NBC arrived at the beginning of the month and took over Mombo Camp Okavango Delta Botswana , turning Mombo into something resembling the NASA control centre. The generators ran 24 hours a day; wires and cables were laid all over the camp, and telephone linkups were established via satellite.
It was an eerie sensation hearing the ringing of telephones. A bonus, however, was been allowed to call family and friends from the camp. The whole aim of the nine day preparation was a 3 hour live broadcast to the USA as part of NBC's "Where in the World is Matt Lauer" morning show. The rain kept away for the full nine days of the preparation, but as Mombo, or Murphy, would have it the heavens opened during the live broadcast. This did not cause any major problems however and the show went off smoothly.
Numerous guests were present, including Mr. Louis Nchingo of Debswana and an entourage of policeman who were there to make sure the almost US$1million worth of diamonds were safe. The show ended at 5pm where upon the crew had to pack everything up in time for the arrival of the first guests at 12pm the following day.
We were all amazed at the speed at which the packing happened. The new guests would not have known anything had taken place was it not for the fact that they were informed that Matt Lauer had been and gone. It was very obvious from most USA visitors' reactions that the NBC morning show is huge in America.
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Vacationtechnician personalized luxury adventure travel transports you to the most exquisite wilderness and chill out retreats on Earth. Conserving rare biodiversity through low volume tourism; our aim is your indulgence -at no one's expense. Plan now to be assured a rejuvenating escape at a restful pace -to an unspoiled gem in the purest sense.
" best guides = best safaris ~ a bad guide in the best camp will ruin your safari."
Mark Tennant
Mark has been a guide in Botswana and helped to developed our guide training and wildlife experience for the first 5 years.
His passion for birds and the African wilderness developed while he worked for the Vulture Study Group in the early 1980's. In 1991 he decided to move permanently into the bush where he worked at Phinda in Northern Zululand. As part of the team he was involved in staff training and worked developing the guest experience there.
Mark is a professional photographer and his work has earned him a number of international photographic awards. Coupled with his intimate knowledge of animal behaviour, he is regularly called upon by international film crews to assist in the production of wildlife documentaries. He has been the subject of a TV series as well.
Besides wildlife, photography and birds, Mark is a knowledgeable about frogs and butterflies. These interests and background makes him a highly informative and entertaining guide.
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Vacationtechnician personalized luxury adventure travel transports you to the most exquisite wilderness and chill out retreats on Earth. Conserving rare biodiversity through low volume tourism; our aim is your indulgence -at no one's expense. Plan now to be assured a rejuvenating escape at a restful pace -to an unspoiled gem in the purest sense.
Botswana's Best Birding with Ken Newman
" best guides = best safaris ~ a bad guide in the best camp will ruin your safari."
This 5-night safari to the Okavango Delta Botswanaat a time of the year when all the intra-African and European migrants are in residence and breeding is at its peak. We travel with Ken Newman, one of the region's foremost bird painters and authors. We travel to two Okavango camps offering contrasting habitats and birding experiences within the Okavango Delta.
Most of the region's rarities and endemics should be seen - from Pel's Fishing Owl to the diminutive Brown Firefinch. Within the waterways, savannahs and lagoons, countless herons, ducks, jacanas, eagles, vultures, ibis, storks, plovers and all the 'LBJ's should be found. Some of the rare species include Slaty Egrets, Wattled Cranes, Coppery-tailed Coucals, Black Coucals, Thick-Billed Cuckoo, Chirping Cisticola and Lesser Jacana.
Recommended time of year to travel - early to mid November.
About Ken Newman
Ken was born in England at an early age and stayed there for another 24 years. He scraped through school mainly through good marks for his early artwork and writing abilities, his main interests outside of school being: birds eggs, butterflies and similar creepy crawlies. Adolf Hitler interrupted his wildlife studies so Ken contributed to the dictator's downfall by teaching aeroplane recognition to carefree aircraft gunners, at the time not appreciating the value of this fully-paid-for bird identification training.
Post war Britain saw Ken in the art department of a London advertising agency that he enjoyed for four years, but eventually began to feel the need for more space and opportunity.
He arrived in South Africa in 1948 with a pioneering spirit and soon had one foot on the ladder to progress drawing soap bubbles for Lever Brothers in Durban. That bubble soon burst with the monotony of the situation and Ken moved to Johannesburg in 1950 where his graphic art career continued in between breakaway safaris until 1968 when birds took over his life.
Ken's introduction to bush life was an early trip to the Kruger National Park where he discovered that no one had much interest in, or knowledge of South Africa's birds. He was to learn that Ground Hornbills were Turkey Buzzards, Lilac-breasted Rollers were Blue Jays and that Grey Herons were Blue Cranes.
In 1955, having married his late wife Elisabeth (also an artist), they set off on a seven month round Africa safari, just camping and seeking wildlife. Two years later they did it again, this time taking pictures, especially of birds, for photojournalism.
Ken decided there was a real need for a beginner's guide to the birds of South Africa, and so he started on Garden Birds of South Africa. Faced with the problem of illustrations he decided to try painting. His first picture, a portrait of a Bateleur, was shown with pride to Elisabeth with the question "Do you think I could paint birds?" Her answer, short and to the point, was "No! Not a damn!" So he started.
GARDEN BIRDS OF SOUTH AFRICA was launched in 1967 and stayed on the bookshop shelves for another 30 years. Others followed in quick succession. Ken's paintings and books sell both locally and overseas, and he is much involved in matters ornithological.
Ken has been with Wilderness Safaris/vacationtechnician as a specialist guide, on a casual basis, since the company's early days. His prime interest is in the birds of southern Africa, an interest shared by his wife Ursula and their three children.
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Vacationtechnician personalized luxury adventure travel transports you to the most exquisite wilderness and chill out retreats on Earth. Conserving rare biodiversity through low volume tourism; our aim is your indulgence -at no one's expense. Plan now to be assured a rejuvenating escape at a restful pace -to an unspoiled gem in the purest sense.
The distances between camps were so great we had to cover them in what is called a 'light aircraft', but which is more like a biscuit tin with a propeller.
Those with a fear of flying should not attempt this trip.
After an hour of bumping around, a thousand feet above the Botswana scrubvelt, our lawn mower with wings was angled at 45 degrees to scare the elephants off the dirt airstrip before we circled again at a stomach-churning angle into a buffeting descent against the rising midday hot air currents. Finally, we crunched down into Kwando in the Chobe conservation area.
My son had been sick into a leaky paper bag, his friend was shaking his head saying: 'Never again, I will never go in a small plane ever again in my life.' (We only had five more booked on our itinerary.) My travelling companion, the only other adult apart from the pilot - an Aussie woman with attitude - was sitting sobbing, head between legs.
My hands were trembling and sweating, and although it had taken us nearly three days' flying to get here via Johannesburg, Victoria Falls and Kasane, I fully intended to reschedule our entire holiday and get us all out by any route possible rather than go up in one of those things again, even if it meant a 10-week trek across the desert with oxen.
We unloaded ourselves and got into an open-top Jeep to bounce off past termite mounds, vultures, and about 150 curious elephants. Antelope and giraffe darted out of the way as we careered through dust tracks at speed to avoid sinking into the sand. It was bloody hot. This was not Disney, this was real and it was difficult not to feel that we had entered a dream.
In fact, what we were seeing was so strange and so wondrous that within three minutes my son was saying, 'This is the best holiday of my life, ever', his friend was saying, 'I hope we never leave here', and my adult companion, having made an apparently instant recovery, was insisting we set off immediately on the night drive to see if we could find the hyenas which were evidently gnawing over a recent cheetah kill somewhere off to our left through a thorny thicket.
To get anywhere this good, this interesting, this mind-blowing, maybe you have to suffer a bit. If it were easy to get to, it wouldn't be the thousands of square miles of unspoilt wilderness choking with wildlife and natural history that it is.
In your average safari park they take you down well-trodden routes to the game, which might be a few scrawny lions which have already appeared in a thousand home videos and know which is their best profile.
Botswana is the last true wilderness of Africa, and apart from the Okavango Delta, it's mostly flat and dry. We divided our trip between Chobe, which is a savannah full of bushes, trees and more wildlife than a David Attenborough documentary, and the Makgadikgadi Pans (pronounced ma-caddy-caddy), a desert made of salt where the horizon is so wide you can see the Earth's curve.
Our accommodation was large, old-style khaki tents with bucket showers and hanging canvas wash baskets. By day it was ridiculously hot and at night it was Dartmoor cold. The dusty wind let up for about an hour a day.
Apart from the food, which was really good at both camps, we were away from our usual comforts and soon realized that this was going to be a trip which would register highly on the strength-of-character scale.
In Botswana, as our guide explained, you are in a wilderness and you go out in the early morning and after sundown with a high-powered torch to see what you can find.
