CNH Tours takes pride in the fact that Galapagos "is our only destination".   We focus only on Galapagos simply because it's a place we know very well, first hand and where we maintain close ties (last month, I had one-on-one meetings with the governor of Galapagos, the National Park director, his chief of tourism, the Darwin Foundation director, many guides and ship owners...).  

But...

Over the years, we have had many inquiries from very happy guests asking what else we could offer them.   Always, we've said "nothing - sorry!"  We've given this some thought and, thanks to a bit of serendipity, we've decided to develop a custom designed trip to Botswana's Okavango Delta and surrounding areas.  

Why?

Because while we were living in Nairobi in 2014/2015, we met Karen Ross, a wildlife biologist with a long experience in Kenya and Botswana.  It turned out that Karen would be the CNH Tours avatar for the Okavango.  

Karen knows the Okavango like we know Galapagos.   Thanks to her lifelong work and professionalism (she wrote the award winning TV series and companion book Okavango, Jewel of the Kalahari and subsequently spent thirteen years working for Conservation International – founding and directing its Okavango Programme), it was to her that the government of Botswana turned to lead the development of the UNESCO World Heritage Site nomination project.  Over the course of 5 years, Karen traveled throughout the region, met up with a very wide range of stakeholders, from government ministers to local communities, to the tourism sector, in order to pull together all the elements required in a formal submission for World Heritage status.  She was successful - the Okavango was inscribed onto UNESCO's World Heritage list in 2014.  While Galapagos was the first WH site, Okavango was the 1,000th (great bookends!). 

It is not unreasonable to conclude that few people know the Okavango as well as Karen Ross does.  

We asked her to pull together the "ideal" itinerary for a 14 day trip to the region and to suggest the ideal time of year to go.  She recently completed this task with the help of a local travel expert.   It turns out that late April, early May is her recommendation - just after the rains end and before the heat starts.

We are also very fortunate in that Karen is available to be the tour leader for this trip.   We expect the price (we are still working on details) to come at about $8,500 per person, from Cape Town, South Africa.

We'll be posting more news shortly, sending a note out to our Galapagos alumni.  If you want to be our our "first to contact list" when we are ready to take bookings, you can send me an email:  mpatry@cnhtours.com 

 

Karen Ross - CNH Tours avatar in the Okavango Delta, Botswana