Gate 1 Travel Blog

Many first-time safari-goers have lots of questions as their trip draws near. We invite you to review the Trip Preparation page for our Zimbabwe, Botswana & South Africa Adventure so you’ll know what to expect during the safari portion of your trip in Chobe National Park and the Okavango Delta. In the meantime, we want to share with you what a typical safari looks like, bearing in mind that the structure of your days will vary by lodge. We also share some safari-specific tips that will make your adventure comfortable:

A Typical Safari Day

The Thrill of the Search

With years of experience, Discovery Tours driver-guides have learned where animals tend to congregate, though they can never guarantee consistent sightings. One thing is certain, though: the thrill of any African safari is in the search. And the parks you’ll visit are graced with breathtaking wildlife, from elephant to giraffe.

Rise and Shine in the African Bush

Wildlife is most active in the early morning hours, so we’re sure to get out and explore as soon as we can. On some mornings, we even squeeze in a game drive before breakfast, then return to our camp or lodge for a satisfying meal.

Break for Lunch & Siesta

During full-day game drives, your driver-guides prepare a picnic that you’ll enjoy out in the bush. There’s something truly special about savoring a hearty meal while scanning the plains for elephants or giraffes in the distance. If we’re only out for the morning, we return to the resort or lodge for lunch. Often, we spend a few hours here to avoid the hottest part of the day—a great chance to do some journaling or just relax in a spectacular setting.

Close the Day with a Sundowner

It’s a long-held safari tradition: sharing a drink in the bush with fellow adventurers at the close of a thrilling day. Our driver-guides know the most magical spots to break out the cooler and mix some drinks or uncork a bottle. After lingering over a drink or two, we return to the camp or lodge and perhaps visit with fellow travelers around a roaring fire.

Helpful Safari Tips

1. There’s no need to buy a new wardrobe. Unless bright and vivid colors are the only hues that hang in your closet, you probably have what you need for safari. Wear earthen tones during game drives; and if color is a must for you, keep it muted.

2. Don’t fear the mosquito. The malaria mosquito is nocturnal. Even then, they don’t like moving air, so keep the ceiling fan blowing in your room. And remember that most bug-repellant clothing doesn’t breathe, so use spray instead.

3. Repel the tsetse fly with your wardrobe. Navy blue and black attract the tsetse fly. Consider this when packing clothes, hats, shoes, socks, everything. Or, just see Tip #1.

4. Be a welcome guest, not a loud and smelly one. Remember that we are guests in the animals’ home. During safari, avoid making loud noises, eating, or other behavior that will distract the animals. And because animals’ senses of smell are so strong, leave your perfume and cologne at home.

5. Protect your skin. The sun can be strong in Africa year-round, and you’ll spend a good amount of time out on the open plains. Pack plenty of sunscreen and apply it liberally and often. One bad sunburn can ruin your whole trip.

6. Take a break, and bring your humility. Alas, the savannahs and forests of Africa do not have porta-potties. When we stop for bathroom breaks, men retreat behind one shrub and women behind another. Be prepared.

7. Don’t over-vaccinate. Typically, malaria and yellow fever shots are all you’ll need. See your doctor or travel clinic 4-6 weeks before your scheduled departure.

8. Bring cash for visas. Zimbabwe requires a visa for entry into the country. The cost is $30 U.S. cash. You may purchase it at the Victoria Falls Airport upon your arrival.

All is still. The morning light casts a soft glow on the savannah as elephant after elephant crosses the path of your safari vehicle, the little ones trotting alongside their mothers. You hear the heavy shuffle of their feet on dusty earth, a burst of air from a nostril. There must be a dozen or more. One turns to look your way and you gasp, too moved to reach for your camera. No, there’s no need to get a snapshot. This—the safari of your dreams—will be forever etched in your mind.

Africa plays in your memory long after you return. An endless expanse of plains, marsh and forest. An impossibly starlit night sky. Exotic creatures vying for their very survival as they have for millennia. It is a privilege to witness Africa’s wondrous menagerie in its natural setting. And to do in a small group with Discovery Tours is even more magical as we gain access to experiences that others miss.

Our Botswana, Zimbabwe & South Africa Adventure visits two of southern Africa’s richest parklands, Chobe National Park and the Okavango Delta, each a magnificent haven of unspoiled beauty and astonishing wildlife—the stuff of your safari dreams.

Chobe National Park: An Elephant’s Haven
For sheer concentration of wildlife, it’s hard to beat Chobe National Park, nestled amidst the northern savannahs of Botswana. Chobe is the country’s first national park, its third largest at 4,200 square miles, and its most diverse. Among its lush floodplain and dense woodlands of teak and mahogany, giraffe, water buffalo, puku antelope and sable roam. Along the Chobe River, spoonbills, ibis, stork and other waterfowl patrol the waters for quick meals. In the early morning hours in the bush, you might even spot a pride of lions fresh from their nocturnal hunt.