As it happened, during our three days at Kwando we were outrageously lucky and saw just about everything that Nature could chuck at us: basking hippos, a herd of shy zebra, every kind of antelope, two cheetah dragging their full bellies to the shade, a leopard running off with a dead baboon in its mouth being chased out of the area by 50 or so live ones, hyenas, jackals, wildebeest, buffalo, wart hogs and enough species of exotic bird to make an ornithologist twitch.
There was also an untapped stream of information from our guide about the way Nature works in the bush; how the acacia tree has evolved in tandem with the giraffe; why the leadwood tree stays standing for 50 years after it has died. The school field trip will never be the same for the children.
There were two guides on the Jeep, one driving and telling us about the landscape, the other, a lookout with awesome eyesight, sat on a small seat on the bonnet. (Kwando Only)
Occasionally, Lets, our lookout (tracker), would leave his perch and come and sit in the back seats with us.
This was when we were approaching the more dangerous animals, and was presumably to avoid him looking like the angry horns of the large Toyota beast.
We quickly learned to listen very carefully to Mr Fish, our guide at Kwando, not just because his knowledge was encyclopaedic, but also in order to avoid being speared, eaten or nibbled at by Nature.
'Don't turn your back on a lion, it will see you as prey' is more than an interesting or academic titbit when you are 15ft away from a mother lion whose cubs are gambolling towards you, and she is making a noise like a giant motorcycle turning over at four times less than its maximum potential.
By the end of the first day we were hanging on his every word. The boys were captivated; here was a real life Ace Ventura.
There were dents and a tusk-sized hole in the side of the Jeep where an elephant had recently skewered it when another guide had mistakenly thought he was showing his guests an example of a 'mock charge'.
We soon realized we were completely dependent on Mr Fish in this hostile terrain.
At night, we were relieved that he escorted us to our tent with his torch, because there was a hippo sniffing around it, and the main thing with a hippo, as Mr Fish explained, is not to get between it and the water because it will try to get back there when alarmed, destroying anything which gets in its way, including you.
Having seen the size of a hippo's open jaw that morning as its skull lay glinting in the sun being picked over by vultures, we were more than happy to let Mr Fish stamp on the ground and make funny noises at our night visitor until it had pottered off into the dark.
Possibly, what makes Botswana so special is that it is a relatively late starter in the safari business. It achieved independence in the mid-Sixties under Sir Seretse Khama, who established a multiparty democracy there, and he ensured that nearly 20 per cent of the land is protected.
In terms of conservation, Botswana is a world leader, something which became apparent at our second stop, Jack's Camp, on the edge of the largest salt pan desert in Africa. Our hardiness must have been improving because we managed the second light aircraft flight with a little more dignity, and were beginning to feel almost rugged.
The Makgadikgadi Pans is a place where geology, anthropology and a string of other ologies meet. As the water disappeared from what was, millions of years ago, a giant inland lake, all that was left was this vast area of dry, salty, white mud.
We drove out on to it on light quad bikes to avoid sinking, and encouraged by Indiana Jo, our macheteed guide - an even more heroic figure to the boys walked off to see what we could find. Within a quarter of an hour we had collected maybe 20 or 30 genuine Stone Age hand tools which had been lying around there for the past 200,000 years or so.
After re-scattering them, Jo gave us a brief, child-friendly talk about the shifting of tectonic plates and the difference between early and middle Stone Age man, before serving up gin and tonic (tonic contains quinine, an anti-malarial agent, and the boys didn't miss the gin).
When we watched the sun not so much set as fall behind the curve of the Earth, there being nothing but flat salt pan in every direction. I've never seen such a horizon, even at sea. Nor have I seen a canopy of stars so vast.
Three days later, there was salty dust in every crease and pore of our skins and thorn scratches on every available area of leg, having been out walking with bushmen who showed us how they lay traps for black korhaan birds, dig for porcupines and wrestle water out of the ground.
After a morning spent sitting around the massive baobab tree dedicated to the 19th-Century explorer Chapman listening to Indiana Jo tell us the story of Livingstone and explain to us the history of the carvings on the tree, we felt we were leathery travellers, and could handle anything that the Great Outdoors could spring on us.
One of the boys said that this wasn't a holiday, it was a test of how brave you are. And by then we felt we were pretty brave.
In the visitors book at Jack's Camp we left the comment that the children, who are both under 10, had come out to Africa as boys, but were leaving it as men. When the going gets tough, the tough get on another light aircraft and fly back to Johannesburg with battered clothes, crusty, faithful boots and a faraway look in their eyes.
By the end of our trip, we'd been charged by 30 elephants, growled at by lions, shaken our shoes every morning for scorpions, and put ourselves through every precaution against malaria known to person kind (apart from Lariam, the one with the side-effects).
But nothing could compare with the test of endurance visited on us by Sabena.
On the return flight, our new-found nerves of steel began to erode during the five-hour wait on board the plane at Johannesburg prior to it being cancelled. We were dumped without a hotel room in the Jo'burg suburbs, with no one from Sabena to be seen.
This bunch of explorers had turned into a fractious mob arguing about Game Boy scores.
After 30 sleepless hours, we managed to transfer our return tickets to SAA and finally got home, minds expanded, to the laundry, the mail, the answerphone, and the leaking boiler.
We had been through the experience of a lifetime, out in a wilderness the size of France with the Kalahari dust still in our eyes, and fantastical images of leopards, cheetah, lions, giraffes, baboons and the freshly killed carcass of a zebra still vivid in our minds.
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Vacationtechnician personalized luxury adventure travel transports you to the most exquisite wilderness and chill out retreats on Earth. Conserving rare biodiversity through low volume tourism; our aim is your indulgence -at no one's expense. Plan now to be assured a rejuvenating escape at a restful pace -to an unspoiled gem in the purest sense.
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Vacationtechnician personalized luxury adventure travel transports you to the most exquisite wilderness and chill out retreats on Earth. Conserving rare biodiversity through low volume tourism; our aim is your indulgence -at no one's expense. Plan now to be assured a rejuvenating escape at a restful pace -to an unspoiled gem in the purest sense.
Ngala South Africa
On the animal front, the head high grass has been making game viewing a little trying at times. It has also made things a little harder for the usually highly efficient wild dogs. The 18 strong pack has been missing terrified impala fairly regularly as most of the time they cannot see what they are chasing. In some areas they have resorted to trotting along as if on pogo sticks, their heads peeping up out of the grass periodically as they scan the surrounds for potential quarry. No doubt the impala are most grateful for the thick sward.
There seem to be a plethora of male leopards around at the moment. Two testosterone charged males were seen the other day in quite close proximity with scratches and other assorted wounds baring testimony to a territorial battle. These young males are trying to assert themselves as they attain adulthood.
Other highlights of the week have included, three 300-strong herds of buffalo doing their best to control the grass explosion in the south of the reserve; wave upon wave of red billed queleas surging across the skies; a juvenile great spotted cuckoo being fed by a flock of Burchell's starlings(the young cuckoo was already bigger than his hosts).
Spectator?
A recent morning drive had not been as successful as a guide would like to offer to one�s guests. Pleasant enough sightings of zebra, giraffe, wildebeest and impala had ensured that the early start had not been a complete waste of time.
En route home, we stopped to watch a mature male giraffe browsing on an Acacia nigrescens some 7-odd metres off the road. Assuming he would turn his not-altogether-unattractive rear end on us & go lumbering off through the thicket, we were surprised when he turned instead to face us, his gentle eyes looking from one member of the vehicle to the next. More surprisingly, he took first one step & then two & then proceeded until he was within a metre & a half from the Land Rover of amazed onlookers.
The only sound was the swishing of his fly-swatter tail as each guest, ranger & tracker absorbed the tranquillity of the moment � locked in his gentle stare. The awed silence persisted as he slowly ambled past us to the road & made a graceful exit from the centre stage.
I have often wondered whether it is in fact more truthful to assume that the animals are viewing us rather than us viewing them ... Now we know.
Nosy Neighbour
I�m ashamed to admit that my new neighbour has become aware of my insatiable desire to monitor her every move. I rush home every morning to watch her scuttling to and fro. An intensely house-proud single mother, I see her leave, only to watch her return, delighted with the quarry she has procured.
�She� is a species of Thread-Waisted Wasp and her home is a small hole at the bottom of my front step. I am alerted to her arrival by her incessant humming as she goes about her chores � flying off determinedly, only to return a short while later bearing a fat green caterpillar carried in her fore-legs. The caterpillar, now paralysed, is laid to one side whilst she busies herself, digging through the surface sand until she locates the well-concealed entrance holed-up by a small stone, which she easily removes. A quick visit to the �kids�, she nips inside before conducting yet another spring-clean and, finally, enters the hole backwards, dragging the debilitated caterpillar with her.
When the �kids� hatch from the eggs she has neatly laid inside the tunnel, they will spend the first few days of their short lives feeding on this caterpillar and perhaps a few others before digging their way to the surface and assuming their own allotted place in the greater scheme of things.
