05th
We went to visit the Wild Horizons Elephant Wallow just outside Victoria Falls on the Zimbabwean side. Although generally anti- the idea of keeping wild animals captive and riding them or having them do tricks for the entertainment of people, this project is certainly worth a second look. It’s important to note that there are many people that offer such experiences around the Victoria Falls area and further afield and not all of them are run with similar sensitivity and integrity.
Zenzo is a Zimbabwean who is in charge of this particular project and he speaks well and passionately about its history and the ethos behind it. The core animals that form this herd were orphaned during a culling regime in the early 1990s which at the time, thought that doing away with all the adults and leaving all the youngsters was the way to go. Now we know better, but unfortunately this left a legacy of traumatised and poorly socialised youngsters that went on to become dangerous problem animals. Saving four such individuals from most likely being put-down, the White family took them on and began to instil discipline through training that favoured rewards for good behaviour.
More animals joined the herd as word of the successful rehabilitation of these youngsters spread. Some were rescued having been snared and once their horrific injuries healed, joined the rest of the elephants in training. Now, the animals are stabled on a large conservancy on which they roam for most of the day. During an hour in the morning and in the afternoon, visitors can come and ride the elephants as they go out for a walk and a forage.
As Zenzo says, their ideal is for all these animals to be released but experience has shown that this is not always viable. They have lost their fear of people and the bulls particularly are likely to become crop-raiders and end up being shot. Some have been released into the wild successfully and work continues with that ideal in mind. In the meantime, the cost of their upkeep and continued care is paid for by people who are interested and passionate about their welfare.
Zenzo and the Whites hope that, just as they were one of the first to successfully habituate wild African elephants, they will also be amongst the first to successfully return them to the wild. For now, they have a responsibility to ensure the animals are looked after.
Find out more about The Elephant Camp.
Image courtesy of Wild Horizons
04th
Water has always had an instant renewing effect on me. I can glaze over and go gonzo for hours just watching a river go by. I get transfixed by drops cascading through a waterfall and if I’m feeling uptight, all I need to do is to have a shower to feel like I’ve sloughed off my old skin and come out all shiny and new.
The last two days on the Zambezi Queen have done something similar to my rather dusty safari-psyche. Sitting in the early evening light watching herds of elephant and buffalo glide by gently as this rather special riverboat chugs gently down the channels of the Chobe has to be something of a unique experience. This morning I woke to the lapping of the water only a few feet below the most comfortable bed in the world, and walked onto my private balcony to see a small herd of elephant swimming across the river with only the tops of their backs and heads exposed, trunks held aloft.
Admittedly I think I would get cabin fever if I had to stay on a boat for more than a couple of days – the food is too good and the options for exercise all too limited for my comfort. Fortunately there is plenty to do. I opted to forego a game-drive (maintaining the water theme of my stay) and instead tried my hand at Tiger-fishing this morning and failed to coax even a nibble out of the little beggars.
Yesterday evening I ventured out on a simple but immaculately designed little launch to take in the sights and sounds of the Chobe. It proved to be the perfect vantage point from which to sit and watch a herd of fifty elephant peacefully drinking, oblivious to our presence. A youngster, not yet in control of his limbs, experimented with his trunk with limited success. African skimmers wheeled around us and pied kingfishers dove for small-fry just metres from the boat. The crew surprised us by whipping up an impromptu mini-barbecue of chicken and beef kebabs on the prow of the boat. For the ride back to the “mother ship” I took up residence on the top level of the launch and watched the sunset paint the water pink and purple, and stars come out one by one in the warm African night air.
Find out more about the Zambezi Queen.
27th
I was speaking to the guys from Nomad the other day and they were telling me about an interesting conundrum they’ve had to deal with recently. One of the main attractions around Chada Camp is the elephant who regularly drift through camp hoovering up the seed pods from the various large shady trees that the camp is built under.
These eles are usually polite and well behaved; they’ve been coming here for ever and the presence of the camp is of little interest to them. But recently they’ve been causing problems by tearing the canvas fly sheets of the Chada tents. At first it was assumed this was an accident, although elephant are well known for their dexterity and often happily pick their way between guy ropes with no trouble, so it did seem unlikely.
A tailor was called for who meticulously sewed up the fly sheets. But sure enough, just a day or so later, it happened again. This pattern was repeated several times, until the guilty elephant was caught – “red trunked” – resting his tusks on the taught flysheet at the back of the tent and gently pushing down to rip the canvas. Clearly no accident, so what on earth was he up to?
The guys in camp went over and over this, but there seemed to be only one possible answer; They like doing it. And it seems as though the noise that the ripping canvas makes is just too much to resist (bubble wrap anyone?)… Seems like a reasonable explanation, but that left quite a challenge for the camp crew. There’s only so much sewing up that you can do. So what is the solution?
