Tanzanian family adventure - Biking through Maasailand

By Ake Lindstrom: I have just completed a 10 day family adventure safari in Northern Tanzania with a wonderful Australian family.  We successfully combined culture with wildlife and meaningful activities making for a trip as varied and exciting as it comes.  For me the highlights were riding through Maasailand and being the ones being stared at rather than the other way around!

The great aspect of biking that people perhaps don’t initially expect is the serendipity of the encounters that we have with local people.  That was especially true on this trip. The other reason I am always glad to be a part of these trips is the impact that we have, and don’t have, that really count – that means that by visiting some areas we have directly contributed to conserving wildebeest calving grounds and unique ground water forest but also we met local people on their terms and we made plenty of friends on route!

The finale in the Serengeti in our relatively simple expedition camp was also a gem – no other tourists around, sounds of predators, our own kopje to lounge and watch the wilderness around us.

These are the safaris of my childhood and the type I am glad to have the opportunity to share with others.  In the client's words:

"It could not have gone better. Your remarkable patience, endless enthusiasm, extensive knowledge and attention to detail meant that we got everything we could from our experience. It was a classroom on wheels for all of us, and I thought the balance of people, culture, nature, environment and development was perfect.

"We shall always remember the extra-ordinary experience that you and your team created for us. The children had a glimpse of what life without bedrooms, laptops and supermarkets is like and marvelled at how other people live. Some of my favourite photographs show our children on bikes and wearing sunglasses, talking to young Maasai warriors in their black robes, face paint and headdresses, complete with bows and arrows."

For more information on this Tanzanian family adventure, or others, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Leopard cubs, rhinos and owls - Oh my!

By Rob Barbour: I have just returned from guiding a lovely family through the Tarangire National Park in Tanzania and the Maasai Mara National Reserve in Kenya.  The below snaps are a mere gesture to the variety and amount of game we encountered.

This cub and its sibling were being chased by a male lion and sought refuge in a tree.  Both survived:

Scops Owl taking a snooze, at Olivers Camp, Tarangire:

This picture was actually taken by 10 year old Ella Lewis with my Nikon camera and 300mm lense while I was giving some basic photography lessons.  The young male cub was ambushing his mother from behind the termite mound:

A Black Rhino walks in amongst the migration on the Bolangonja Plains of the Northern Serengeti:

Baby hyena - This little guy was very inquisitive while his Mother was resting:

Leopards - Mother and cub:

For more information on these or any other Epic destinations, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Anita's Okavango experience

By Anita Campbell: I recently had the opportunity to visit the Okavango Delta for the first time. Hailing from Kenya, and being a specialist on all things East African, I was excited to see for myself what makes the Delta unique.

On arrival in Maun, we took a 20 mins flight by light aircraft into the Delta – spectacular views! I landed on Jao island and was met by the manager of Kwetsani Camp, we jumped on a boat and 20 mins later through the reeds and beautiful water lilies we arrived at the jetty. As we got to the jetty we received a radio call of a lion kill close by, I had not been in Botswana for even an hour and I was watching a lion kill. I knew the Okavango was going to be a trip of my lifetime.

There are many safari camps in the Delta, with most being small and exclusive in luxury en-suite safari tents. The camps fall into two broad categories of water camps and land camps, although some combine the elements of both. Water camps offer explorations by boat or mokoro on river lagoons and permanent swamps.  Land camps offer game drives and (if in private concessions) game walks. To get an all-round experience we suggest to combine both water and land camps.

The camps I visited included Kwetsani and Tubu which are both water and land based, Chitabe a land based camp, Vumbura Plains which is a land based camp however its sister Little Vumbura is a water based camp. My trip was in April which is their dry season however the flood plains had already started arriving and after the third day the water level was already by the vehicles door, I can only imagine what it is like in the wet season. The only game drives in water I have been on is in the rainy season in East Africa where you get stuck in the black cotton soil, so this was a very different game viewing experience driving through water and not getting stuck due to the Kalahari river sand.  

The game viewing experience was exceptional.  Coming from East Africa I am used to seeing quantity and one does not need to search far for game. While in the Okavango you have to trek the paw prints and listen to the bush to get an idea of where the game is, and when you eventually find that Leopard, Cheetah, Hyena or Wild Dog it is a great sighting, therefore the Okavango offers quality game viewing. I was very impressed with the exceptional guides and the quality of their guiding.

The daily experience includes a very early wake up call, light breakfast before you head out for your morning game drive, stop mid-morning in the bush for tea and biscuits and head back to the camp for brunch. The afternoon is at your leisure enjoying the camp facilities. Following afternoon tea you leave on an evening game drive, stop for a sundowner drink in the bush and return to camp in time for dinner. The camp's attention to detail is phenomenal all the staff know you by your first name, little gifts and notes on your beds each night.

For my last night we flew to the Linyati reserve, to Duma Tau Camp. The landscape, flora and fauna of the Linyati was very different from the Delta. The game viewing here was excellent, Hyena male and female, wild dogs fighting, Elephants crossing the channel and on the one game drive I did not go on (as I visited the new Duma Tau site), they saw a pangolin and a lion kill a teenage elephant!  Therefore I need to go back to see the finished product of the new Duma Tau Camp and maybe the Pangolin will wait for me!

