Botswana and Zimbabwe: Travel Configurator photography trip with Emanuele Biggi and Francesco Tomasinelli

If this journey was a song it would have been “down under” for sure, and not only for the upside-down Ursa Maior in the sky. I’d like to think that this has been my second expedition to Africa (and yes, it has). After Egypt i decide to invest time + money to obtain a valid logistic (Travel Configurator and Delta Cruiser Safaris) and Scientific (Emanuele Biggi and Francesco Tomasinelli) support. Many hours of air travel (Milan Malpensa-Cairo-Johannesburg-Maun) allowed me to touch the Botswana ground and to sleep under southern sky for the first time in my life. The cleanliness of the sky, the thin, hot and dry air, the smell of the wild sage touched (punched) my eyes and my nose, especially thanks to the superb tolerability of the Malarone drug. A perfect assistance allowed my to “dive” into the Experience and worry only about taking (hoping) good pictures.

Image courtesy Francesco Tomasinelli

I spent 1 night at the Sedia Hotel in Maun, with a beautiful patchwork of spiders in the Room, 8 nights in a Tent (very confortable at the Delta Cruiser Safaris camp), and 2 nights “Like a Boss” at the Ilala lodge Hotel in Victoria Falls, with a 1-night-break for the “c’est l’Afrique” night at the Kwalape Safari Lodge in Kasane due to companions illness and the camp-carrying Toyota breakage.

It’s a long way to Kasane

I found a Company which has been going unite day after day, hardened by dysentery, gin tonic, photography tips, dust, open mouths (for wonder, nutrition, laughter, yawns) National Geographic style scenes, Better Beamers, Baobab, Night Walking Safari lotteries, and much, much more…

Image courtesy Emanuele Biggi

If i had to choose the moments to fix and keep in my brain Compact Flash even with no more space i would keep for sure the ‘Lioness Hunt’, the ‘Cobra Magic Moment’, the chorus of our guests the last night in Botswana near the camp fire. But this has been a Cornucopia of emotions rather than a simple holiday.

The ‘Cobra Magic Moment’

Game Driving took place in the Moremi Game Reserve, a National Park in Botswana which rests on the eastern side of the Okavango Delta and was named after Chief Moremi of the BaTawana tribe. We (Delta) set the camp, at Xakanaxa and Khwai areas. Then we moved to Savute with “a la Paris-Dakar” style 150 km white roads transfer, where we were settled near the Savute Channel, which stopped flowing between 1980 and 2008 becoming a ribbon of grassland that served as a corridor and feeding ground in the surrounding woodland for a wide variety of herbivores. The channel became a waterway again in 2008, welcoming back hippos, aquatic life and several varieties of waterbirds, and forcing wildlife to adapt to the new source of water impacting the territory. Last, we stayed in Chobe National Park, before leaving to Victoria Falls were we flew over the famous Falls and sailed over the mighty Zambezi river.

Image courtesy Francesco Tomasinelli

Colophon | SpiritsThe Ghost and the Darkness, Fitzcarraldo, Gods must be crazy movies. Adobe Lightroom software. Palladium Boots. Petzl Tikka2 Headlamp. Autan Tropical Mosquito Repellent. Toyota Land Cruiser vehicles. Malarone Malaria prevention drug. Canon gear. My mimetic € 10 Kefiah. Lexxar Compact Flash cards. Iphone 4 camera. Maui Gym Sunglasses. Cocoa butter. Kestine 10 mg antihistaminic. Crocodile skewers. Stewed Kudu. Coke. The stiff white porridge made from maize meal, also called mealie meal or papa, which is most commonly eaten with a gravy made from tomato and onions. Nardo’s Peri Peri sauce.

It’s because of the snakes