This is where I think it gets particularly good: the solution they have come up with is to replace the torn sections of the flysheet with strips of canvas held in place with…wait for it…velcro.
Job done, the elephant still gets the very satisfying noise of the tearing velcro and it’s a simple job to patch up when they get bored. I have a feeling this may not be the last installment of this story, but will keep you posted.
17th
“The back end of the lion is in the ladies toilet.” I grew up believing this parental fable, and rather like the tooth-fairy, I was embarrassingly old before I reasoned otherwise. Each time I went into the Ladies toilet at Muthaiga Country Club in the leafy suburbs of Nairobi, I looked for the hind-quarters of the rather mangy, moth-eaten and irregularly stuffed half-beast that occupied a glass case at the end of the long corridor. To be fair, there was always a locked cupboard in around the same place where the animals backside should have been…so it was just possible, but admittedly unlikely.
Along the same vein of wildlife toilet humour, a guide recounted an incident in the Ngorogoro Crater many years ago where a lady guest had been bursting to relieve herself throughout the morning’s game drive but refused to visit a bush. He stopped at the Park toilets on the floor of the crater and the lady hastily disembarked and dashed in. Within seconds, she reversed with equal pace and executed a spectacular re-mount of the land-cruiser through an open window. Sauntering after her was a large lioness who had been posing on her hind legs with her front paws on the sinks admiring her reflection in the mirror. Possibly the bush would have been the better option?
Sometimes one’s position on a bush toilet is the best place you can be in a certain situation. Guests safely dispatched on an afternoon game-drive in Botswana’s Linyanti wildlife area, another guide took his book to relax on the “throne” of the mobile tented camp. This consisted of a wooden box over a shallow hole, crowned with a toilet seat and screened from the camp by foliage alone. Absorbed in the plot, it was the unexplained raising of hairs along the nape of his neck that made him look up. Twenty metres away was a lioness with her belly to the floor, creeping intently toward him with her head low and shoulder blades riding high on her back. Instinct alone made my friend leap to his feet and, throwing his book high into the air, waddle aggressively towards the stalking lioness shouting “Shoo! Shoo! Get lost…go on!” which she promptly did, fortunately. Knees shaking with relief, the guide returned to camp like a high-speed penquin, still with shorts firmly around ankles, much to the amusement of the camp staff.
30th
The Makgadikgadi is inextricably linked to Jack Bousfield, in whose memory the famous Jack’s Camp is named. Admittedly one of the more barking characters that you could hope to meet, Jack arrived in this part of the world during the more wild and woolly part of the nineteen hundreds when it was actually a necessity to be one sandwich short of a picnic to make it in Africa. His resumé includes a mention in the Guinness Book of Records for killing 53,000 crocodiles, surviving seven plane crashes and being gored by at least one elephant. An extreme kind of person well suited to an extreme place.
The Makgadikgadi Pan is about as far removed from your stereotypical safari experience as you can get. Viewed from the lofty vantage point provided by Google Earth, the pan appears as a white smudge to the southeast of the rich greens and blues of the Okavango Delta. On the ground, the glaring flatness stretches to the horizon and it is possible to see the curvature of the earth. Around the edges of this once great lake, the vegetation struggles to regain its tenancy – coarse grass, stands of palm and rugged bush.
As you can imagine, there is a certain knack to survival in the middle of this hostile environment but this doesn’t mean that there is nothing to see. In fact, the tougher the environment…the more interesting the beasties and this gives the Makgadikgadi a special story-book quality; rather like stepping through the looking-glass. Of a morning you might be foraging with a family of meerkats or tracking the strange brown hyena on foot alongside the intuitive San bushmen, sinuous and clad in little more than a small leather kilt and ostrich egg beads. Areas of the pan host colonies of vivid pink flamingos. Scattered fossil sites and ancient human habitation allude to the indelible history of this place.
You should come to the Makgadikgadi with an open mind and be prepared to be surprised on a daily basis. There’s very little in this world that could compete with unrolling a bedroll amid towering baobabs on the lunar rock kopjes that mushroom from the pan, or the sense of freedom imparted by riding a quad-bike hell-for-leather across the vast emptiness. It’s just one of those things that you are unlikely to forget in a hurry.
The camps here are also far from ordinary. Jack’s is famous for its museum-like collection of weird and wonderful objects. San Camp’s stylish simplicity lends itself to its lovely location without detracting one iota from the natural beauty. For a more laid-back experience, Meno a Kwena lies between the Delta and Makgadikgadi.
For safari ideas from Natural High that include Makgadikgadi, click here.
Search for camps and lodges in the Makgadikgadi and Kalahari.
Find out more about the Kalahari, when to visit and other useful articles.
