• Home
  • About
  • Privacy & Disclosure Policy
    • Cookie Policy (EU)
    • Product Reviews & Advertising
  • Blogroll
  • We Recommend…
  • Archives
  • Contact

Snapshot Chronicles Roadtrip

Family travel through a slightly twisted lens. Sense of humor required. Shoes optional.

Lilac Breasted Roller

December 18, 2009 by Susan Getgood

One of the prettiest birds we saw during our trip was the national bird of Botswana, the Lilac Breasted Roller.  In fact, I could not stop taking pictures of it.

Mashatu:

4006849965 430abee69c Lilac Breasted Roller

4007617406 efe91bc274 Lilac Breasted Roller

4007705478 977bc56222 Lilac Breasted Roller

Mala Mala:

4040951580 b852a0b829 Lilac Breasted Roller

This pair of Lilac Breasted Rollers was clearly nesting in this tree on the lawn at Mala Mala.

4041194638 336cde765b Lilac Breasted Roller

On our very last day, as we were waiting to leave for the airstrip, I managed to get a photo of one in flight.

4169131223 34ef0fc426 Lilac Breasted Roller

Filed Under: Africa, Birds, Botswana, Mala Mala, Mashatu, South Africa

Mala Mala, South Africa

December 15, 2009 by Susan Getgood

4038175395 d4448ef2cc Mala Mala, South Africa

Leopard at Mala Mala

20-22 September 2009

My brother and mother have done a brilliant job delivering the blow-by-blow of the vacation over at Mashatu Tiger; here’s a link to Doug’s summary of our arrival at Mala Mala and here’s Mum’s rundown on our time there.

I’ll bottom line it for you. Mala Mala Main Camp is beautiful and very elegant. We saw some amazing animals, including the Secretary Bird and the Ground Hornbill. Lots of lions, leopards, elephant and giraffe. We had a tremendous sighting of two bull rhinos on the last morning. We saw a mother and baby hippo walking across the lawn around 11 pm from our room. Our ranger, Lucky, was phenomenal. He was even able to spot a chameleon in a tree at night.

For most of these photos, you’ll need to visit my brother’s photo gallery because I managed to delete a whole bunch of my pictures from Mala Mala when I got home (don’t ask, I am still pissed about it.)

Nevertheless, we preferred Mashatu. Why? Mala Mala is elegant and the hospitality is impeccable. It just didn’t feel as friendly and down to earth as Mashatu. In fairness, our experience of Mashatu may be a little colored by Mum’s friendship with Afke and deep knowledge of the native animals due to her time spent “at the Pond.” Likewise, our first night at Mala Mala was not the smoothest — starting with the long delay of the plane and ending with some confusion upon arrival, well detailed in my mom and brother’s posts linked above.

However, I’m a pretty objective person. Even after I eliminate all of that, if your budget is limited and you can only do one “luxury” game reserve, I would recommend Mashatu over Mala Mala. If you can visit both, by all means do. The landscapes are completely different, and there are animals in each place that you just won’t see in the other.

But if you have to choose, make it Mashatu.

That said, here are some of my favorite pictures from Mala Mala.

4013201574 53a4b507bd Mala Mala, South Africa

4040772723 779f4668cd Mala Mala, South Africa

4012428867 bc7e4c53d7 Mala Mala, South Africa

4040195633 064c5f24e7 Mala Mala, South Africa

4041187506 ea280dcd68 Mala Mala, South Africa

4041245522 bbba871538 Mala Mala, South Africa

4040505309 4834fc355c Mala Mala, South Africa

4040526249 54c4e6ea0a Mala Mala, South Africa

4040535491 0e7248d196 Mala Mala, South Africa

Photo Sets: September 20, 21, 22

Links:

  • Mashatu Game Reserve
  • Mala Mala Game Reserve

Filed Under: Africa, Botswana, Mala Mala, Mashatu, South Africa

Pete’s Pond

December 12, 2009 by Susan Getgood

4038897260 6a6490ee79 Petes Pond We went to Africa because of Pete’s Pond.

A few years ago, my mom got involved in the online community for the National Geographic webcam at Pete’s Pond in Botswana.

Pete’s Pond is an artificial watering hole created to give the animals on the Mashatu Game Reserve an alternative water source to the nearby Limpopo River where they are easy targets for poachers. The webcam shares the activity at the Pond with viewers around the world.

Including my mom.

Last year, at about this time, my brother got the idea that we should take Mom to Africa. Amazingly, we made it happen.

The webcam is located in a hide, and runs 24×7. At night, it is on an automatic sweep, but during the day, there is a camera operator to find and follow whatever action is happening at the pond. In our western mentality, we think, how much could happen at a pond? Quite a lot actually. Especially in a semi-arid climate like Botswana where there isn’t much water most of the year. And, unlike the game drives, where the animals and birds are aware of the vehicle, at the Pond, they are mostly unaware (unless there are unexpected loud noises from the hide.)

When our plane from Mashatu to Mala Mala was delayed by four hours, we were privileged to spend the time at the hide. Afke, the volunteer who runs the webcam, had come to see us off, and when we had the long wait, she graciously invited us to wait at the Pond.

