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It is now DAY 12 (23 June) and we are at the Kasane Airport waiting for our Mack Air flight to the Gomoti Plains to spend a couple of days in another camp.

We flew to the Gomoti Plains on the largest plane in the Mack Air fleet, the Cessna 208B Caravan, which can carry 11 passengers, and at the end of our Gomoti Plains stay, we flew to Maun on their smallest plane, the Cessna 206 Stationair, having 4 seats, which includes the pilot’s seat. Both planes were very cramped. You could not stand up in the big plane, but had to crouch down to move from the entrance in the rear, forward to the seats. This was a first for us. What an adventure!

Our pilot on the ‘big’ plane was Christopher Dekker. They had a magazine on board in the seat pocket, and each pilot had a bio, like the one below for Christopher. I thought his was interesting.

We walk to the left side of the aircraft to verify that all our baggage is there before it gets stowed. Christopher is in charge of that. In fact, as our flight progressed it became clear that Christopher did literally everything concerning the flight. He jumped out of the side door from the pilot’s seat and slid a barrier over to protect anyone from walking forward and possibly into the spinning propeller, as the engine was still running. He then would open the back door to allow passengers to either board or disembark. He would then enter the rear door and from the inside he would pull it closed. Then he’d worm his way forward to the pilots seat and fly us to the next remote stop.

In our trip to the Gomoti Plains airport we made two additional stops. Pete takes a selfie of us while Christopher gives the speech normally given by the stewardess on other commercial flights.

We take off and immediately clime to altitude, and a look out the window gives us a taste of the bigness of Africa. Seated in our seats you can see there is very little head room.

As we approach our first stop I notice that the only thing down there is a dirt landing strip, and no buildings anywhere.

We’re off again, and looking out the window, the landscape looks beautiful, and the rivers look so pristine. Africa is certainly a beautiful country. Christopher zeros in on our next landing strip. in the 3rd frame. The 5th frame is the Gomoti Plains landing strip.

We thanked Christopher for the flawless flight and were met by our Gomoti Plains Camp guide, Mitre. It took over half an hour to drive from the air field to the camp, and near the camp was a bridge that they built to span a body of water. The water was like glass and it gave beautiful mirror images of the trees there. And guess what, we saw some giraffes along the way to the camp. This bridge was really narrow, and I was a little apprehensive when Mitre stopped in the middle of it. I know that Land Cruisers are pretty heavy, but I didn’t know how strong the bridge was. It was just made with wooden poles and appeared to be tied together with hemp from what I could tell.

We reached the camp just as the sun was going down, and we were greeted with a fruit drink and some snacks. The couple below are from Australia and we were teamed up with them on all of our game drives for the time we were there.

We were taken to our tent, and were we surprised. We dropped our bags on the couch, and took a look around. There were two bedrooms, a living room, bathroom with a huge shower. It may have looked like a tent from the outside, but inside it was like a five star hotel.

It looked brand-new, so I asked how old it was. The camp was built in February, just 3 months ago. We only had a few minutes to enjoy it because our guide Mirtre would be taking us on our first evening game drive.

When the sun begins to set, the air turns quite chilly and we dressed in multiple layers. Our first game sighting was a giraffe and I couldn’t resist taking a photo, even though I probably had hundreds of giraffe photos by now.

Mitre drove on and as it was growing dark, we stopped taking photos and just followed Mitre's flood light beam looking for game at night. We returned to camp at around 7:30 PM and warmed ourselves at the fire the staff had built for us. Dinner was taken at a long table with lanterns for light. It was buffet style and we went to the grill for meat, and it was delicious.

We got a good nights sleep and the next morning, DAY 13 (24 June), we enjoyed breakfast and then were off on a morning game drive, even before the sun was fully up.

A cape buffalo probably fed a pride of lions some time back. The horns and skull is all that remains of it.

We came upon some zebras along with a heard of elephants.

The elephants seemed to be on the march. They are to me one of the most amazing animals. Africa has such a diverse range of animal life. It’s a continent I would like to return to many more times.

We then came upon 3 lions that were enjoying their morning in the sun shine. One was obviously not ready to get up, but yawned instead, and then laid down for some more shuteye.

We watched them for quite a while, and then all of a sudden they all became very alert, and all looked in one direction very intently. Then they sprang into action as all three went bounding in the direction of their interest.

We looked in the direction they were racing to and saw a leopard running very fast, and then it scampered up this tree, climbing as high as he could. One lion was hot on his trail and headed up the tree after him, but he was stopped by the fresh meat of an impala wedged in the crotch of the tree. Apparently the leopard had already eaten a good portion of it, and was just taking a break when the lions spotted him on the ground. This was better than a David Attenborough documentary.

There wasn’t enough room in the tree for more than one lion, so the other two lurked below, hoping for a share of the spoils. The impala was wedged in the crotch of the tree pretty firmly, and the lion was having a difficult time extracting it.

The lion finally dislodged a good portion of the impala and headed down the tree to a lower position. The others watched anxiously, still hoping for a scrap.

In frame 5 the lion is eyeing the impala leg dangling from the lower crotch of the tree. In the meantime the other lion heads back up the tree to retrieve another portion from the crotch above.

The lion on the ground finally got up the courage to snatch the impala leg that was left dangling from the lower crotch, while the one in the tree dislodged a much larger portion of the impala and headed back down with it.

Lions don’t normally climb trees, so this one was being very cautious as she maneuvered in unfamiliar territory.

The whole time the poor leopard watched from the very top of the tree, where the branches would never support the weight of the much heavier lion.

Apparently they all had a share, and were content enough after eating to lay down for another nap. Don’t you just love cats?

We left the lions, but just before we started to go, the leopard raced down the now empty tree and took off for parts unknown. We found a group of giraffes and watched them for a while. Then we came upon a pair of African foxes.

It was getting late and the sun was about to set, so Mitre stopped for our ‘sundowner’, which consisted of a gin and tonic for us and some snacks Mitre had packed.

When we returned to camp, we were lead to our tent (they would not allow us to walk from camp central to our tent at night unattended), and the master of the camp escorted us. We saw that a table was set on our porch, with a bottle of wine, and we were told that we were being given a private dinner tonight, and they wished us a happy anniversary. We were very surprised.

We felt a little embarrassed since our anniversary was actually 8 days ago, but we thoroughly enjoyed the meal.

The next morning, DAY 14 (25 June), we said our good byes and were driven to the Gomoti Plains air field. The Mack Air plane this time was their smallest, with a total of 4 seats, and we thought the larger plane was cramped, this one was even more cramped, and it bounced around a bit more in the sky as well.

Our pilot for this flight was Christian, and he is probably pretty new to Mack Air since his bio was not in their magazine.

We flew from Gomoti Plains to Maun where we boarded a South African Airways flight to Johannesburg.

In Johannesburg we spent the night in the International O. R. Tambo Airport Hotel, which was literally right across the street from the airport. The Springbok Atlas representative that met us was holding up the sign “Welcome Mr. & Mrs. Weaver. ;o)

Our room was quite nice, and they had set out some candy on the table for us. It was great! We had dinner in the hotel restaurant, with a pre-dinner cocktail of course. This would be our last martini for a while, at least until September when we will be in Aruba.

With reluctance we leave Africa for Sao Paulo and then home, but we entertain fond memories of sunset on the Gomoti Plaines, and a myriad of memories to recall from time to time as we think about a return to this wonderful continent.