As she carefully replaces the stone, checking it obsessively before covering it with a thin layer of sand, I can�t help but marvel at the whole process. Not so marvel-ous if you�re a caterpillar though ...
Quelea mayhem
The noise is completely deafening. It is most impressive in the early morning as the birds wake and continue the business of building their nests in preparation for breeding. Tens of thousands of red billed queleas rouse and start chirruping at each other from the knobthorn thicket the colony has chosen to produce the next generation. The little birds have chosen this spot for the safety of the trees and also the six foot sward of thickly seeded grass that has sprung up on the gabbro derived soils. Clouds of birds swish with incredible collective synchrony as though they have rehearsed every move a hundred times. From inflorescence to heavy seed filled inflorescence they swoosh. Culms bend and sway under the weight of the little birds as they pluck protein the rich seeds, nattering excitedly to each other.
The colony has attracted the inevitable bevy of raptors. Tawny eagles seem to be the most abundant predator. They sit not really knowing where to start as great squadrons of queleas shoot by. Whalberg�s eagles look equally as gleeful and confused. A rarely seen lanner falcon, far more used to grabbing fast moving prey, has also been spotted swooping in and plucking the odd straggler from the melee. A now fat resident gabar goshawk has also made the most of the good times. We continue to watch with interest.
The coming of life
The long awaited rains have come in surplus at Ngala and have transformed it into a lush green paradise with running rivers and streams, marshy vleis and scattered pans.
As well as the vegetation growth and insect explosion the frog and toad populations have boomed in this amphibian paradise turning the nights into an orchestral masterpiece. The terrapins and tortoises are out of aestivation and are as common on roadsides as pedestrians on a London side walk. Met with mixed reactions, there have been some impressive snakes seen including two huge Egyptian cobras, big black mambas, an almost resident African rock python at Clara dam, boomslangs and more. Above all the increased birdlife has been the most interesting and surprising with sightings of birds seldom or never seen here including many black storks, African jacanas, little grebes, African spoonbills, a malachite kingfisher, painted snipes, African and Corn crakes, dozens of white winged widows and hundreds of harlequin quails.
Ngala Trackers and Rangers
Great sightings despite (or because of?) rain
The rain, mist and sleet have not been entirely unproductive. The wild dogs have been sighted daily for the last week and a half such that guests no longer believe us when we tell them how lucky they are to see these extremely endangered hounds.
A cheetah was watched in awe, tearing after a terrified impala. Unfortunately the speedy cat narrowly missed probably because impala ducked into a fog patch. The rain has caused an explosion of grass growth. This, combined with the damp conditions, has brought a number of seldom seen birds. White winged widows (one record prior to this year), harlequin quails, fan-tailed cisticolas and kurrichane buttonquails have abounded in the long wet grasslands. Two sightings of painted snipe have also delighted birding guests peering out from under their ponchos. We have even had our first record of a corn crake!
Until next time we will be trying not to drown as the Timbavati moves into day 21 of uninterrupted flow.
Canine Chaos
We rounded the corner 100 metres from camp to find their patchy tan-white-and-black forms lightly trotting away from us. �Wild Dogs!� The eyes of the guests, who knew about the second-most endangered carnivore in Africa, lit up.
We followed them at their easy gait, watched them enter the Mopane woodland, and then circled around ahead to wait for them to emerge onto a large clearing. Our hearts stopped as we saw a large herd of impalas on the clearings feeding alongside a troop of baboons. All eyes were fixed on the edge of the thick Mopane woodland. The treeline exploded as the 15 Wild Dogs raced into the clearings. Impalas snorted and kicked their heels as they zig-zagged away from the danger; baboons barked and hurtled in a beeline for the safety of the Mopane trees. Unusually, the pack of hunters seemed overwhelmed and tried to chase all in sight - their lack of focus proved to be their downfall, as they regrouped in the clearing empty-handed. Slowly, we started breathing again...
Timbavati Flood
The Timbavati River is dry for most of the year. It is a wide river stretching over 60m in some areas. The recent deluge in the lowveld has transformed the Timbavati and its tributaries. The river came down in flood two weeks ago. It flowed 1.5 metres deep bank to bank making it utterly unfordable. Its smaller tributaries also broke their banks in some areas and filled the waterholes to over flowing. And so from a landscape of dust and desolation, devoid of grazing and water, Ngala has turned into a lush green swathe dotted with pans and wallows. The grass is almost too tall to look over. It has sent up inflorescences on long culms to pick up and send pollen off on the wind. Unusual birds for Ngala have been spotted (white winged windows and harlequin quails) and the herds of buffalo have dispersed to smaller groups to take full advantage of the abundant grazing and water. We eagerly await more as the clouds build.
Battle of the Wahlberg's
Heading home after game drive at night can be a fairly quiet affair. Not so on this particular evening! The spotlight caught the flurry of movement as a large shape launched itself from the branches of a Combretum in the East & landed in a heap on the other side of the road.
The shape was in fact two Wahlbergs� Eagles locked in battle � their talons clenched, tumbling around the ground: biting, scratching - neither of them prepared to capitulate. The sounds of their shrieking cut through the night air & gave the effect of a wild, angry banshee. Coupled with their thrashing about in the underbrush, the eerie sounds were their only give-away as we sat speechless in the dark and cold night air.
The next morning, the only evidence of the great battle was the tell-tale scuff-marks in the sand, littered by an occasional feather ...
Ngala's Gold Medal Winner
Just a few minutes into our morning safari a female cheetah was spotted just ahead of us. We hadn�t even seen her yet when we noticed a heard of impala feeding very close by. Seconds later, we saw her. She was trotting straight at the impala, her face blank and her eyes bright in total concentration just like an olympic sprinter poised in the starting blocks.
At that moment, I felt like the sprinter. With everybody hushed and holding my breath all I could here was the blood pumping through my eardrums as my heart rate shot through the roof. The start gun in this case was the ear piercing blast of an impala alarm call. I still close my eyes and see the rest in slow motion. The impala took off in every direction, one straight towards us followed by the sprinting predator now turned Ducati superbike leaning over like Valantino Rossi in the last tight bend towards the finishing line. The finishing line in this case was right behind us and she got the gold medal: a young female impala!
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Vacationtechnician personalized luxury adventure travel transports you to the most exquisite wilderness and chill out retreats on Earth. Conserving rare biodiversity through low volume tourism; our aim is your indulgence -at no one's expense. Plan now to be assured a rejuvenating escape at a restful pace -to an unspoiled gem in the purest sense.
When Dave was a young child his parents relocated to Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia). The family settled in the small town of Kitwe on the Copper Belt. His father worked on the mines and was also a keen conservationist, actively involved with the Wildlife Society of which he later became Chairman.
Dave accompanied his father on many trips and quickly developed an interest in the fauna and flora and with the numerous books that his father gave him, developing an incredible all round knowledge ranging from amphibians to aardvarks. When cycling around Kitwe he would take his 17 pet chameleons with him!
In the early 1970s Luangwa was experiencing poaching elephant and rhino and in the 1979 Dave would accompany the rangers on patrols during his school holidays. This taught him exception bush skills and tracking and he became a good shot with the rifle.
His interests as a young African were numerous including fishing, swimming, drawing and painting and he developed a passion for photography. Demand for chimpanzees in zoos and private collections resulted in numerous orphans. He was involved in the building of a rehab centre outside Kitwe and this gave him the opportunity to observe the chimpanzees in close quarters.
In the afternoons after school Dave spent every available moment exploring the bush in search of anything great and small. He finished high school in 1979 and in 1980 David was drafted into the South African Defence Force and spent two years in Angola. Here, he had ample time to observe the little known Giant Sable.
His passion for books and photography made him choose a career in publishing and printing where he obtained a Diploma in Photolithography with Distinction. For 3 years he pursued the trade, but the bush made him homesick so he went to Zimbabwe and became a guide at Bumi Hills in the Matsusadona National Park
Dave has worked in many countries including Zimbabwe, Botswana and Malawi where he worked at a lakeside lodge and was involved in scuba diving safaris and yacht charters.
In 1999 he joined Okavango Wilderness Safaris as a houseboat captain and a river guide and later went on to manage Vumbura camp in the Okavango Delta.
In 2001 Dave joined the Privately Guided Safari division. He is currently running privately guided trips specializing in walking, catch and release fly fishing, sketching and painting, birding, elephant and leopard behavior and digital photography. Dave remains passionate about the bush and he shares this with his guests. He is a dedicated naturalist guide and wonderful host.
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Vacationtechnician personalized luxury adventure travel transports you to the most exquisite wilderness and chill out retreats on Earth. Conserving rare biodiversity through low volume tourism; our aim is your indulgence -at no one's expense. Plan now to be assured a rejuvenating escape at a restful pace -to an unspoiled gem in the purest sense.
