Rae Safaris

25/12/2024

And so another year winds down to its inevitable close.

We would like to wish our loved ones, our friends and all the wonderful members of our travel family from all corners of the globe...warm compliments of the season and an adventure filled New Year.

We look forward to guiding many of you in a veritable plethora of wildlife frontier landscapes next year...we cannot wait.

See you real soon...somewhere untamed.

Wish you were here.

.kuzo.group .roode

20/11/2024

And so...as with all good things...our 2024 season winds inexorably to a close.

What a season we have had!
Erupting volcanoes and Marine Iguanas in otherworldly Galapagos.
Gorillas, Chimps in Uganda's shadow lands and legions of Wildebeest on the endless Serengeti in Tanzania.
The desert vastness in incomparable Namibia.
The Okavango Delta and the wildlife wonderland that is Botswana.
South Africa, our home, and always close to our hearts.

My career began in South Africa's Kruger lowveld region some 32 years ago. Fitting I guess that we finish a magnificent season in this wildlife paradise.

Serial adventurers Jeff and Tracy Fawcett together with friends Jan and Paul Dutton joined me on a private safari exploring two of this regions' best game viewing safariscapes...Balule and the Sabi Game Reserves.

Leopard, Lion, White and Black Rhinoceros, Buffalo, African Wild Dog and an endless plethora of plains game astounded us at every turn.

This monumental tusker held us particularly spellbound as he browsed close to our camp...his name is Ezulwini and he his among the last of our wild continent's big ivory carrying bulls.

It is time now for reflection and for family.

2025 beckons however...we return to Galapagos...and Antarctica...and the wild African spaces we are so besotted with...the question remains...are you joining us?
You should...safaris are good for you...it's a medical fact.

Wish you were here.

.roode .kuzo.group

26/10/2024

Petrichor...a word coined in the late 60's and meaning...the smell of rain.

I lay awake under canvas in a remote river valley in the Northern Tuli Game Reserve in Botswana listening to the first rainfall of the new season on a dusty and dessicated landscape and the resulting scent was overwhelming.
It is a combination of rain itself along with activated soil compounds like ozone, geosmin and various plant oils.
The overall effect for me was one of intense well-being and joy...feelings believed to be an integral ancient part of our hominid DNA...as petrichor signals renewal...and forthcoming bounty.

I hope your drought will soon be broken Botswana...

Mashatu...the local name for the Nyalaberry tree. They are common along waterways in this part of Africa and they are spectacular...great, colossal multi stemmed giants usually growing on or associated with equally archaic termite mounds. They are cathedral-like...cool, still...almost spiritual in their presence.

They supply real estate for a great many creatures...Baboons, Owls, Genets...and Leopard.

This rosette spangled assassin snoozed peacefully in the shadowed quiet of a Mashatu...dreaming no doubt of the carnage she would unleash among the scores of Impala as that night fell...as their herbivore world changed...filled with unease...with trepidation...with darkness.

Wish you were here.

.kuzo.group .roode

30/09/2024

It has been a veritable whirlwind.

Since July we have guided private safaris to some of the most evocative African destinations.

Mike has guided multiple private itineraries in Namibia, Botswana and Madikwe and the Greater Kruger region in South Africa.

I have guided several Namibia and Botswana departures including a boat focused experience in the region around Chief's Island in the magnificent Okavango Delta.

I then headed, together with serial adventurers David and Shirley Parish, to the mind-bending and surreal centre of endemism that is Madagascar.
We immersed ourselves over two weeks in the unique and otherworldly forest landscapes of this most diabolical country.
This Verreaux Sifaka stopped to stare as we trekked through endless dry deciduous forest in the Kirindy region of western Madagascar...a beautiful landscape dominated by the most unusual and oddly shaped endemic Baobabs.

Peter Neville and I are now in Columbus, Ohio, USA raising funds and awareness for our non-profit WorthWild Africa. A huge thank you to all our supporters...we are humbled and most grateful. This important conservation work in the field only happens because of your valued contribution.

September is a birthday month for RAE Safaris. We are ten years old this year...and upon reflection...I can only express profound gratitude...to our colleagues and collaborators, our guests who have become a wonderful and much cherished travel family...and to my family...who make up team RAE...I'm so proud of you all.
My heart is full.

https://youtu.be/ATO6FhcVzN8?si=GM2A0Lq9lusv-wrh

Wish you were here.



.kuzo.group .roode .of.conservation

30/09/2024

THANK YOU Hemker Park & Zoo and all your supporters. We are absolutely overwhelmed by your amazing generosity!!

13/09/2024

RAE Safaris - https://mailchi.mp/98a3859d0a2d/rae-safaris-8329392

25/06/2024

Biscuit...one of our trusty Land Cruisers, and I are rambling across central Botswana.

