Namibia and Botswana camping safari
Typically you will be sharing your experiences with between 4-20 like minded travelers (depending on the trip, operator and how many others are booked on the trip) and you'll have a group leader with you. Whether you are traveling alone or with friends its good value, and a great way to meet new people! While itineraries are pre-planned there is some flexibility and you'll have plenty of privacy. This trip will appeal to travelers of all ages who enjoy meeting new people as well as seeing new places.
How this vacation makes a difference
Environment
Wildlife Rehabilitation Centre: We assist a wildlife rehabilitation centre in Springs, outside Johannesburg. Judy Davidson runs a licensed rehab centre from a small holding. She is an amazing person, dedicating her life to the welfare of animals and makes enormous personal sacrifices to live on this plot and care for sick and injured birds. A variety of birds are cared for, from injured barbets, doves, and crows to a brown snake eagle, a gymnogene, and a spotted eagle owl. All birds are treated in a small makeshift clinic, and then kept in aviaries until they have recovered. Once able to fly, or care for themselves again, they are moved to a “flight” aviary, for a period until they have regained strength. They are then released back into the wild. Those birds which are unable to be released are kept in large aviaries and fed through various donations. We assist the project with donations of practical equipment including shade netting, paint, etc. These are used to repair and maintain several of the existing aviaries.
Wildlife interaction: In all wilderness areas (Caprivi, Etosha, Damaraland, Kalahari, Okavango Delta & Chobe) we educate our clients of the proper way to behave when we near wild animals. While some of the instructions might seem like common sense, in the excitement of the moment they are often forgotten. Keep still in the vehicles or when on foot, keep quiet, no sudden movements, and most of all never create a situation where the animal feels threatened. We gauge how close we can get to the animal by how they react to the group's presence. In many instances, the best option is to keep still, and quite and very often the animal will approach the vehicle or group to satisfy their own curiosity.
Low Impact tourism:
- Maximum group size of 12 clients & minimum of 4 clients means that at all destinations visited, we do not “over run” the place that large groups can. Smaller groups create an intimate safari experience, and means that when we interact with local cultures and stay in environmentally sensitive areas, we do not leave a large footprint.
- Camping safaris mean that the environmental Impact of your visit are a bare minimum. We stay in designated campsites, and we leave each campsite in the same pristine condition when we leave. Camping safaris leave a very small footprint.
- Cooking on gas when feasible so that we don’t have to burn firewood which depletes limited resources (particularly in desert environments – Central Kalahari Game Reserve, Nxai Pan National Park & Makgadikgadi Pans National Park).
- Requesting clients to purchase small wooden carvings curio instead of large pieces, again to conserve the forests around the carving markets.
- Ensuring that we take all of our rubbish out of wilderness areas and use proper waste disposal facilities on all tours (and in the workshop). Entrance Fees: All entrance fees for the Caprivi National Park, Etosha, Namib Desert, Okavango Delta, Makgadikgadi Pans & Chobe go directly to these parks and ensure that they these amazing areas are persevered for future generations.
Bottled Water: We encourage clients to drink the local clean drinkable tap water wherever possible in order to minimize the amount of plastic bottle waste produced by the purchase of bottled drinking water.
Community
Ugab Wilderness Area: Our walks in the Brandburg mountains to view the busman rock art are lead by a local community guide. Along with the guide, the community has also set up a small museum that provides more information of the area. The local community directly benefits from your visit through the employment of the local guide and the entrance fees. Without the local communities involvement these amazing rock art sites would not be preserved.
San Bushman bush walk: Our visit to the Kalahari is for the express purpose to meet these amazing people whose culture is under threat of being lost. Our bush walk with the San bushman teaches us how it is possible to find food and water in this harsh environment. The area that we visit in the Kalahari has been set aside for a small community of San Bushman so that they can live in their traditional way. Your visit not only brings in much needed money, but it helps to show the younger generations that there is still a lot of value to their traditional way of life.
Okavango Delta guides: We use local “polers” to take us into the Okavango Delta. The polers have an intimate knowledge of the Okavango Delta, and their employment as guides ensure that the local community benefit from tourism and ensures that these areas are conserved for future generations.
SOS trees project - Okavango Botswana: For hundreds of years, the local communities in and around Botswana's Okavango Delta have used the wood of the sausage tree to craft their traditional mokoro (dugout canoes). The knowledge and skill have been passed down from generation to generation and, up until recently, has been a sustainable practice. With increasing numbers of people visiting the Delta each year, more mokoro are needed and as a direct result, more and more sausage trees are being felled and the sausage tree is sadly disappearing from the region. A traditional wooden mokoro will have to be replaced every five years, thereby placing increased pressure on the dwindling sausage tree supply.
We have established a project to encourage polers in the local communities to buy replica fiberglass mokoro’s, which have a lifespan of approximately ten years, are more stable and are produced without any negative affect to the environment. As such, sponsorship for each fiberglass mokoro is needed, and a portion of the tour cost will be donated to the project, but we also will offer our clients the opportunity to contribute to this worthwhile cause. Please feel free to contact the Sunway Safaris office for more information on the SOS trees project or if you would like to make any contributions towards this project. It is something that is close to all of our hearts and we hope that it will be successful.
Local crafts and produce: At all local markets where fresh produce and crafts are sold and produced, we encourage the clients to barter with the local people. This not only allows the clients to get involved with the local way of life, and interact directly with the local people, but also provides them a platform to experience local life first hand. Having said that, we explain to the clients by bartering too hard for a good deal might seem like a lot of money at the time, but if the amount being haggled over is converted to either US$, Euro or GBP, it amounts to very little. This is the local livelihood and we advise them to keep this in mind at all times.
Food: All food and drinks on tour are bought in local grocery stores and fresh produce markets which creates economic activity directly from tourism. In Malawi & Mozambique, there are very few grocery stores, so the majority of food bought on tour is from local markets which are the only place for the subsistence farms to sell their excess produce. When eating at local restaurants we always try to take them to locally owned and run restaurants – no large restaurant chains.
Accommodation: All campsites and accommodation used along the way is locally owned, and only employ local people. This provides direct benefits to local people through employment, and also the provision of food and services in the local campsites & accommodation.
Charities: In Maun we support Sibandas Fine Art & Fabrics. This is a local community initiative to employ local women who produce hand crafted fabrics. This is a non-profit organisation, and all visits from our groups generate some revenue for the charity and if any clients buy some of the products, it ensures that the charity remains self sufficient.
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