Africa's three big cats - lion, leopard and cheetah - all capture and kill their prey in much the same manner as a domestic cat kills a mouse. The body proportions, dentition and claws of all cats - from lions to lynxes - is basically the same. Body size, social habits and habitat preferences are what separates most members of the family Felidae.
Although the way in which large cats stalk or approach their prey differs, the actual method of killing is similar. The first objective is to bring the quarry to the ground, and for medium-sized prey this is achieved by grasping the hindquarters. With its feet firmly on the ground, a lion or leopard pulls an antelope to the ground by hooking its talons into its rump and tugging downward. If in pursuit of fleeing prey, cats reach out with their forepaw to trip their quarry. For very large prey such as buffalo, lions may jump onto the animal's back, using their own body weight to topple the victim. Once an animal is off its feet, the cat goes for the throat or muzzle, clamping its jaws tight to suffocate the prey. With small prey, a bite is delivered to the neck to sever the spinal chord.
Whenever a cat hunts and dispatches prey, it must minimise the chance of injuring itself - a sprained leg or broken canine tooth, could easily lead to starvation.
In many parts of Africa, lion, leopard and cheetah occur side-by-side. They are able to coexist because they have different habitat and prey preferences, which reduces competition. Different hunting strategies are employed not only by the different big cats, but also for the various prey species which they hunt.
Leopard
The leopard is the most adaptable of Africa's big cats, with the widest range of prey. Large males can tackle quarry up to the size of adult Topi although they rarely take such risks. Medium-sized and small antelope, as well as warthog, are favoured prey in most areas. The leopard relies on its stealth and patience to approach its prey. Successful hunts usually demand that the leopard surprises its victim, pouncing before it can react and pulling it to the ground. Smaller prey, such as hyraxes, hares and monkeys may be chased and cornered before being clawed and bitten on the back of the neck or throat. In some parts of their range, leopard are almost entirely nocturnal hunters, but in other areas (notably the South African lowveld) they are active throughout the day. Individual leopards may acquire a preference for certain prey animals and develop particular hunting strategies. Warthog may be captured as they leave or enter their underground burrows, entailing a lengthy wait for a patient leopard. Catfish will be plucked from shrinking pools at the end of the rainy season by a leopard which ignores other quarry.
Lion
Lion are the only truly social cats and adult females typically hunt in pairs or groups. When hunting favoured prey such as wildebeest or zebra, lions usually stalk to within 30 metres before rushing at them. In most cases the lions will wait until the quarry has turned away or has its head down. Once it detects danger, the victim bolts but it may be too late. On rare occasions, (and invariably in daylight) lion may ambush prey, with one member of the pride lying in wait as its partner forces the quarry to run in its direction. The sheer abundance of prey can also determine hunting strategies. When great herds of migratory wildebeest are milling about, lions can simply rush into them and pull down one or more of the confused animals. When the same herds gather to cross the Grumeti or Mara rivers, lions simply wait at favoured crossing points and pick off the startled wildebeest. Although male lions have the reputation (quite deserved) of pirating free meals from hardworking lionesses, they are called upon when extra large prey is tackled. Several females may corner and threaten a buffalo, but it will usually take a big male to topple such a beast. In northern Botswana, some large lion prides have taken to preying on young and even sub-adult elephant, and this entails tight teamwork to separate their targets from defensive adults. In South Africa's Kruger National Park, lions appear to have become adept at killing giraffe by attacking them on tarmac roads where the tall mammals lose their foothold on the slippery surface. Lions generally have a higher success rate when hunting after dark.
Cheetah
Built for speed, cheetah hunt by day. They are less reliant on stalking than leopard or lion, but most successful hunts involve walking slowly towards their prey, and �freezing' their posture each time the quarry looks in their direction. Once a cheetah gets to within a range of 50 metres or less, it will sprint towards the prey, instantaneously singling out one individual. With its quarry in full flight, the cheetah's strategy is to catch up with it and strike out, clipping its back legs. The faster a gazelle or antelope is running, the more readily it tumbles. Such a fall may cause a broken leg, but within seconds the cheetah takes hold of its victim's throat and clasps its jaws tightly. Cheetah only have about 300 metres in which to catch their prey, because they cannot continue at full speed beyond that. Gazelles often evade cheetah by turning sharply, while animals which stand their ground are rarely attacked. Cheetah are less adaptable than lions or leopards, but some individuals may become adept at hunting in thick bushland where sprinting is impossible. At Kwandwe, in the Eastern Cape Province, some Cheetah have broken all the 'rules' and have taken to hunting on moonlit nights.
Watching any of the big cats on the hunt is one of the most thrilling elements of a safari. With astute and sensitive guides and an intimate knowledge of predator territories vacationtechnician guided safaris provide some of the best opportunities to witness this behaviour.
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Vacationtechnician personalized luxury adventure travel transports you to the most exquisite wilderness and chill out retreats on Earth. Conserving rare biodiversity through low volume tourism; our aim is your indulgence -at no one's expense. Plan now to be assured a rejuvenating escape at a restful pace -to an unspoiled gem in the purest sense.
"When my mother took me to Botswana and Zimbabwe in 2001, I fully expected it to be the "trip of a lifetime," never imagining that I would become so passionate about Africa, needing to return every year. So, yes, Africa is the best vacation place I've ever been. Why?
First and foremost -seeing the wild animals in their natural habitat. I have had a lifelong love for animals and have refused to set foot in zoos for over 30 years.
I can't begin to describe the thrill when first seeing a herd of elephants on the shore of the Gache Gache River in Zimbabwe. Or, getting within five feet of the mountain gorillas in Uganda. For me, NOTHING can compare to those experiences.
I think, for me, Africa provides an experience that is so profoundly different from my day-to-day existence. I live in San Francisco and have lived here, in the heart of the city, for my entire adult life. While I've visited Paris, London, Rome, Florence, Venice, Brussels, New York, which all have their individual charm and beauty and excitement, they are, for me, just variations of all major cities.
It was not until I visited Africa that I realized that I am no longer intrigued or even interested in spending my vacations that way--running around a city, going to museums, hanging out in cafes, finding restaurants, shopping, etc. etc. I can do all that home.
Africa allows me to just be....I am forced to relax and just look and listen and smell...No other place on earth provides that type of serenity".
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"The answer to the question for me is absolutely, completely, whole-heartedly, YES.
I have been completely around the world over a period of 2 years, years ago.
Went from east to west (starting in the states and then Hawaii, Japan etc.). Other times I have visited and lived in several countries.
Out of all of these, Africa is my favorite. Africa is special.
Outside of Africa, the country that makes the deepest impression is India, however I will never consider it a holiday - it is an experience. Some favorite cities - Kyoto, London. Crete was a wonderful holiday location.
But for me, an animal lover, everything pales compared to Africa.
-Waking up in the bush and wondering what wonderful animals I'll see today...?
-Heading out to a new camp and wondering what interesting people I'll meet.
Typically when we travel in other places we don't meet a lot of new people, at least not long enough to have a two-hour dinner conversation.
Wonderful, adventurous people that are also traveling and kind gentle people who live in Africa. I just feel that traveling in Africa was like nothing else I had done before and yes, it meant so much to me that I wish everyone I know could experience it.
I never felt so alive as I did there".
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Vacationtechnician personalized luxury adventure travel transports you to the most exquisite wilderness and chill out retreats on Earth. Conserving rare biodiversity through low volume tourism; our aim is your indulgence -at no one's expense. Plan now to be assured a rejuvenating escape at a restful pace -to an unspoiled gem in the purest sense.
V A G A B O N D I N G >: Gorilla Trekking in Bwindi Impenetrable Forest
Excellent description of finding the Mountain Gorillas in the Bwindi National Park, Uganda. Additional information on gorilla tracking or trekking can be reviewed here:
Uganda
Bwindi Inpenetrable Forest
Gorilla Trekking Photo Primer -the lighting is very difficult under the dense forest canopy!
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Vacationtechnician personalized luxury adventure travel transports you to the most exquisite wilderness and chill out retreats on Earth. Conserving rare biodiversity through low volume tourism; our aim is your indulgence -at no one's expense. Plan now to be assured a rejuvenating escape at a restful pace -to an unspoiled gem in the purest sense.
Kwando Wildlife Report 14-19 April 2004
Kwara
* One nice sighting of a male Leopard.
* A group of 3 Cheetah (female plus 2 youngsters) were followed hunting but were unsuccessful.
* The resident male Lions were followed but did not get up to much.
* Nocturnal sightings include Porcupine, Serval and Genet.
* Good general game with Elephant bulls in and around camp, Zebra, Tsessebe, Red Lechwe, Giraffe, Impala, Baboons and Warthog.
* A Little Bittern was seen from the boat plus plenty other birds and Hippo.
Lebala
* Elephant numbers are picking up and are being seen in sizeable herds.
* Lions have been seen on and off and have disappeared into the Mopane woodlands for the last 3 days.
* Spectacular Cheetah kill on Impala was witnessed from start to finish near camp.
