Journey to Savuti

After the wonderful time at Toka Leya it was time to say goodbye to our new friends Alice, Pam, and Janet and travel to our next stop – Savuti. Toka Leya is located in Zambia and Savuti in Botswana so it entailed crossing the border from one country to the other. We left Toka Leya at 07:00 for about a 50km ride to the place where we would cross the Zambezi River into Botswana.

Once there, we left our ride and climbed into a boat for the short ride across the river. There is no bridge so the only method to cross is by boat. There is a public ferry that the shipping trucks use and the wait for them can be as long as 2-3 weeks. The queue sometimes reaches 20km. So the safari companies have figured out it’s better to have a van on either side and use a flat passenger boat to ferry their customers across. So they loaded our bags into the boat, we climbed aboard, and made the crossing.

Once across, our new driver took us to the Botswana immigration office to get our passports stamped.

After that we had to walk through a wet depression that contained a pool of disinfectant that prevents you from accidentally carrying hoof and mouth disease into the country. Then back in the van for a 10km ride to the Kasane Airport, where we checked in for our flight to Savuti.

In this part of the world the transportation between camps is via light aircraft – in this case a Cessna Caravan that seats 12. Here we are getting our safety briefing from Axel our captain.

After climbing inside and buckling up, we took off for our 40 minute flight to Savuti.

This brought us to the local airport where we landed literally in the middle of nowhere.

Once off the aircraft, we were met by our driver who was to take us to our camp. Within minutes we realized we were really in the bush. The silence was deafening!

After a 30 minute ride from the airport on a very sandy and very lonely “road”, we arrived to the staff at Savuti singing a welcome song from the steps and offering cold towels that smelled of lemon verbena.

We were brought to our room, Room 2, which faces right out on the Savuti Channel which is a waterway that hosts a family of hippos and other assorted wildlife.

Our room looked like this.

The view from our deck looked like this. Yes, those are some sneaky hippos out there.

We settled in for a short rest before afternoon tea, where we would meet other guests and then head out on an afternoon game drive.