Arrival at Kambaku Oliphants Safari Camp

 

Oliphants Safari Camp.

The door to our room.

The interior of our room.

The stable of game drive vehicles.

Sunday, April 16^th.

We arrived at Johannesburg late and had to pickup our luggage quickly, take it to the domestic flight dropoff, clear customs and get to the gate. We made it by about 10 minutes. The second flight was on a smaller plane (two seats each side) and was only one hour. Two guides from African Impact met Bruce and I and a young woman from the Netherlands, and then they told us we had to wait for two hours to meet another plane bringing in another five people. So, we sat and talked to the guides and had a lunch snack. The drive to the camp was about 90 minutes and enroute we passed a huge mica, phosphorus and copper mining operation. We finally got to the camp at about 3. We were shown our rooms and we unpacked a little. The accommodations are not luxurious, just basic but it will work. Then we had a briefing about the operation of the camp and rules, followed by a meet up around the campfire where we all introduced ourselves. There are about 24 people here, about half from the Netherlands, most under 25 and just Bruce, myself and a Dutchman named Koert who are over 50. The whole group is divided between two different projects, one is conservation and the other is the photography course we signed up for. Then we had a braie (bbq) dinner of roast chicken, potato and salad. The three of us had a couple of beer with a 33-year-old American named Matthew and talked about our experiences and photography. I think we are going to get along very well. Curfew is at 9 for both safety reasons and logistically reasons; they don’t want everyone staying up late drinking and partying because the projects and game drives often start very early in the morning. So, Bruce and I headed off to our room with our other three bunkmates: Koen, Timo and Bram, the last two have to get up at 5:30. I was fast asleep by 9:30.