I (Wouter) just came back from another successful BT14 Wild Side safari trip through South Africa, Botswana and Zambia with 10 very lucky people from Germany and Switzerland. Not only lucky because of the plentiful rare animal sightings we had, but also just lucky that we had the opportunity to experience the Botswana bush 7 nights in a row from a camping perspective.

In those wild areas, we camp in small campsites without fences, reception, toilet or shower block, nothing. Everything we use to survive comes from our own equipment and straight from the bush. This is the most proper safari experience you can imagine, being out there in the bush with seemingly no protection, and a whole variety of wild animals in close proximity to your campsite every night, you really feel vulnerable and part of the ecosystem. To just give you some examples, on this tour we had Hyena’s visiting our camp every night, Elephants next to camp every day (and 70cm from my tent at night), Lions roaring less then a kilometer away, Buffalo, Antelopes, it is almost to much to believe. That’s why I am writing this blog and why I am showing you some pictures, because I think everybody with an interest in nature and wildlife should go and book this tour!

Another one of my personal highlights was finding a beautiful female Leopard on top of an exposed termite heap in the middle of an open floodplain, as you can see on the photograph below. We could observe her for about 45 minutes, as she was just resting, yawning, cleaning her paws to prepare herself for a night spent hunting. After those 45 minutes she went down into the thick floodplain grasses and sages and dissappeared, prooving to us once again that you need to be in the right place, right time to find these magnificent animals. This is surely one of my favourite Leopard pictures as she is posing so beautifully on top of that termite hill, lying down in a nice position, putting her paws nicely together, making eye contact with the camera. It was like somebody was instructing her how to pose like a model!

This is just one of the beautiful and rare sightings we had on the tour but there were many more, I hope whoever reads this blog is a bit envious and will decide to book this same tour with Sunway Safari’s!