For more information, please do not hesitate to contact us.

Leopards and hyena battle it out

By Brad Horn: I have just returned from a safari to Zambia with a wonderful family from the US. This is their fifth trip with Epic and fourth safari with us to Africa. We centred this trip on Zambia's two iconic national parks; the Lower Zambezi and the South Luangwa National Parks. This made for wonderful variety and with great diversity of habitats, game and experiences. .

One of the focuses of this trip was walking and we enjoyed some monumental days. Paralleling the Luangwa River over a couple of days was very memorable. Lots and lots of hippos. On one occasion we came across a pod of well over a hundred. The cacophony of noise made by the hippo at our approach was deafening.

An undoubted highlight of the safari was the fact we encountered 9 leopard in an 8 night trip. On the last morning in South Luangwa we experienced some great predator interaction. On our way to the airstrip, we chanced upon a large male leopard crossing a floodplain. This guy was moving briskly and not sauntering like leopard's tend to do. He was clearly on a mission. We proceeded to follow him for the next 20 minutes or so as he cut across islands and floodplains. As he came through the last island we noticed a female leopard on the floodplain. She had just killed an impala but had been dispossesses by a hyena. The female leopard was a picture of uncertainty. Enter the male leopard. We now understood his mission. How he cottoned onto what had transpired is amazing. He didn't hesitate and made a bee-line straight for the hyena. He promptly stole the kill from it, turning and running to the edge of the island where he scampered up a sycamore fig.

The hyena skulked around below, its face red with impala blood. It then moved off at which point the female leopard came to the tree. It gazed up the tree for a short while before moving off. No doubt she realised that all her hard work had amounted to nothing. The male leopard then proceeded down with the kill in its mouth and started moving deeper into the island. As it was doing so the hyena came back and forced the male to beat a hasty retreat up another tree. Meanwhile back at the fig the female leopard returned and she too was forced up the tree by the roving hyena. This was a wonderful culmination to the safari. The Luangwa Valley is revered for its leopard viewing and certainly did not disappoint. I hope you enjoy these video highlights.

For more information, please do not hesitate to contact us.

A multi-generational Family Safari

By Rob Barbour:  I have just come back from a safari in Northern Tanzania and Kenya with an American family that spanned three generations.  With ages ranging from 10 to 80 years old, this safari provided an all important opportunity for our clients to spend precious time as a family, far away from the influence of technology.

These multi-generational family safaris are a pleasure to guide and great fun for the families involved.  Usually arranged by the patriarch or matriarch, this kind of vacation can bring families together who live many miles apart.  Why not meet up in Africa?  The challenge is to design an itinerary that is exciting and interesting for each family member, young or old.

On this trip we stayed in Arusha - a great stepping off point for any safari.  Set in a working coffee plantation on the edge of the town, our lodge had a peaceful ambience and allowed the more energetic of the group to expend some energy after some long flights.  Our first nights on safari were at Oliver's Camp in the southern part of Tarangire National Park a short drive from Arusha.  The dry season sees a congregation of elephants and buffalo on the soft, sweet grasses of the Silale Swamp.  Just like the family on safari it seemed like the gathering of the clans for some special family celebration!  We were blessed with great sitings of a female leopard and her cub as the family’s first ever siting of a cat on safari.  In the late afternoon we watched a pride of 19 lions (including cubs) organise themselves, stalk and bring down a zebra in front of our eyes.  Having these two events on the same day was going to be hard to top for the rest of the safari!

Over the next few days we were lucky enough to see a female lion and her newly born cubs try and cross the Ngorongoro Crater rim road, a cheetah feeding on a Thomsons Gazelle against the stunning back drop of the Crater wall.  In the northern Serengeti  whilst staying at a private camp, we managed to see the big five all in one day including juvenile baby leopards being chased up a tree by a male lion and a black Rhino in amonsgt the 1.5 million wilderbeest of the annual wilderbeest migration.  On the Kenyan leg of the safari we stayed in two private safari houses in a private concession on the border of the Mara.  We were introduced to the Maasai culture through walks, home visits, stories around the camp fire and countless explanations of the Maasai history and traditions. For the children bow and arrow lessons, spear throwing, tracking and bush survival lessons kept them intrigued for hours.  One of the highlights of the trip was walking to school across the grass plains with Maasai children in the early morning light surrounded by wilderbeest and impala. Within seconds a boy from California was racing across the plains with a boy from Kenya, kicking a ball and wrestling as if they had always known each other and teaching all of us that we aren't that different after all.

Despite the amazing count of 68 lions, 8 leopard, 1 black rhino, hundreds of elephant, three cheetah, countless wilderbeest of the migration and a myriad of other creatures, it was the variety of activities - geology, birds and flowers - and the people we met that made this multi-generational family group such a pleasure to guide on safari.

To start planning your multi-generational safari, please do not hesitate to contact us.