But the big cats are not as plentiful here as the large and lumbering Kalahari elephant, the largest known pachyderm in the world. Only 30 years ago, the elephant population was in danger here, numbering only a few thousand. Preservation efforts, including anti-poaching patrols, were put in place and today the park supports some 60,000. Many environmentalists believe that the lineage of elephants here stretches back countless generations, making it the largest continuously surviving elephant population on the planet.

One of the most thrilling ways to explore Chobe National Park is by boat. In the heat of the afternoon, wildlife often gathers on the water’s edge. Antelope, water buffalo, and baboons congregate to drink or hunt, watched over by bateleur eagles, lappet-faced vultures and other raptors. Hippos peek above the water’s surface or graze along the river’s banks. But the highlight of any boat trip is the parade of elephants emerging from the bush to drink and bathe in the refreshing Chobe. If you’re lucky, you’ll witness just such an assembly firsthand.

Okavango Delta: A Watery Oasis
One of the most adventuresome ways to see Africa is by bush plane. From several thousand feet in the air, the continent’s wild expanse of savannahs, grasslands, marshes and forests stretches to a limitless horizon. Far below, you might spot tiny dots roaming the landscape, tendrils of brown dust trailing behind: perhaps zebras wandering to their next water hole. It’s an astounding glimpse of a timeless world.

Thanks to the size of our Discovery Tours small group, bush planes fly us to the Okavango Delta, deep in the wild heart of Botswana. The Okavango is by some accounts the largest inland delta in the world, fed by a remarkable natural cycle of feast and famine.

When the Okavango is flooded, you would never know that this huge region borders the sands of the arid Kalahari Desert. It helps to bear in mind that the delta receives a vast amount of its water from faraway rains. Each year, heavy rainfalls soak the Angola highlands and their waters pour into the Okavango River. The river flows into Botswana with a volume so enormous that its terminal marshlands push southward, surging into the dry and barren delta region. It is a flash flood of biblical proportion: the delta is so large—as big as Switzerland—that it takes the water up to four months to fill it. Months later, the water is gone, lost to evaporation, plant life, or absorption into the earth.

The annual flood creates a massive network of rivulets, channels, temporary islands and lakes. It also attracts countless wildlife—from lions to cheetahs, from giraffe to hyenas, from crocodiles to hippos. An estimated 200,000 large mammals and 400 species of birds congregate here, then depart to greener pastures as the water dissipates and the grasses grow sparse once again. It’s been said of the Okavango that you’re having a great safari day if you see 10% of the wildlife that sees you.

Such a unique ecosystem requires a unique safari vehicle. In addition to the trucks and Jeeps specially equipped to cross shallow streams, our small group explores by handmade dugout canoes, or mokoros. These low-riding boats seat two, and your private punter in the back pushes you through a labyrinth of waterways, following his keen senses so you’ll get an intimate view of the delta’s wildlife and plant life—perhaps tiny frogs clinging to reeds or small islands of lily pads.

We invite you to fulfill your safari dreams in two of southern Africa’s most splendid reserves. Click here for details about our Zimbabwe, Botswana & South Africa Adventure!

Westerners tend to start the historical clock ticking on Victoria Falls from the moment that David Livingstone first laid eyes on them in 1855. The Scottish missionary came upon them as he was exploring upstream from the falls in today’s Zambia. Such a dramatic sight, he believed, deserved an honorable name, and so he named the torrential waters after his Queen.

Of course, the history of the falls extends much farther back in time than the relatively recent days of Mr. Livingstone. When ancestors of today’s local Lozi people saw the powerful cascade centuries ago, they named it for the immense and, to be sure, frightening force of its power: Mosi-oa-Tunya, they called it, “the smoke that thunders.”

Inverted Rain and Moonbows

And thunder it does. Though Victoria Falls are neither the widest nor the tallest waterfalls on the planet, they do form the largest falling vertical curtain of water. During its peak times of year, it measures 5,604 feet by 354 feet. That’s a sheet of water that’s almost 2 million square feet.

During the rainy season, from November to April, the volume of the Zambezi River is such that its spray rises more than 1,300 feet into the air and is visible from 30 miles away. Walking along the misty pathways that line the falls, the water shoots upward from the gorge like upside-down rain. And the light of a full moon creates a “moonbow” in the mist.

Imagine the impression this powerful river made on prehistoric humans, long before Mr. Livingstone arrived. Artifacts and archaeological sites have been uncovered dating to Homo habilis 3 million years ago. Middle and Late Stone Age items (50,000 and 10,000 years ago, respectively) reveal the presence of tool-using tribes. Later, iron-using Khoisan hunter-gatherers arrived, to be displaced by the Bantu who came down from Central and East Africa. Of course, Victoria Falls looked much different in Africa’s earliest days. They were likely located farther downriver, and inched its way to its current location over time, sculpting away at its rocky bed to form the gorge into which it now falls.