Image courtesy of San Camp
23rd
The Lower Zambezi harks back to a more romantic time when dashing rugged hunter-types tangled alternately with bad-tempered savage beasts and pouty heroines who somehow remained crease-free throughout their dusty ordeals. The flight in a wee plane over the creased escarpment to land on a dirt strip all seems rather “Out of Africa”. Straight away you are in big game country (the planes have to sometimes go around again while elephants traverse the airstrip), and being borne along in an open safari landrover by a khaki-clad professional guide garnishes the experience.
The camps in this area cut a dashing wild style; Sausage Tree’s high canopied white tented roofs, Chongwe’s unique Albida and Cassia suites where you can hear hippos while you do your own wallowing in roll-top baths. You may find yourself indulging in the ultimate liquid lunch aboard an intimate launch, cruising peacefully down the river with birds and animals aplenty laid on for your entertainment. Game-drives are interspersed with scenic interludes under palm trees where coffee is served on a crisp cloth on the bonnet. You may find yourself enjoying a sunset, glass of wine in hand with your feet cooling in the mighty Zambezi. It is all very Clark Gable and Ava Gardner…and what a pleasure.
It is impossible to separate the guilty pleasures from the adventure here; walks, river cruises, game-drives and canoe trips offer up a rich game experience. In fact, this is one place where you really feel as though you are a visitor in wildlife country. For example, in Chiawa you may find that an elephant sees fit to wander into camp during lunch, while hyena and lion call around the camps through the night. In Kulefu, the dawn-chorus is so overwhelming in its variety and volume that it renders that lie-in impossible.
If you like the idea of a safari in style, click here for some ideas from Natural High.
09th
Sliding over the calm, clear shallows of the Okavango Delta with the regular sound of the pole gently splashing and propelling you smoothly forward, the calls of fish eagle, kingfishers and bee-eaters, the warm sun lighting up the reeds and jackal-berry trees, and the deep blue sky overhead… It’s hard to choose words that don’t make this sound like syrupy marketing spin but there’s no avoiding the fact that that travelling through the Okavango in a mokoro is really quite idyllic.
Mokoros are long, sturdy canoes traditionally hewn from hardwood trees such as ebony and bleached a pale grey by the sun and water over time. The “River Bushmen”, amongst other tribes, still use the canoes for transport and fishing. However, with the influx of tourism into the Delta, some of these seasoned fishermen have turned their skills to guiding and what better way to undertake this unique experience than in the capable hands of a local?
The core of the Delta remains water-logged all year round, but the seasonal inundation fills out a vast swathe of channels and lagoons between March and June, swelling the Delta to more than three times its permanent size. The water that rises in Angola gradually creeps down hippo “highways”, creating seasonal islands and enriching reed-beds. Annual migrations bring an influx of elephant, buffalo and antelope into the area along with hundreds of birds as the Kalahari loses its green mantle to winter. For this reason, the period between July and the end of October is the best time of year to visit the Delta for the quantity and variety of wildlife.
Travelling by mokoro allows you access to areas otherwise impossible by motorboat or vehicle and the quiet is very much part of the appeal. It allows you to enjoy the sounds as much as the sights and gives you the opportunity to cruise quietly up to animals without disturbing them with noisy engines. It goes without saying that the view of an elephant is quite different from a few feet off the surface of the water and many animals are surprisingly relaxed in the presence of water-borne humans.
Many camps and lodges in the perennial Delta offer mokoro trips as part of the day’s activities while other camps which benefit from seasonal flood-waters will do so if the water is high enough, so you do need to choose your area carefully depending on the time of year. For those that wish to experience full immersion (not literally) in the Delta, there are safaris solely dedicated to exploring on foot or by mokoro in the old ways of the local people.
Look at ideas for safaris in the Okavango.
What are the main areas to visit in Botswana?
When’s the best time to visit Botswana?
I want to see birds in Botswana!
05th
It’s an uncomfortable feeling when a lion looks right into your eyes. I felt like one of those cartoon roast chickens that appears in a thought-bubble over Sylvester’s head when he looks at Tweety Bird. The lioness had unusually pale eyes, the colour of a lemon, which made her stare even more disconcerting. Add to this the fact that she lay no further than five metres from the car, and you’ll appreciate my need to squirm sideways, a little closer to my guide. And then I registered that I was sitting in “suicide seat” (the front passenger seat), and I didn’t have a door.
During this trip in Zambia, I’ve been incredibly lucky with big game sightings; five beautiful leopard in ten days, several prides of lion with cubs, lots of elephant doing interesting stuff, buffalo, giraffe, hyena and masses of stately impala and cute puku to name but a few. Among the high points was this time spent sitting quietly and watching a pride of twelve lion on a recent buffalo kill.