We started in Windhoek, Namibia...collecting regular safari guests and good mates Dr Patrick McLeroth and George Gacser at that airport a week and a half ago.

We have traveled long, dust swathed, corrugated dirt roads into remote northern Namibia...the arid, boulder strewn frontier of Damaraland, the endless, dessicated thorn tree country that is Etosha and the riverine splendor of Caprivi.

We crossed at a remote border post into Botswana near Shakawe and found a waterlogged wonderland at Xaro Lodge on the Okavango panhandle.

The Okavango is a living paradox...a vast river delta fed by rain water draining off of the distant Angolan highlands...and spreading out until its end in the middle of Botswana's central desert region. It is palm trees, crocodiles, hippos and aquatic abundance in the centre of one of earth's driest habitats!

I put Patrick and George on to their departing flight at Maun Airport this morning and Biscuit and I are now heading home...driving across Botswana and a portion of Limpopo province over the next two days.

We came across these elephant raiding the national water supply pipeline adjacent to the A3 national road near Nxai Pan today...there is severe drought in Namibia and Botswana this year and the pressure on the region's wildlife and human populations is most noticeable.

It remains a truly beautiful arid wilderness.

Wish you were here.

13/06/2024

What a journey we have had!

An ephemeral dry wind blew us across a dessicated and yet stunningly beautiful Namibia.

The adventure began for our group of veterinarians from the USA at Okonjima where we engaged with local vets in darting and health checking/collaring several apex carnivores...two leopards, a cheetah and a brown hyena.

We moved on to the vast, dusty savannas of Etosha and reveled in drifting herds of elephant, prides of lion and lithe, and nimble cheetah. Black rhino were to be found near waterholes jostling for territory and water...a real scarcity this year as Namibia prepares for a tough dry season.

Damaraland always twists my mind. Endless exposed geology...the very skeleton of Gondwanaland torn asunder as continents were birthed millions of years ago. On the sandstone...6000 year old engravings mark the presence of our first nation people as they eked an existence here way before...before it all changed.

And finally...the great desert emptiness of the Namib. Bronze infused dunes in the last light of dusk surrounded me as I stepped away from the group and closed my eyes with a deep reverence for the sheer primeval grandeur of the space. Barking geckos clicked around me and a wonderful stillness settled in my soul.

Wish you were here.

Photo by Adrienne vant' Wout...whose heart stands in these hills with mine.

18/05/2024

Our final day in East Africa.
I'm sitting on a patio watching a thunderstorm drift across a bruised tropical sky above Entebbe in Uganda...and quietly contemplating the myriad wonders we have seen over the last three weeks.

Three days ago in the cloud forested hill country of Bwindi I sat hunched in impenetrable undergrowth a few feet from an enormous Silverback Mountain Gorilla. We gazed at each other while I mused...wrestling with the concepts of my human origin and the plight of this fascinating, primeval beast.

Yesterday...on motorized dugout canoes, we wound our way into the papyrus choked maze that is Mabamba Bay adjacent to Lake Victoria searching for one of Africa's most bizarre and enigmatic birds...the Shoebill.

It has been nothing short of breathtaking...my heart remains forever on a lonely hill somewhere wild in this phenomenal, impossibly diverse wilderness eden.

East Africa...Tanzania...Uganda...we shall return.

Wish you were here.

Photo by David Parish.

.roode .kuzo.group

07/05/2024

What is there to say after a safari across some of the most iconic wildlife landscapes in Africa?

How does one decompress all of the various impressions?

We plied the muddy tracks in Lake Manyara National Park astride an enormous flooded soda lake and reveled in drifting Elephant herds, squawking Hornbills and mischevious Sykes Monkeys.
Later we ascended the Rift Valley escarpment to find our rest on a cloud shrouded coffee plantation.
The very next day we descended into the bizarre lost world of Ngorongoro to once again marvel at the herds and the carnivores and the sheer magnificence of the scenery.

And then Oldupai.

I stood at the site deep in a gorge where Mary Leakey discovered the fossil remains of Austrolopithecus boisei in 1959 and felt the sheer primeval timelessness of the place consume me.

Later on the short grass plains above Ndutu, we found the vast, braying, dust coated multitude...wildebeest and zebra in an endless jostling legion stretching to beyond the limits of the shimmering horizon.

We set about exploring Siringet...the endless plain...and found the various hunting beasts that stalk and dispatch their prey there...as they have done since before measured time.

This lithe and sleek feline assassin gazed across a valley below Gol Koppies in the late afternoon and waited patiently for her fuzzy little offspring to catch up with her.

We explored Tarangire today...Baobab studded wonderland...eventually arriving at our camp on the shores of a flamingo bedecked soda lake called Burunge.

We fly to the spice islands of Zanzibar tomorrow for some rest...and then...Uganda.
We go to seek the large primates, "the people of the forest", in those dark and mysterious shadow lands.

