Abu Elephant Camp, Day One

I left Maun on the afternoon of Tuesday, December 23rd after working that morning in the clinic.  I did 10 surgeries, took a shower, did some last minute packing and then drove Trevor into town to meet Tana at her office - Wilderness Safaris.  She gave me my plane ticket which was literally a piece of paper with my name on it. LOL  Her office is across the street from the airport so she walked me over there and I checked in for my flight.  

I waited for about 30 minutes and then one of the people from Wilderness Safaris escorted me through security (a total joke) and then sat me on a golf cart and drove me out onto the runway to meet my pilot and the plane.  The pilot’s name was Simone. She is Irish/French and super nice.  She was taking me and two other passengers on a Cessna A2 Jet that she flies charter for Wilderness Air.  It was TINY!!  It seats four people plus the pilot.  The other two people were a couple from Zimbabwe flying to another camp. I sat in front in the co-pilot’s seat which was quite intimidating! 

Simone loading the luggage into the plane

It was a 40 minute ride to drop them off and then another 5 minutes by air to my camp.  This is by far the tiniest plane I have ever been in and the tiniest I would ever want to be in.  The plane is ultralight and any little wind blew it around easily which was somewhat disconcerting!  If a huge gust of wind came along I could only imagine being thrown around like a piece of paper!   Lucky for me it was a calm day with very minimal wind. After dropping off the two other guests Simone took me to my airstrip. When I say airstrip, I mean airSTRIP.  It was a strip of hard packed dirt in the middle of the bush. Super primitive. It turned out to be not so scary actually!

View from the Cessna

Landing at Abu Airstrip

I was met at the airstrip by BT. He is a guide for Abu Camp.  He took my luggage and loaded it up on the Land Rover safari vehicle and off we went.  As we drove to camp (about a 15 minute drive) he told me a little about the area.  Just before we arrived at the camp there was a bachelor herd of male elephants (not our herd) at the entrance. One of them looked at us and you could see he was thinking about charging us but he didn’t.  He was only about 20 feet away from us! Could have been scary!  

Bull elephant

We continued the drive into the camp and I could see about 7 people waiting for me.  They were all workers at the camp. They sang me a traditional welcome song in Setswana.  I felt special!  The general managers greeted me (an American husband and wife team - Aaron and JaimieRose) and offered me a cool scented towel for my hands and face.  AMAZING!

Aaron gave me a tour of the property along with some history.  That huge termite mound near the common areas has been here since the beginning of the camp (about 24 years). They built around it!  It is AWESOME!  There are multiple seating areas, a deck, a library, swimming pool, very small gym and a lagoon along the east side of the property (with hippos)!

Seating area 

Termite mound

Main Deck area

Library Seating Area

Library

Termite mound

Swimming pool

Hippo in the lagoon

Aaron then showed me to my room. Absolutely incredible!  This is glamping on steroids!!  Just have a look-see at the photos, although they won’t do it justice.   There are only 6 “tents” (rooms) on the property so I felt extremely lucky to be there.  There was a family of  5 Australians (the richest guy in Australia apparently) staying at the camp when I arrived but they left the next day and six other people arrived.  It seems like a waste to have just little old me in one huge room but I wasn't going to complain!  Just after Aaron left me at my room I heard a big thud on the roof. When I went outside to see what it was I saw a baboon running into the thicket.  I hear they are quite the nuisance in the camp along with the Vervet monkeys.  

Tent #5

Desk/writing area

View of the deck

Inside sitting area

Bed

Bathroom 1

Bathroom 2

Shower overlooking the deck

Outside bathtub

JaimeRose set me up to meet the elephants at 5:30pm.  There are 6 elephants at the camp, all females. They are Cathy, Sherini, Lorato, Warona,  Paseka and Naledi.  Please read their bios on the website.  They all have such amazing stories, especially Cathy, Paseka and Naledi (the baby).  The elephants are free to roam during the day and graze outside of the actual camp property but each evening they are brought into camp to stay overnight. 

http://www.abucamp.com/individuals.html

I met all the elephants in the “meet and greet area” and fed them some pellets.  

Feeding Shrine

Feeding Paseka

Posing with Cathy

Naledi is super naughty!  She almost knocked me out of the fence!  She is still a baby and doesn’t know how big she is. She wants to play with everyone!  After the pellets were gone they get put into their boma for the night.  

Feeding Naledi

Other animals come into the meet and greet area after the elephants leave to clean up the pellets.  We had a male and female baboon, multiple Vervet monkeys and a female Bushbuck and her baby.  The bushbuck ate out of my hand!  So freaking cool!

Vervet Monkey

Male Baboon

Bushbuck

After that adventure I went back to the main camp area and had dinner with JaimeRose.  The food here is AMAZING!!  I'm talking 5 star quality with actual "courses"! We talked “American” which was nice for a change.  She filled me in on all the activities I could do while at the camp and made a plan for me to meet BT at 6:30am the next morning for a game drive and a ride in a mokoro.

After dinner I was off to my room for a shower.  I needed to get to bed so I would be rested for the next day’s activities!  I am loving this place!!

More to come!

“There is no creature among all the Beasts of the world which hath so great and ample demonstration of the power and wisdom of almighty God as the Elephant.” Edward Topsell, The Historie of Foure-Footed Beastes