* Nocturnal sightings include a good diversity of Owl species, Serval, Springhares and Genets.
* Good general game with Giraffe, Zebra, a surprising herd of 10 Eland, Impala, Kudu and a small group of Buffalo.
Lagoon
* There has been one sighting of the pack of Wild Dogs hunting but no kills were seen or found.
* Excellent sighting of the 2 Leopard cubs again who were found resting.
* Good activity at the Hyena den and it seems like 2 females are sharing the same burrow with 2 youngsters each.
* Nocturnal sightings include Porcupine, Serval and African Wild Cats.
* General game includes large numbers of Elephants, large numbers of Giraffe, Zebra, Blue Wildebeest, Impala, Red Lechwe, Warthogs and Steenbuck.
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Vacationtechnician personalized luxury adventure travel transports you to the most exquisite wilderness and chill out retreats on Earth. Conserving rare biodiversity through low volume tourism; our aim is your indulgence -at no one's expense. Plan now to be assured a rejuvenating escape at a restful pace -to an unspoiled gem in the purest sense.
Part One of this article found here.
" I�ll just go and grab your pilot, I think he�s having a fag.�
So spoke my down-to-earth air charter representative upon welcoming me back to Maun while transferring me to my next aerial roller coaster ride � yet another tiny Cessna � which would wing me northwards to Kwando Kwara Camp in a private concession north of the Moremi Game Reserve, bang smack in the middle of the Okavango Delta�s seasonal flood plains.
Indeed, my pilot � Steve, a Kiwi like 30% of all charter pilots in Maun � was having a smoke while watching the dying seconds of the Rugby World Cup Final.
He greeted me some minutes later informing me with a sly grin that Australia had just been deprived of victory via the boot of England�s Johnny Wilkinson. I moaned, in true South African fashion, that the poms would be even more insufferable than usual, completely ignoring my birth and upbringing in Cambridge.
In truth, the Rugby World Cup seemed a million miles away, as did every other intrusive accoutrement of the modern era, such as cell phones, faxes, e-mails and motorcars. Where I was headed, they meant nothing.
Forty minutes later I was being driven in an open Toyota Hilux through the dense bush by Charles and his chirpy tracker Muluki towards Kwara Camp.
Kwara is one of four camps which make up the Kwando Circuit. The circuit includes Lagoon Camp and Lebala Camp in the Kwando private game reserve further north on the edge of the Linyanti swamps and close to the Caprivi Strip, Kwara Camp in the Delta itself and Songwe Village just outside Livingstone in neighbouring Zambia. Kwara is situated north of and adjacent to the Moremi Game Reserve. It�s in the centre of the 175,000-hectare Kwara concession which fronts the permanent water of the 1,6-million hectare delta and is backed by bush and open seasonal flood plains.
The camp consists of 8 tents sleeping 16 guests and is run by the affable Peter Gordon and his bubbly wife Anita Els, both of whom do an excellent job as enthusiastic hosts at the camp.
Arrival at the camp offers some much needed respite from the sun, with the overhanging trees providing excellent shade. Welcomes are made in the lounge area, with its comfortable couches and chairs overlooking the seasonal flood plains in front of the camp. To one side is a bar where guests are invited to help themselves if no one is around to look after their needs.
Indeed, this is an attitude prevalent in all of the camps � basically make yourself at home and help yourself! It makes for a wonderfully relaxed atmosphere with no one expecting silver service waitors to fuss over their every desire. In any event, if there�s something you want that you can�t find yourself, there�s always one of the helpful camp staffers to help out.
Alongside the lounge and bar area is a roomy dining room which overlooks a small plunge pool. The pool enjoys the shelter of the shade trees as well with the result that the water is always wonderfully cool and visited regularly by the paradise flycatchers which nest overhead.
The tents are set amongst the trees to the other side of the lounge area and consist of two comfortable single beds, side tables and drawers and a small wardrobe. There is a flushing toilet and twin basins in a separate bathroom to the rear of the tent and an outside shower. A small stoep with deck chairs and tables makes the perfect place to sit, binoculars in hand, while surveying the countryside beyond the trees for animal activity.
The real activity takes place out on the early morning and late afternoon game drives and Charles and Muluki were expert at finding it. Or rather racing to it.
Our forays into the bush netted some excellent sightings, including an over-ambitious night adder trying to eat an over-inflated bullfrog, wild dog, lions bringing down a female giraffe and a young male leopard who thought he�d take on first a water monitor which was bigger than he was, and second a herd of tsessebe who looked at him as if he was taking the proverbial urine.
The lion kill was a double-edged sword. A pride of lionesses had made the kill with two small cubs at heel. When we first sighted them they were feasting happily being watched from afar by two curious, and hungry males who were not part of the pride. Later that afternoon the males attacked the pride and killed the cubs, stealing the kill for themselves. We found the cubs� pitiful little bodies that evening. I couldn�t bring myself to take pictures.
Dinners were spent discussing the days� sightings while contending with sumptuous home-cooked meals and some excellent wine.
Alternatives to the game drives are just as exciting for those who love the bush. I tried out a bush walk with Charles and we ended up tracking some lions. Little did we know that they were a mere 40 metres away in the long grass watching us with as much interest as we had in their tracks.
The bush walk brought us to the mokoro station, deep in the bush on one of the myriad small channels which eventually join the Godikwe lagoon system. A mokoro ride is an absolute must for anyone visiting the Okavango. Poled gently through the small, reed-lined channels, a mokoro gives visitors a hippo-eyed view of the swamps and is perhaps the most tranquil and relaxing way to experience the Delta.
At Kwara there is also the option of a river safari on a sort of double-decker boat with an upstairs viewing platform affording endless views of the waterways and surrounding bush. The river ride takes in several islands where marabou and yellow-billed storks nest, and where at sunset, over a few bloody marys, you can marvel as birds from every corner of the Delta come home to roost for the night.
It�s a hard life; this safari business and days melt seamlessly into one another. For the first time in a long time I felt the thrill of true relaxation and actually forgot what day it was, far from the madding crowd and intrusive cell phone.
Communication in the bush is done by radio, and certain camps have bush mail � a kind of e-mail done over radio waves, but apart from that isolation rules. For some it may be a worry, but in reality it only takes an hour for a plane to be dispatched in an emergency, and the camps all have emergency medical evacuation cover for guests in the event of something untoward happening.
After two leisurely nights at Kwara, I bade farewell to my hosts and once more enjoyed the pleasures of low flying at midday on a full tummy (brunch inevitably coincided with close encounters of a Cessna kind) for the 25-minute transfer north from Kwara to Lebala Camp, virtually on the Namibian border at the Caprivi Strip. Kwando Lebala and its sister camp, Kwando Lagoon, are situated inside the original 232,000-hectare Kwando concession.
Kwando is the brainchild of near-legendary Botswanan John Mynhardt and is run by MD and president Kevin Leo-Smith. Leo-Smith was one of founders of Phinda Resource Reserve which grew into Conservation Corporation Africa. He is very much a hands-on leader and lives in Maun with his wife, former tennis star Greer Stevens.
The terrain around Lebala is completely different to Kwara, providing an awesome contrast to the latter. Dry dusty plains give way to lush vegetation and sweeping lagoons and river systems on the edge of the Linyanti swamps which lead down towards what was the Selinda spillway. The spillway is dry, for now at least, but a season or two of good rains would more than likely change that.
Lebala Camp is a 25-minute drive from the airstrip and in the heat and dust of noon it was a trip which left me determined not to wear shorts again on open vehicles as I could feel my knees frying in the harsh glare.
Guide Spencer and tracker Silver didn�t seem to notice the heat as I tried to protect my exposed flesh with my hands but pointed out to me that anything with half a brain game-wise would be under cover of whatever shade they could find. I agreed and wondered about mad dogs and Englishmen as the temperature soared past the 40 mark.
The drive was thankfully over quick enough and soon we were enjoying cooling beers in Lebala�s shady open-air bar, trying to rehydrate desiccated flesh while enjoying the company of Lebala Camp manager Gareth Flemix.
There are eight tents at Lebala. Actually, calling them tents is a bit of an understatement. Sure, they look like tents from the outside � all khaki and blending in with the surroundings. But inside they are absolutely huge with an enormous double bedroom-cum-sitting room with two larger than average divans, a large raised deck complete with chairs and tables overlooking the dusty plain, a separate dressing area which doubles as a study, with drawers, shelves and a small wardrobe, and an equally gigantic bathroom with twin basins, the usual flushing loo and a full-size pedestal bath complemented by an outside shower.
Bigger than the average hotel suite, Lebala gets full marks for accommodation and shows just what you can achieve under canvas in the middle of nowhere.
And it is remote. But stunning nonetheless.
