Senyati Safari Camp
Throughout Southern Africa we stayed in some pretty amazing campsites, most of them had ablutions blocks (a term that was new to us) where there were several showers and toilets, some campsites even had private ablutions at each site if they were particularly posh. Most had a light and electricity, water, sometimes even a prep counter and sink area. They all had fire/braai pits where we could grill food or just have a fire. But one private campsite in Botswana stood out among all of the other campsites we stayed at, it had all of the above plus a watering hole that wildlife could wander into for a drink, complete with a tunnel underground to a hide where we could sit and watch them from a few feet away - pretty cool!
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| The Senyati set up - a covered kitchen sink/prep area, our own bathroom and shower in behind, our truck and tents set up in front, the braai pit in the foreground. The cement and grass "floors" were a nice alternative to the usual dirt/dust floors. |
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| Cheers! Enjoying a Savannah cider while tending to the braai. |
We stayed at Senyati Safari camp on 2 different nights, one before going to Chobe National Park and one after. We would set up camp, make a cup of tea or some other drink, and wander down to the watering hole to check out the action. Overlooking the hole was a bar /restaurant upstairs and a seating area downstairs with lots of comfy chairs and even a daybed to longue on while waiting for wildlife. They had wifi from 5-9 pm each evening, so campers would gather in the viewing area to watch animals and check emails- quite a sight to see, lots of people facing a watering hole with small glowing screens in front of them, and each time something would wander in the screens would get put down or used to take photos, then picked back up once they'd had enough of watching.
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| This shows us in the daybed at the edge of the viewing area, watching the elephants (not visible at this exposure) at the watering hole not too far away. To the right of the photo is the aluminum sided opening to the hide, it goes down about 15 steps then through a tunnel which ends in an underground viewing area right in front of the watering hole. |
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| another shot from behind us as we lay in the daybed, snoozing and watching elephants. In the background where the ground is a bit raised in front of the hole - beneath that hump is the underground viewing area. |
The elephants seemed to come in droves to that
watering hole, they would mostly arrive in family groups of 8-20 members, one
group usually heading out when another group was moving in, they seemed to have
a system. We noticed a pattern where the largest male of the group would
usually come in and scope it out, which often caused the current family to
start to head out, then the male would stand back and watch while his family
moved in and drank from the hole, eventually joining them for a drink. There
were some HUGE males, it was amazing to be so close to them - in the seating
area we were about 20 meters from the watering hole, and if we went down the
tunnel into the hide we were about 3 meters from the hole. We could hear the
sounds they made when drinking, walking, communicating, it was cool.
It was also kind of intense because there was no
fence at all, it they wanted to, they could walk right up to us, or right into
the campsite. In fact , on one of the nights a big elephant did walk away from
the hole toward the building, which caused some excitement, but it kept going
past us and headed for the campsite instead. The camp employs 2 night watchmen
who do rounds all night to ensure that animals aren't coming into the camp -
they rushed over and flashed their flashlight several times which was enough to
cause the elephant to turn away from camp and head out....for a bit, it did
come back but they did the flashlight trick again and then it left for good.
Both nights at Senyati we took advantage of the daybed
and brought our blankets and snacks down to watch for as long as we could stay
awake, it was such a unique experience to be there bundled up watching
elephants roam in and out. We saw 3 giraffes in the distance one night and
though they never braved the watering hole, they paced in the distance seeming
to contemplate it for several hours. We saw a big herd of water buffalo walk
through which was exciting, there were likely 80 of them and they grazed their
way though the field, stopped for water, and carried on, no big deal.
There were also a couple of
warthogs wandering through, and a few hyenas in the distance, of course, we
were hoping for a big cat to wander through but no such luck, although
apparently it has happened in the past!
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| View of the watering hole from the bar upstairs - it isn't big but it is busy! |
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| One of the water buffalo passing through with an elephant in the background |
Senyati was a special place where we could camp and enjoy being on the fringe of where nature meets human development, where anything can wander through at any time. Both nights we stayed until we fell asleep, waking up several times to watch the animals for awhile before nodding off again, and then finally heading the 50 steps or so back to camp to climb up into our tents where we could sleep without risk of animals getting too close. We would take our morning coffee down to the watering hole to see some animals but there was never much going on in the morning when we were there. The potential of something really cool being at the watering hole did get us up and out of bed nice and early though!
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