of a warthog being dispatched by a leopard somewhere on the far side of the lagoon. Something to investigate further tomorrow. There is a bright sliver of moon, but even so the stars are bright and the Milky Way is prominently visible. James gives us a brief tutorial on how to locate the southern cross constellation and how to locate directional south from it. Much more complicated that “just find the north star” in the northern hemisphere. It has been a long day and no siesta, so we head to the tents around 8:30 for glorious showers powered by fresh water hoisted in bags outside our tents. Then the sleep listening to the Jabba the Hut-like chattering of the hippos and symphony of toads and night animals.