Within half an hour of my settling in by the plunge pool I was treated to the sight of a large breeding herd of elephants filing past not 100 metres away. Indeed, some of the experiences at Lebala will go down as legends in my personal records. For example, on my first afternoon a huge dust storm built up on the plains outside my tent. I watched from my deck as twisters pulled the dust up into the atmosphere, silently building into a huge pall which an ever-strengthening blast of hot, dry air began to drive towards the camp.
As it approached I heard wild trumpeting and Gareth�s excited yells to the rear of my tent. I went to the door and was greeted by the sight of a rampaging and obviously very upset young bull elephant charging past within a couple of metres of me, blasting on his horn for all he was worth, closely followed by Gareth madly clapping his hands and making almost as much noise.
The afternoon drive that day was amazing, with us witnessing the first, faltering steps of a newborn wildebeest and having sundowners within a couple of metres of some very garrulous hippos, who treated us to a water ballet par excellence. Darkness brought with it what seemed to be Africa�s entire population of spring hares and my first wild African rock python, which Spencer put at just short of the four-metre long mark. Our return to the camp was accompanied by the local hyena clan, who promptly chased an African wild cat through the bar as we were downing a few pre-dinner drinks.
Dawn the following day brought with it a pack of wild dogs who were also chased through camp by the hyenas. They ran over to the airstrip where they quickly caught and ate on the spot five young impala.
The dogs of Lebala are becoming legends in their own lunchtimes and have become a passion for Gareth and his head guide Steve, who have been recording their activities in minute detail for the past few years.
In spite of its remote position, Lebala is for me a large slice of paradise and one which I intend returning to regularly. It�s a marvelous place to unwind and reflect on life�s real meaning.
But sadly, all good things must end, and this portion of my Five Rivers Safari had, all too quickly, or so it seemed. A 50-minute flight in the ubiquitous Cessna back to Maun put me back on Air Botswana for the flight back to Johannesburg via Gaborone. But, in the words of the Terminator, I�ll be back. And finish what I�ve started.
When I left the first instalment of the Five Rivers Safari it was at the end of November on the hot, dusty plains of Kwando Lebala in the far north of Botswana. My return, to pick up my tour of the nine camps participating in the safari, put me in the familiar surroundings of Livingstone in Zambia but with a huge difference � rain, and lots of it had transformed this often oppressively hot and dry region into a lush and verdant wonderland.
Welcome to the green season, and the long awaited, life-bringing deluges this far-flung part of the world had needed for so long.
Songwe Village was to be my first port of call on this second half of my Five Rivers Safari, which I resumed with Nationwide Flight CE 202 from Johannesburg International to Livingstone.
I must say, Nationwide is developing into a fine airline and one South Africans can be truly proud of. I am impressed most of all with their levels of service and friendliness which put the often sour faces of their major competitors to shame. At the end of the day a trip by plane, whether short haul or international, should be a pleasurable experience, not something to endure. Nationwide seem to realise this and make the 90-odd minutes to Livingstone pass with pleasant ease.
It was sunny when I landed in Livingstone and a week or so of rains earlier in January meant that the nearby Victoria Falls were almost at peak flow, filling the air with their thrilling mist which gives them their local name � Mosi o Tunya � the smoke that thunders.
I was met by Songwe manager Dorothy Shinga and guide-cum-driver Munkombwe and began the journey to Songwe Point, which is approximately 14km out of town. However, it�s a long haul at 45-minutes due to the rough, and I do mean rough, road. Once off the main tar road it�s a spot of major bundu bashing over rock and through mud to get to the village. But it�s more than worth the trek.
As we pulled into Songwe the sun was steadily being overtaken by steely grey clouds, with the huge thunderheads forming on the horizon a sign of things to come.
Like Lebala, Kwara and Lagoon camps, Songwe is part of the Kwando family.
But it�s very different to its stable-mates.
Songwe offers participants in the Five Rivers safari a chance to get down and cultural. It�s akin to getting up close and personal with rural Africa.
Accommodation in the village is in traditional huts, simply but comfortably furnished and with the added luxury of en-suite toilets and showers. The bathrooms have no windows but low walls at the sink and shower afford the aforementioned stunning views of the gorge and the stretch of the Zambezi between rapids 10 and 13, well-known to white-water rafters.
It could so easily have been kitsch, but Songwe is anything but. In typical Kwando style the marriage of tradition, comfort and convenience is seamless and works perfectly. Sinks in the bathroom are large enamel bowls with a single, cold tap. In the early morning a large iron kettle is placed outside the door of the hut for freshening up purposes. The showers are basic but have hot and cold water and all the intricacies are there, but in a low-key, traditional way. The mirror is framed in recycled fanta cans, the enamel wear is everywhere, from the mugs for your toothbrush to the rubbish bin.
The beds are made from rustic poles and the linen is a mix of pure colonial cotton sheets and locally woven textile throws with the compulsory mosquito net � an absolute must in this malaria-ridden region.
The huts are arranged in a traditional village formation around a central area where chickens and goats roam freely. On each side are two additional huts which house double showers and huge luxurious Victorian-style baths. One set of these bathroom facilities faces sunrise over the gorge, and the other � you guessed it � sunset. The baths are positioned slightly raised to afford marvelous views as you relax and soak with a glass of something everso slightly refined from the makeshift bar in the central living area.
This is housed in its own, open hut to one side of the kitchen hut at the end of the village, close to the edge of the gorge. Here you relax on plump cushions on a built-in bench around the perimeter of the hut, which has a small fire pit at its centre. Meals are taken here, eaten off your lap or, on occasion, at a makeshift but perfectly functional table.
The idea, and it works marvelously, is to get you to relax and experience what it�s like to be part of a proper, working village.
During a stay at Songwe guests get the chance to experience a proper, traditional village dinner, eaten seated on a cushion on the floor using your fingers as cutlery. Dorothy, who runs Songwe with her husband Emanuel, explained that some guests are squeamish when it comes to eating in such an al fresco manner and that forks and knives are optional. Not for me. I dived in with both hands making short shift of the delicious shuma (pap), beef and chicken stews and assorted veggies such as spinage and pumpkin.
It�s a great experience and a refreshing change to table d�hote and a jacket and tie affair.
After dinner entertainment comes in the form of some impromptu drumming and marimba playing, singing and dancing. Guests are invited to join in with their own favourite songs, but somehow my rendition of Hotel California seemed out of place in this devine and oh-so relaxed setting.
Activities at Songwe are equally relaxed, with guests learning about the cultural heritage of the local Mukuni tribe, which has lived in this area since the 13th century, having migrated from northern Cameroon.
The village of Songwe itself is part of the greater Mukuni village and is home to about 1500 people. Guests can visit the village where there are several curio stalls offering a range of arts and crafts made by the local villagers.
You are also taken across to Mukuni itself, by ox-wagon when the weather permits, but in this sticky season the road is much more suited to the village Landrovers. Mukuni is home to a further 7000 people, all overseen by senior chief or Munokalya Patrick Siloka Mukuni. Chief Siloka has been the main man since 1985 and rules over his people with a Bedyango or Chieftainess who is equal to him in stature but from a different lineage.
During my visit to Mukuni I was taken to Lumpasa palace to meet the incumbent Bedyango, Anne Siloka, who although she shares his name is actually not related to the Chief. Chief Siloka�s lineage goes back generations. His ancestors met David Livingstone under a huge acacia tree outside Lumpasa palace.
Songwe Village is heavily involved in community development with the villagers, using tourism to inject much-needed resources into the communities via the Mukuni Environmental, Cultural and Economic Development Trust with the assistance of guests who participate in cultural activities and tours and buy curios from the stalls.
After the tour of Mukuni it was off to the Livingstone Museum to learn more about the area. Livingstone is very proud of its namesake, the inimitable Dr David, and he naturally features heavily in the exhibits, with his hat, coat, gun, box of medical instruments and medical qualifications all displayed lovingly along with in depth information about his life and contribution to the community around the falls.
Also on display are exhibits illustrating the geographical, geological, anthropological and biological histories of the region and the recent political history of Zambia. It�s a small museum, and desperately in need of funding, but it�s a start and an indication of the pride the local community has in its roots.
Then it was off on a sundowner cruise on the river with Safari par Excellence, which, at $60 per person is not bad value for money, including as it does tasty snacks and all drinks during the three-hour cruise.
The morning of my departure from Songwe was when the weather decided to mess with my itinerary, preventing my transfer by air charter. Early morning thunderstorms had given birth to flash floods, one of which emerged from the solid rock wall of the cliff-face opposite my hut with a roar of earthquake proportions heralding its approach.
The inclement weather played havoc across the region causing airports to close and flights to be cancelled and is a good illustration of how traveling in this part of the world is never cast in stone. Flexibility is an absolute must. As is patience. But in a smooth and impressively professional manner alternative arrangements were made for a road transfer to Kasane, some 70km away, where I would pick up my flight to Lianshulu Lodge in the East Caprivi area of Namibia.