Putting the Falls on the Map

A 1715 map pinpoints the falls at the place where we see them today; a later rendering 35 years later merely labels the falls as “cataracts,” no doubt an understatement even for its day. Arabs, who had colonized parts of eastern Africa, are believed to have headed down the Zambezi River and been so astonished by them that they called them “the end of the world.” When Europeans heard about such a dramatic waterfall from the Arabs, they were skeptical. How, they wondered, could a land that was so flat, with no mountains or valleys, be sliced open by such a deep fissure?

After Livingstone’s discovery, Victoria Falls lured cartographers, explorers and artists from all over Europe. One businessman in particular, Cecil Rhodes, began the rush to mine the region and constructed a railway into Victoria Falls to boost the economy and ease transport of extracted minerals. By 1904, the railway completed, the Victoria Falls Hotel opened, still a grand building today. Soon, Europeans flocked here not only for the promise of wealth from minerals, timber, ivory, and animal hides—but also to see the incredible Victoria Falls named for their former queen, who by all accounts was also a force of nature.

A Span to Cross the Zambezi

But Rhodes was not finished with his railway. By then, Britain had gained control of many African nations and the ambitious magnate wanted to connect them all by train, from Cape Town all the way Cairo. The Zambezi River—and Victoria Falls—was a major obstacle to his project. So he insisted to his engineers that they build a railway bridge “across the Zambezi where the trains, as they pass, will catch the spray of the Falls.” He was a practical man, to be sure, but he also knew why the tourists came.

The bridge was an international effort. Built in England and shipped to Mozambique on Africa’s eastern coast, its pieces were transported on the railway that had already been laid. The steel girders were assembled on site. The Cleveland Bridge & Engineering Company oversaw the project, earning the bridge a place as a Historic Civil Engineering Landmark on a prestigious list kept by the American Society of Civil Engineers.

A century later, Victoria Falls—the natural wonder and the town by the same name that has grown around it—is one of Africa’s most visited sights.

Pretoria may be South Africa’s political and economic capital, but Cape Town is undeniably its cultural center. With a stunning setting between the flat-top Table Mountain and the point where the Atlantic and Indian Oceans meet, it is a vibrant and diverse city that no traveler to southern Africa should miss. And in a Discovery Tours small group, you can gain an intimate view of its varied culture, natural beauty, and day to day life.

Of course, a destination is only as welcoming as its people. And you’ll experience them at their warmest and most gracious as we’ve arranged for you to be the guests of a local family for lunch. The menu varies depending on the household you visit. You might sample a homemade stew known as potjiekos, which means “small pot,” or a traditional braai, a barbecue meal that South Africans love. Meat dishes might be complemented by sweet chutney or chakalaka, a spicy vegetable relish. Regardless of what’s on the table, Discovery Tours travelers know that meals like these are more about forging connections and discovering our common humanity. Of course, they are also about the wine, and you’re your hosts are sure to have plenty on hand from a favorite South African vintner.

Lots of vintners produce a variety of wines in South Africa—none better than Constantia dessert wine, which dates back to 1659 and is rated as one of the finest in the world. We set our sights on the more typical vineyards that blanket the beautiful valleys and hillsides of the Cape Winelands, just outside Cape Town. In Stellenbosch, South Africa’s second oldest European settlement, a wide range of soils produce fine Cabernet Sauvignons. The city of Paarl, once home to a co-operative wine growing association, continues its grape-cultivating tradition at several wineries. And in Franschoek, the Dutch word for “French Corner,” the French Huguenot settlers gave their farms names that were reminiscent of their home country—La Provence, Champagne, Bourgogne. Today, many of those farms are fine wineries.

An exploration of Cape Town demands a visit to the summit of Table Mountain, and we ascend in the most exciting way, by cable car, if weather allows. The vista from the top has been called one of Africa’s most epic, with views into a massive amphitheater that points to Cape Town, Table Bay, and the Atlantic coast. Robben Island is also visible in Table Bay, a few miles from the coast. This is the place where Nelson Mandela was held for 18 of the 27 years he spent in prison before the end of apartheid.

After so much exploring, it just might be time to shop. The city’s Victoria & Albert Waterfront—a delightful array of quays, indoor and outdoor courtyards, street performers, and stunning vistas of ocean and mountain—lines South Africa’s oldest working harbor. More than 450 retailers, 80 restaurants, a fresh food market, and much more attract Capetonians, other South Africans from outside the city, and countless others. More than a shopping mecca, it also hosts 22 historic landmarks and local musicians playing traditional African instruments, giving it important meaning to locals. And for fantastic views of the whole expanse, you can climb aboard the Ferris wheel.

Discover Cape Town, South Africa for yourself with Gate 1 Travel today!