Incidentally, what an interesting reflection it is on our species that some of the highlights of a safari include one animal being ruthlessly hunted and killed in full, live, 3D, gory reality by another animal. Take the migration for instance; everyone hopes to see the spectacle of several thousand wildebeest crossing the Mara River under the hungry gaze of some enormous crocodiles (and many will secretly want to see what happens when one or two come to grief). Similarly, the vivid scene of a pride of lion bringing down an adult buffalo will be recounted with excitement around the camp-fire later in the day.
I watched with morbid fascination as these lion gorged themselves, ripping at the carcass, gnawing the bones and when just too stuffed to eat another morsel, almost lovingly licking the fur. The sights and sounds were graphic and I was assailed by an olfactory cocktail of buffalo innards, feline musk and ferrous blood. Every now and then, a junior of the pride would get a swatting from a big male for insubordination and a great racket of growling and snarling would erupt.
I mentally calculated the distance between this raw, wild scene and my bare legs, clearly visible in the open vehicle and figured that if I looked as tasty as the buffalo, I’d be tickets in a matter of seconds. Fortunately I am apparently not as attractive as a dead buffalo (at least not at that particular moment in any case) and have lived to tell the tale.
25th
Sometimes you have those dinner guests that seem to have the manners of an animal, need a great deal of elbow room and possess the appetite of an elephant. And sometimes that dinner guest actually is an elephant. The latter is true of today’s lunch at Chiawa Camp in the Lower Zambezi National Park.
“Shorty”, as he is affectionately known, is among a number of local eles that makes it clear that elephants have right of way and that humans occupy this shady ebony grove as tolerated guests. It’s clear who the landlord is. Shorty’s particular brand of topiary doesn’t make for elaborate landscaping and there is a line item in the camp’s accounts for “Elephant Damage”.
Whilst finishing off our lunch, we watched as his gentle progress around the camp’s foliage took him within half a foot of the main lounge. We took in the details of his lengthy eye-lashes, rough creased knees, and endlessly mobile trunk without the aid of binoculars. I was astonished to see him place a foot on the ground, feel a spiky twig with the very sensitive sole and gently reach under the foot to move it away with his trunk before putting his full weight on the foot. To be not five metres away from an animal that is so relaxed but still so wild is a real and unusual treat.
Chiawa enjoys the regular patronage of a number of elephant, hippo, birds and other animals. There is frequently an elephant on the footpath to the guest tents, where a favourite rubbing post gets a great deal of attention. Fortunately there is always someone around to deliver you safely home.
21st
I’ve lengthily extolled the virtues of taking to the bush on foot but today I discovered a new pleasure; cruising the banks of a river by canoe. Part way through a long safari and at the end of a tiring day of travelling, I was feeling a little fraught and probably slightly ambivalent about venturing out within an hour of arriving at a new place…my beautiful tented room at the Chongwe River Camp and its quite extraordinary view was calling.
The Chongwe River is a tributary of the mighty Zambezi at the point where the Zambezi National Park borders the Chongwe GMA (Game Management Area). Winding gently down from the ripples of the escarpment, the Chongwe is a pretty cool little spot. At this time of day it is particularly attractive as the light softens and the river takes on the colours of the trees and sky. It’s hard not to concede to such an all-encompassing peace and quiet.
Fortunately I didn’t have the opportunity to nod off (which may have led to a disappointing capsize and a humiliating return to camp). There was no shortage of things to see on our gentle late afternoon paddle. We floated past steep sandy banks in which white-fronted and carmine bee-eaters throng by the thousands to make their nests at different times of the year. A small breeding herd of elephant ventured down within fifty metres or so, with a tiny calf no more than a couple of months old. The assorted nostrils, eyes and ears of a pod of hippo watched our progress with interest but didn’t seem inclined to dispossess us of our transport, likewise the couple of crocs and a terrapin.
As the sun dipped below the escarpment, a giant eagle owl called from a large tree and we witnessed the aerial displays of a number of different species of kingfisher and a multitude of other water birds. A fish eagle even gave us a private fly-by. Troops of vervet monkeys and baboons watched us watching them.
I think that canoeing makes a great change from being bounced around in a vehicle with the noise of the engine and the dust which can get to even the most seasoned safari veteran after a while. The quiet, the quality of light on the water at that time of day and just the gentle sounds of nature make you naturally want to switch to a lower gear, cease the chatter and just absorb the world around with heightened senses. Click here for a little video…and pay attention to the sounds!
Incidentally, as I write this now, I am sitting in my room in Chongwe listening to a veritable cacophony of sound; lions roaring not far away, a hippo grazing about five metres from my room (I can see him by torchlight), an entire pack of hyena whooping over the river in Zimbabwe and all the other unidentified sounds of the African night….not sure there’s much sleep on the cards tonight!
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