Tubu Tree Camp
...Cont'd...
All too soon, our time in Savuti ended. We were off to another area of Botswana, and our next camp: Tubu Tree
And remember the last plane? And how I said that it was the smallest plane I had ever taken? Well, we quickly realised that it was the equivalent of a 747 jumbo jet in Safari terms:
The one below is what people usually take!
This is the Cessna Stationair. Reach up and you touch the wings. The pilot has to do this serious contortionist thing to get and out. Double click the photo and check out the size of that door.
It is a 6 seater, including the pilot. It measures 28 ft from tip to tail. One, ONE propeller and that little hole at the bottom is where they stuff the luggage.
Yes, that is why there is a limit of 12 kgs per person and it has to be in a soft duffel.
Anyway, it wasn't as bad as I thought. 30 mins later we were landing on the Tubu airstrip.
Little more than 10 minutes via 4X4, and we were at the camp.
Where Sauvuti was built entirely on stilts, Tubu's tents are all built into the trees: as in, they are literallt wrapped around the tree...
The room and the outdoor shower, like I mentioned, built into the trees :)
the tree serves as a nice soap holder.
The chill out area on the tent's deck... facing open savannah grasslands.
The camp is very nice; there's an outdoor bar and the bartop is made out of a sausage tree. This tree bears fruit up to 10 kgs, and pple make loofas from them. In the words of our guide from Savuti, Kane, "never camp under a sausage tree... they be big fruits." heh. In the background, you can see an Amarula tree - the fruits are used to make that alcoholic beverage, Amarula Cream... You can get it at all good duty free shops in airports around the world. It tastes exactly like bailey's cream.
The landscape was a bit different as well, there were more palm trees and little islands of woods. Tubu, apparently, during the high season is a floodplain, so most animals shelter in the little pockets of vegetation.
Sadly, the cats were missing during our game drives at Tubu, but there were heck of a lot of elephants! In fact, a herd invaded the camp one morning and we found a big bull munching on the vegetation outside our tent one evening. He was VERY big.
One of the highlights of our soujorn at Tubu: Mokoro-ing. Mokoros are dug out canoes, except because too many big trees had been felled to make them in the past the govt put a stop to it and now the canoes are made out of fibreglass. Even with very shallow water... like 30 cms, the Mokoro can still pass. That shot of the canoe in the sunset by gene in the previous post was from that Mokoro ride.
I have a bracelet, which I am wearing on my right wrist, weaved straight out of the reeds. One of the mokoro paddlers, who was an ex witch doctor called Jackson pulled out some weeds, rubbed the fibres out on his thigh and made these amazing bracelets for all 4 guests in about 1/2 hr! Very strong these fibres; think they used it to make rope before. So strong, that I can't exactly take it off.
Our Mokoro-er, whose name is Broken (yes, Broken), and as you can tell, its really gorgeous out there.
Jackson making the bracelets.
Game notes from Tubu: Elephants, when charging, are very scary. The bulls are VERY big but the babies are the cutest ever.
Spottings of Ardwolf - a rarity. And these huge eagle owls; also a cute leopard tortoise.
Found a munched up baby Zebra. It was killed in the night, but when we found the bones in the day, it was very clean. All that was left was its skin.
Big bull munching on Acacia Trees - which have plenty of thorns
A springbok. Check out the cute ears... the national emblem of the south african rugby team.
Leopard tortoise popping out of nowhere.
More gamephotos: One antlered impala, a gaggle of female ostrich
We saw this herd of elephants and these tiny babies, but this juvenile male which followed right at the very end of the herd decided to be naughty and charged us... can see pissed off look in his eyes.
And before we knew it, we were off to our very last camp; Little Vumbura
I will save Little Vumbura for the next post. Mainly cos this is very long post, plus am also a bit drunk from the sundowners G&T (Africa Strength) I've been sipping for the past 1/2 hr. Heheheh
All too soon, our time in Savuti ended. We were off to another area of Botswana, and our next camp: Tubu Tree
And remember the last plane? And how I said that it was the smallest plane I had ever taken? Well, we quickly realised that it was the equivalent of a 747 jumbo jet in Safari terms:
The one below is what people usually take!
This is the Cessna Stationair. Reach up and you touch the wings. The pilot has to do this serious contortionist thing to get and out. Double click the photo and check out the size of that door.
It is a 6 seater, including the pilot. It measures 28 ft from tip to tail. One, ONE propeller and that little hole at the bottom is where they stuff the luggage.
Yes, that is why there is a limit of 12 kgs per person and it has to be in a soft duffel.
Anyway, it wasn't as bad as I thought. 30 mins later we were landing on the Tubu airstrip.
Little more than 10 minutes via 4X4, and we were at the camp.
Where Sauvuti was built entirely on stilts, Tubu's tents are all built into the trees: as in, they are literallt wrapped around the tree...
The room and the outdoor shower, like I mentioned, built into the trees :)
the tree serves as a nice soap holder.
The chill out area on the tent's deck... facing open savannah grasslands.
The camp is very nice; there's an outdoor bar and the bartop is made out of a sausage tree. This tree bears fruit up to 10 kgs, and pple make loofas from them. In the words of our guide from Savuti, Kane, "never camp under a sausage tree... they be big fruits." heh. In the background, you can see an Amarula tree - the fruits are used to make that alcoholic beverage, Amarula Cream... You can get it at all good duty free shops in airports around the world. It tastes exactly like bailey's cream.
The landscape was a bit different as well, there were more palm trees and little islands of woods. Tubu, apparently, during the high season is a floodplain, so most animals shelter in the little pockets of vegetation.
Sadly, the cats were missing during our game drives at Tubu, but there were heck of a lot of elephants! In fact, a herd invaded the camp one morning and we found a big bull munching on the vegetation outside our tent one evening. He was VERY big.
One of the highlights of our soujorn at Tubu: Mokoro-ing. Mokoros are dug out canoes, except because too many big trees had been felled to make them in the past the govt put a stop to it and now the canoes are made out of fibreglass. Even with very shallow water... like 30 cms, the Mokoro can still pass. That shot of the canoe in the sunset by gene in the previous post was from that Mokoro ride.
I have a bracelet, which I am wearing on my right wrist, weaved straight out of the reeds. One of the mokoro paddlers, who was an ex witch doctor called Jackson pulled out some weeds, rubbed the fibres out on his thigh and made these amazing bracelets for all 4 guests in about 1/2 hr! Very strong these fibres; think they used it to make rope before. So strong, that I can't exactly take it off.
Our Mokoro-er, whose name is Broken (yes, Broken), and as you can tell, its really gorgeous out there.
Jackson making the bracelets.
Game notes from Tubu: Elephants, when charging, are very scary. The bulls are VERY big but the babies are the cutest ever.
Spottings of Ardwolf - a rarity. And these huge eagle owls; also a cute leopard tortoise.
Found a munched up baby Zebra. It was killed in the night, but when we found the bones in the day, it was very clean. All that was left was its skin.
Big bull munching on Acacia Trees - which have plenty of thorns
A springbok. Check out the cute ears... the national emblem of the south african rugby team.
Leopard tortoise popping out of nowhere.
More gamephotos: One antlered impala, a gaggle of female ostrich
We saw this herd of elephants and these tiny babies, but this juvenile male which followed right at the very end of the herd decided to be naughty and charged us... can see pissed off look in his eyes.
And before we knew it, we were off to our very last camp; Little Vumbura
I will save Little Vumbura for the next post. Mainly cos this is very long post, plus am also a bit drunk from the sundowners G&T (Africa Strength) I've been sipping for the past 1/2 hr. Heheheh