Wish you were here.

.roode .kuzo.group

11/03/2024

We jetted eastward over the high Andes range and descended into the deep, humid tropics of the Amazon basin.

Coca is a disheveled tropical town on the banks of the Payamino River. We boarded a high-speed motorized vessel there and sped off into that waterlogged maze...a wilderness of hanging lianas and soaring Kapok trees and endless, mist shrouded jungle.

Here in Ecuador's portion of the Amazon basin, three gargantuan rivers stream off of the Andes into these tepid lowlands en route to the Atlantic.

Two and a half hours by motorized craft and another two hours up a nameless forest covered creek by paddle canoe and we arrived...at Napo Wildlife Centre...on an obscure lake...in the very center...of nowhere.

The jungle is not quiet. There is a constant rhythm, cicadas and katydids buzzing, Caiman splashing, Howler Monkeys vocalizing across the vast canopy, haunting and vicious sounding...Hoatzins...prehistoric looking arboreal birds...flustered and untidy looking...eyed us from overhanging branches as we glided by...fluttering their feathers all the while.

I was in paradise.

I picked up and read Willard Price's Amazon Adventure as a small boy...and have been dreaming of this my entire life.

These Giant Otters are diabolical...huge, social carnivores that ply the overgrown backwaters of this immense wilderness region. They are apex carnivores and have been known to overpower large snakes and even Caiman. The family group of five cruised past our canoe, screeching to one another in their strange manner as they searched for something to catch and consume.

Here too...as Darwin before us...we encountered the bliss of nature...in the absence of man.

To quote James Fenimore Cooper..."It is more deeply stirring to my blood than any imagining could possibly have been."

Wish you were here.

Photo by Simon Wray.

🇪🇨

03/03/2024

In the remote grandeur...the blue emptiness of the endless Pacific...we have come upon a strange world...one born of the earth's core and entirely separate from the great land masses so familiar to us.

On these dramatic and impossible shores...nature has inexplicably found a way. The bleak, stark lava strewn landscapes dotted here and there with dessicated vegetation seem devoid of anything approaching life...and yet life abounds here...extraordinary...diabolical and strange and absolutely magnificent.

I find myself staring at it...and occassionally shaking my head as if to ensure that I am not losing my sense of reason.

It is in every profound sense of the word...unique...and seemingly impossible in the extreme.
It represents...as Antarctica does to my mind...the very harshest edge of the natural world...beautiful...dangerous...obscure...and entirely, utterly without mercy.

This morning...before dawn...we gazed in wonder as the volcano on Fernandina Island awoke from her slumber and spewed fire and molten rock into the darkness.

I am inexorably changed...my perspective powerfully reshaped...here at the edge of everything.

Unreal Galapagos. Wow!

Wish you were here.

roode .kuzo.group

26/02/2024

I boarded a plane that whisked me westward across the endless Atlantic via Sao Paulo and Lima to the Andean hill country of Ecuador.

Quito...the capital...is over 2800m above sea level and is considered the highest constitutional capital on earth.

I have seen Tanagers and Hummingbirds in the hotel gardens here in Puembo.

Why Ecuador? Well...several of our travel family will fly in here to join me in the coming days to stage for an epic expedition.

You see...thousands of kilometers further west...in the vast Pacific, lie a group of islands that have never been a part of a supercontinent...an archipelago born of volcanic activity below the sea...and colonized by the plethora of endemic creatures that call it home in one of only three ways...flying, floating or swimming.

It is an astounding center of endemism...one that Darwin utilized as a corner stone of his expounded theories on the origins of life.

Wednesday we will fly there...board our own private vessel...and explore this unique and otherworldly island chain...one I have dreamed of since I could first pronounce its name.

Galapagos.

It calls me out and I must go...

Wish you were here.

.kuzo.group 🇪🇨

05/02/2024

Our first safari adventure of the season draws inexorably to a close in the wild bushscapes of Madikwe.

And what an adventure it has been!

We aided the Pilanesberg Wildlife Trust with much needed field work on a Rhinoceros as part of their counter poaching initiatives.

We tracked African Wild Dogs and worked alongside the field officers in Madikwe, gaining unique insight into this beleaguered and misunderstood species.

The game viewing has been mesmerizing...charging Black Rhino, a multiplicity of big cats and other apex carnivores and the complete array of iconic Southern African savanna wildlife.

This lone colussus drifted one sublime evening across a distant ridge as the sun haemorrhaged in fiery splendor on the western horizon.

Wish you were here.

.kuzo.group .roode

24/01/2024

A delightful chat with the one and only David Batzofin.

If you have been on a game drive in any of our game reserves, no matter what the relevant Lodge tells you, that is NOT an actual safari experience. Andrew an...