It�s a strange part of the world, where international borders abound. One minute you�re in Zambia, a short boat trip across the confluence of the Chobe and Zambezi rivers and you�re in Botswana, and before you can say Jack Robinson it�s Namibia. And there, on the horizon is Angola. And in the other direction is Zimbabwe. So began a curious series of immigration posts and 20-minute transits which have made my passport rather full and interesting. Four countries in one day is not unusual here.
The flight from Kasane to Lianshulu with was smooth and thankfully interesting enough to make the 50-minute journey pass quickly. Pilot Gerd Niehaus pointed out the Chobe and Zambezi flood plains and the temporary fields and grazing which in a few short weeks time would be under water.
Lianshulu Lodge is located in the Eastern Caprivi on the Namibian side of the Kwando River. It�s situated in a small, 800-hectare private concession in the Mudumu National Park, which covers around 800 square kms. Due to the general inaccessibility of the river, Lianshulu has exclusive use of the meandering waterways and lagoons, whilst other vehicles are rarely encountered on nature drives in the park, conveying a powerful sense of remoteness.
Indeed, the only other camp in the park, Bush Lodge, is part of Lianshulu.
The lodges are owner-run by Ralph Meyer-Rust and his partner, Sharon Theron. Ralph co-owns the lodge with partners Jonathan Gibson, and Peter Koep, of legendary status in the Namibian legal profession. Bush Lodge Managers, Beverley and Flavien Daguise, also lend a hand, making sure that guests� needs are well catered for.
Lianshulu is a Lozi name meaning �the place of spring hares�.
The lodge consists of 11 very private and intimate rooms nestled on the edge of a lagoon which is part of the Kwando river system. All have views of the water and the ubiquitous hippo population which provides all-day entertainment accompanied by a cacophony of grunts.
The rooms are luxuriously appointed and are in the process of being transformed into veritable palaces with lots of cool tiles, enormous bathrooms and living space for Africa.
Sumptuous meals are taken in the main complex with its huge deck overlooking the Lianshulu lagoon and, yes, more of those marvelous hippos. In the dry season elephant compete for the water, giving game buffs some exhilarating encounters with the wild. There�s also a marvelously shady pool area which was a major drawcard for me in the often humid conditions.
Activities include the nature walks, river safaris and game drives which make up an integral part of each day, and are interspersed with marvelously impromptu bush brunches served al fresco on islands in the river. Daily itineraries are tailor-made to suit guests with Ralph at pains to make the point that life at Lianshulu is geared towards slowing down and absorbing the natural beauty of the area.
At this time of year, with everything so wet and water not in short supply, the game is more dispersed but the hues and colours of green Africa more than make up for the lack of action. And the birding is out of this world. I was quickly adding new ticks to my check-list with lesser jacana, lesser moorhen and African finfoot among the endemic species I spotted.
In addition to hosting and entertaining guests with some riveting fireside stories, Ralph is also something of an expert on the area, having worked in it as a guide and expedition leader for more than 20 years. He�s a fount of knowledge on the area�s biodiversity, political history and geographical composition. My guide, Peter Damson, a Zimbabwean from Kariba, was also extremely well-informed and knowledgeable.
So what about that history aspect? Most of us know the Caprivi as the place �ons manne� went to fight the Swapo gevaar. But the Caprivi is so much more than the 14-day war. It�s origins are long and complicated. Originally conceived by Germany in the late 1800s it was used as a political football between Britain and Germany. Control over it was gained through intense political bartering which also affected the history of neighbouring areas such as Bechuanaland (now Botswana) and Northern Rhodesia which is now Zambia. It occupies a strategic but very isolated position juxtaposed between Angola in the north, Zambia to the north-east and east, Botswana in the south and Zimbabwe in the south-east.
Lianshulu is heavily involved in community development in the area, most notably with the original creation of the Kwando thatching industry and the initial inception of Lizauli village where for a small fee of R25 guests can experience the culture and traditions of the local tribespeople, including a consultation with a dancing medicine man.
The area around Lianshulu is rich in natural history as well. The Mudumu is home to a broad range of species, from the Big Four (there are, sadly, no rhino in this part of the world) in season to impressive herds of impala and zebra.
I took the option of a nature walk with Peter, checking out the smaller and sometimes infinitely more interesting details of fauna and flora that only walking brings you into contact with.
I also had the opportunity to experience the intricacies of a cross-border transfer along the river, with guests coming in from Kwando Lagoon camp�s airstrip, an hour by boat upriver, going through the formalities of leaving Botswana and entering Namibia under a makeshift riverside immigration post run by the Botswana Defence Force. It all runs smoothly, in spite of being hundreds of kilometres away from the intricacies of �civilization� and goes a long way to making the Five Rivers Safari one of the best ways to visit several different countries on one trip.
On my second afternoon at Lianshulu I was beginning to get the feeling that the weather was following me. The heavens literally opened just as I was about to depart on a sunset river safari and put paid to any birdwatching ideas I may have had. It gave me the opportunity to spend more time in the excellent company of Ralph and Sharon and was a great illustration of how well Lianshulu copes with keeping guests happy when the weather says �izzit?�.
From Lianshulu it was a quick road trip down the trans-Caprivi highway and back into the dense bush to Susuwe Island Lodge.
Along with Impalila Island Lodge � my final destination on this marathon journey � Susuwe is part of Islands.
Located on Birre Island on a peaceful stretch of the Kwando known as Carmine corner, the lodge is surrounded by the Bwabwata National Park. It�s pristine wilderness which some may remember as the base of SADF activites in the Caprivi at Fort �Doppies�. Indeed, the remains of the camp can still be seen as you leave the park.
The contrast between its neighbours is stark. Encompassing vast flood plains and Kalahari woodlands, gone is the thick loam of Lianshulu, replaced by the distinctive white sand of the Kalahari basin whose dunes form the base for some of the elevated lookout points which made the area so important for the military.
Running the show at Susuwe is Bruce Lawson. Bruce is literally a legend of the Southern African bush, having walked from the Cape to Cairo and led overland birding safaris for many years. Birds are his speciality, which is no surprise when you learn that his dad is the Lawson of Lawson�s Birding Safaris. Time spent with Bruce on the activities at Susuwe is invaluable as you tap into his incredible wealth of knowledge and experience. During my stay I spotted the rare Arnot�s chat and some beautifully colourful violet-eared waxbills. Indeed, this is the area for rare avians, with pygmy geese also putting in several appearances.
Together with head guide-in-waiting Sean Braine, a Namibian whose home is Etosha, Bruce makes sure that a stay at Susuwe is an education in all that makes the place special.
It�s a small lodge, with six beautiful suites positioned to enjoy views over the Kwando to the flood plains. Built in a blend of wood, thatch and reed, each suite is spacious offering some of the best of life�s little luxuries such as hairdryers and private plunge pools overlooking the river. There�s something special about relaxing in a plunge pool, bloody mary in hand, and gazing into the wilds of Africa. Especially when blue waxbills and brown firefinches are pecking at a feeder full of millet not a metre away from you and swamp boubous are catching dragonflies in front of your very nose!
Meals are eaten communally at the main complex with its beautiful open lounge areas leading onto the riverine forest and river beyond. Elevated viewing platforms offer a chance to get up into the canopy of overhanging trees and afford some lovely views of the river and woodland beyond.
Speaking of meals, be warned � none of the camps on the Five Rivers Safari are geared towards those watching their weight! All of the food is outstanding with some fabulous dishes being washed down with no small amount of fine wine. If anything, there�s just too much of it. But there�s always time for siesta, if you can drag yourself away from the bush.
Elephants are no strangers to the area as Susuwe annually witnesses huge migrations of breeding herds, with often as many as 1000 animals observed at Horseshoe, an oxbow on the river a short drive from the lodge.
Susuwe is involved with the local Mayuni conservancy group in a joint venture partnership. This progressive approach to interaction between lodge guests and local tribal trusts has been of huge benefit to the community and to sustaining conservation in the area.
And so to the last outpost on this marathon trip � Impalila Island Lodge.
Another 50-minute flight took me almost back to Kasane, landing at Impalila�s airstrip from where transfer is made via a short drive and longer, and very impressive boat trip through the Kasai Channel which links the Chobe and Zambezi rivers.
Impalila Island Lodge is located in an unusual position on the borders of four neighbouring countries. At the very tip of the eastern Caprivi it is situated on Namibian soil, but across the Zambezi is Zambia, and next to it Zimbabwe and Botswana which borders the Chobe.
Built on the tip of Impalila island at a place called Kamavozu � the place of baobabs � the lodge overlooks a section of the Zambezi known as the Mambova Rapids.
Fitingly, a huge baobab dominates the entrance to the lodge. It�s one of three in the area, with the other at the rear of the main complex and a massive, 2000-year-old specimen a short nature walk away.