My full set of pictures is on Flickr, but here are some of my favorites.

It’s hard to get good pictures of warthogs. They scamper off PDQ. I got my best shots of them from the hide.

4038146593 f47cc26460 Petes Pond

4038157411 c97be4f600 Petes Pond

A Bee-eater

4169689790 e4b9784b57 Petes Pond

And a Pied Kingfisher

4169667564 709169d1c3 Petes Pond

George & Gracie, the Egyptian Geese and GuineaFowl

4038139961 47070ac6fd Petes Pond

 Petes Pond

Filed Under: Africa, Botswana, Mashatu Tagged With: Botswana, National Geographic, Pete's Pond

Leaving Mashatu

December 9, 2009 by Susan Getgood

Sunday September 20 2009

4038859800 8a593eb55a Leaving Mashatu

4038111885 9bcf07608a Leaving Mashatu

4038860962 85b1a35f70 Leaving Mashatu

On our last drive at Mashatu, we got closer to an elephant than any of us ever thought we’d be… without zoo bars in between, that is. I knew we were pretty damn close when I heard Elvis mutter something like “that’s right mama, keep going…”

We also saw another leopard, ostrich and the ever-present impala. It was so interesting to see the different species interact, something we rarely see in zoos, even wonderful ones like San Diego’s Wild Animal Park.

4038102431 8011f7023f Leaving Mashatu

More pictures from the morning drive.

All too soon it was time to make our way to the airport and say our good-byes. Afke, my mom’s friend who runs the camera at Pete’s Pond, came to see us off.

4038128923 3e2b9d336f Leaving Mashatu
(Mum on the left, Afke on the right)

A mighty good thing that was, as our charter plane to Mala Mala in South Africa ended up being delayed by about four hours. Instead of hanging around the airfield or going back to Main Camp, Afke cheerily and without hesitation invited us to come to the Pond.

So all five us, Mum, Doug, me, and our now fast friends and traveling companions Michael and Gary made our way to Pete’s Pond for a completely different and quite unique wildlife viewing experience. One that you can share thanks to National Geographic’s 24-hour webcam.

More on Pete’s Pond in my next post.

Filed Under: Africa, Botswana, Mashatu Tagged With: National Geographic, Pete's Pond

Mashatu – Main Camp & Predator Drive

December 7, 2009 by Susan Getgood

4029312558 db6bddc09c m Mashatu   Main Camp & Predator Drive4029308408 0e3192c03c m Mashatu   Main Camp & Predator Drive

Saturday, September 19 PM

Here are a few images from Mashatu Main Camp, including the resident bushbuck.

We had decided to do the Predator Drive instead of the regular game drive, so that afternoon we separated from our friends Michael and Gary, and our regular team of Elvis and Aaron, and went off with Andrei Snyman of Mashatu Research in search of one of the recently tagged leopards. The animal led us on a merry chase, but eventually Andrei was able to spot him and download some data from his collar.

We didn’t see nearly as many other animals on the Predator Drive as we had on previous drives, so if you are there for a short time I wouldn’t recommend it. However, we were at Mashatu for three days and had plenty of opportunity to see a variety of animals, so it was very interesting to see how the research process works.

If you would like to know more about the predator research at Mashatu, check out tulipredatorproject.ning.com

4028569339 567e34e247 Mashatu   Main Camp & Predator Drive

Andrei Snyman tracking a leopard

4028572959 f7ca65b585 Mashatu   Main Camp & Predator Drive

Impala

Filed Under: Africa, Botswana, Mashatu, Safari

Next Page »

Recent Posts

  • Notice
  • Cityscapes Philadelphia – What To Do, Science & History Geek Edition
  • Cityscapes Philadelphia – What To Do, Art Museum Edition
  • Cityscapes Philadelphia – Where to Eat
  • Cityscapes: San Jose

Search

Categories

Copyright 2009-2018. All Rights Reserved. Photos copyright Susan Getgood unless otherwise noted.

Copyright © 2023 · Lifestyle Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in

Manage Cookie Consent
To provide the best experience, we use technologies like cookies to store and/or access device information. Consenting to these technologies will allow us to process data such as browsing behavior or unique IDs on this site. Not consenting or withdrawing consent may adversely affect certain features and functions.
Functional Always active
The technical storage or access is strictly necessary for the legitimate purpose of enabling the use of a specific service explicitly requested by the subscriber or user, or for the sole purpose of carrying out the transmission of a communication over an electronic communications network.
Preferences
The technical storage or access is necessary for the legitimate purpose of storing preferences that are not requested by the subscriber or user.
Statistics
The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for statistical purposes. The technical storage or access that is used exclusively for anonymous statistical purposes. Without a subpoena, voluntary compliance on the part of your Internet Service Provider, or additional records from a third party, information stored or retrieved for this purpose alone cannot usually be used to identify you.
Marketing
The technical storage or access is required to create user profiles to send advertising, or to track the user on a website or across several websites for similar marketing purposes.
Manage options Manage services Manage vendors Read more about these purposes
View preferences
{title} {title} {title}