Natural Selection will launch new flying safaris to Angola next year. The expeditions, the first of their kind, will follow the paths of the rivers that feed the Okavango and Kwando river and wetland systems from their sources in the Angolan Highlands into the Okavango Delta and Linyanti in Botswana, and finally, to the Makgadikgadi.
Although the safaris are customised to suit each group’s requirements, time frame and budgets, Natural Selection recommends the ‘Source to Sands’ 12-night itinerary.
The 12-night/13-day expedition costs from US$20 500 per person for a group of eight guests. It includes flights from Lanseria Airport in Johannesburg in a twin-engine Beechcraft KingAir B200; or in a Cessna Caravan from Maun airport in Botswana; 12 nights’ accommodation; all meals and drinks; activities and guides.
The trip starts with three nights in a simple mobile camp in the Angolan Highlands in the company of National Geographic explorers and scientists, followed by two nights in the Cubango Reserve that straddles the Cuatir and Cubango Rivers, with a day at the Cuito Cuanavale battlefields of the 1987 conflict between the South African military and the Angolan FAPLA army.
Visitors then spend two nights on Nkasa Island in Nkasa Rupara National Park in Namibia’s largest protected wetland. There they spend two days game viewing by vehicle or paddling the floodplains in a dugout canoe, watching elephant, buffalo, red lechwe and the predators that stalk them.
Visitors are then taken across the border into the Okavango Delta for three nights. From a base at Sable Alley, Tuludi or Mapula Lodge, game viewing is by vehicle, on foot or by mokoro.
The journey ends in the Makgadikgadi at Meno a Kwena Camp on the fringes of the Makgadikgadi Pans National Park.
Natural Selection says there’s a possibility to add a two- or three-night visit to the national parks in central Angola to search for the Giant Sable, an animal unique to Angola and which has been the national emblem of the country since 1909. For decades it was assumed that it was extinct, but following conservation efforts, small populations are thriving in two of Angola’s most remote reserves, the Cangandala and Luando.
“A safari to Angola is not about seeing the Big Five; it is a conservation journey of discovery and learning through one of the most remote and little-known wilderness areas on the planet. The future of some of Africa’s most iconic wildlife areas, the Okavango Delta, the Kwando, the Linyanti and Savuti in particular, depend on the continued integrity of the Angolan Highlands as the country rapidly industrialises post-civil war,” notes Natural Selection.
Colin Bell, Co-Founder of Natural Selection, says: “Our presence here must enhance wildlife populations while also helping to fund and support local Angolans to benefit from their natural resources sustainably and, in turn, start the process to help ensure that the Okavango Delta is preserved.”