Owner manager Simon Parker runs Impalila with the help of his partner, Renee (accent over first e please) te Roller. Simon has been at Impalila since its inception, 9 years ago. He�s something of an expert on the area and has become a local hero to the island tribespeople, often helping them in times of need. As he points out, no lodge of this kind can function without the cooperation of the local residents and there is a huge responsibility attached to a venture of this kind. He regularly ferries the island police officers, who, curiously, do not have their own boat, and has on more than one occasion used his boats as ambulances for seriously injured local villagers, some the victims of crocodile attacks.
It�s a beautiful place and quite unique in its position so close to so many major international boundaries. And it�s very private, with the nearest major human structure Island in Africa�s new venture, Ntwala Island Lodge, still to be completed on a neighbouring island.
Eight en-suite chalets are positioned along the rapids, enveloped in dense rainforest with private decks positioned to best enjoy the swirling waters which pass almost beneath them. The sound of rushing water is everywhere and lulls you to sleep each night under the safety of your mosquito net in huge, king-sized beds.
The suites are cozy and comfortable, built in wood, thatch and reed with plump wingback chairs and ottomans the perfect place to sit and listen to the river and the sounds of this water-bound wonderland.
The majority of activities at Impalila revolve around water. Game viewing is done by boat back through the Kasai Channel to the Chobe National Park. It�s a wonderful journey into Africa and offers some great views of Chobe�s famed elephants and even big cats who target the wide river banks and the antelope they attract.
Guide Albert Muyoba has very sharp eyes and spotted some excellent things for me to photograph, including two of the biggest water monitors I have ever seen and a young bull elephant enjoying the best bath ever.
Then there�s fishing, and guide Haydn Willens who is ever-willing to share his passion for the piscine. A fly-fishing enthusiast, Durban-born Haydn, who is also a top competitive bream fisherman, taught this particular blonde the ins and outs of landing tiger fish � which the Zambezi is famed for.
He must be a good teacher because I soon posed for pics with my very first tiger, a mere tiddler at 1,5 kgs but nonetheless a fighter which took no small amount of wrestling to reel in. All fish are caught and released again, so there was no remorse at my newfound skill.
Like all of its colleagues on the Five Rivers Safari, Impalila is tip top when it comes to service. Especially when it comes to matters culinary with student chef Charl Kleu, who hails from Centurion near Pretoria, literally cooking up a storm. I wanted to bring him home with me but he wouldn�t fit in my bag. Sad, but then its an incentive to go back and visit Impalila again!
My journey home from Impalila was again indicative of the curious position of the island. By boat to the other side of the island where Namibia has a small border post. Checking out of Namibia it�s off by boat to Kasane and a riverside immigration office where you check in to Botswana. From there it�s a 20-minute journey by road to Kazungula where you check out of Botswana, nip across the river by boat or ferry and check into Zambia for the 40-minute road trip to Livingstone airport, where you finally check out of Zambia and onto the Nationwide flight home. Phew! It�s an interesting, if not exhausting series of ins and outs. Blink and you�ll miss an entire country.
My overall impression on finally coming to the end of my journey is that I have found some of the most wonderful places in Africa, and all of them literally on my doorstep. Our immediate neighbours are not so far away and more than worthy of a visit. Everyone I encountered on the way was friendly, and passionately patriotic. And they all want to see more of us. The Five Rivers Safari will certainly see to that.
Part One of this article found here.
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Vacationtechnician personalized luxury adventure travel transports you to the most exquisite wilderness and chill out retreats on Earth. Conserving rare biodiversity through low volume tourism; our aim is your indulgence -at no one's expense. Plan now to be assured a rejuvenating escape at a restful pace -to an unspoiled gem in the purest sense.
Part 2 of this article found here
I�ve often wondered how Grace Kelly and Ava Gardner managed to beat their way through the African bush in the old Hollywood classic �Mogambo� without ever breaking out into a sweat. And (in Ava�s case, at least) in high heeled mules to boot!
I�ve just been on safari and I �perspired� considerably, but then I left the old stilettos at home (tottering can be tiresome).
Safari. It�s a wonderful word, evoking images of colonial sorts striding out into the wilds of Africa in very inappropriate clothing, sleeping in scorpion-infested tents and drinking copious amounts of gin and tonic to fend off malaria, old chap.
A lot has changed, thankfully, but the modern equivalent still offers a chance to get up close and personal with the spirit of mother Africa.
Under the cloak of the �Five Rivers Safari� you can choose between areas as diverse as the Okavango Delta, Central Kalahari, Caprivi Strip and the Upper Zambezi basin.
Safaris these days require you to pack light (sorry, Ava) with a maximum of 12kgs in a soft bag and the usual hand baggage. This is because transfers between camps are in small five or six-seater Cessnas, so bags have to be squished into tight spaces, as do passengers. Basically, if you�re not a contortionist when you leave, you sure as hell are when you return!
In my case the squishing began in Maun with vacationtechnician Air, one of several charter companies working out of the northern Botswana town. A 25-minute flight north in the blistering heat of midday with the charming Faris at the controls brought us to the first port of call - Xakanaxa Camp.
The name requires some bushman-like clicking to produce it properly, but most non-clickers like me pronounce it Kaka-naka. Run by Bob and Flo Flaxman, the camp is located on the Khwai River in an area of seasonal swamp in the Moremi Game Reserve. It�s undeniably one of the prettiest spots around, shaded by jackalberries, morulas and knob-thorns and overlooking vast expanses of reeds, which are occupied by a veritable cornucopia of birdlife.
Xakanaxa has its own resident crocodile; a small family of bushbuck and a hippo nicknamed Pavarotti which is prone to midnight strolls around camp.
The camp consists of a large reception area and small curio shop, 12 twin-bedded tents, with a communal lounge area, dining room and boma-style fireplace where guests gather after dinner to exchange stories of the day�s adventures. There is also a plunge pool set in a small pool deck with a separate lapa-cum-sala providing much-needed shade in the heat of the day.
A short walk from the main camp is Pandani�s, a satellite camp of four tents with their own lounge and dining area and separate plunge pool overlooking a small lagoon on the Khwai.
Pandani�s can be booked out in its entirety by small groups of up to eight people through vacationtechnician.com.
The tents themselves are a marvelous illustration of how camping need not mean roughing it. High twin beds swathed in percale cotton linen with log-hewn furniture offering space to unpack clothes and store essentials. Rugs on the floor lead footfalls to the en-suite bathroom. Surrounded by wooden fencing to fend off prying eyes both human and animal, the toilet, basin and shower offer the chance for guests to commune with nature.
Hot and cold running water and an inexhaustible supply of Doom, Tabard and Peaceful Sleep mean that you stay clean while bugs (and there are plenty of them) are for the most part kept at bay.
At this juncture it is probably best that I mention something which may seem obvious. Bush camps are not for those who scream at every little creepy crawly or worry about wild Africa coming too close for comfort. After dark you do not wander around � you are escorted to and from your humble abode to and from the dining room and lounge areas. There are no fences to keep small hairy things and larger, furry things out. There is only your tent canvas or lodge wall to keep you in.
Animals and goggas wander in, and out of camp with impunity. And by animals I mean everything from water monitors, snakes, monkeys and hippos to hyenas, lions, leopards and elephants.
After dark there is generally no power, meaning that light is provided by storm lamps, oil lanterns and candles. Mosquito coils keep the little biters away and the only way to keep a good flow of air through your abode is to keep flaps down or windows open. Malaria is a very real and ever-present problem and anti-malarial measures are a must, whether it be medication or spraying thoroughly each night.
Indeed, a healthy respect for and interest in bugs is probably an advantage while on safari. In the rainy season especially the lights around the dinner table at night can attract a huge range of bugs, from cicadas (press them gently and they buzz obligingly) and grasshoppers to long-horned beetles and several kinds of mantis.
At Xakanaxa the Flaxmans do everything they can to make your stay the most enjoyable it can be, and you soon settle into a nice routine. Early-morning wake-ups begin each day, with coffee, tea and biscuits and cereals at the lounge before heading off with your guide on a three-hour game drive.
The guides are all very experienced and knowledgeable about the area and its diversities. Some, like Metsi, named after the water, have had some very close encounters with the Moremi�s four-legged inhabitants.
Back at Xakanaxa generally by 10 o clock, Flo and Bob greet you and escort you to the dining room for a lavish and exceedingly filling brunch, after which the rest of the morning and early afternoon are yours to relax, catch up on some snoozing and cool off in the plunge pool. Then it�s tea-time with cakes and snacks and off on a late afternoon drive, stopping for sundowners at a suitable spot en route before returning to camp for dinner and drinks around the fire.
The meals are wonderful, with home-cooked fare lovingly prepared and presented. The wine flows and after-dinner Amarulas are the perfect way to wind down for bedtime in Utopia.
Guests have the option of taking game drives in the Moremi or boat trips into the swamps, with short forays into the reed-lined channels on the traditional mokoros. These days the mokoros are fibre-glass as opposed to hollowed out trees in an effort to protect the woodlands around the swamps.
The Moremi Game Reserve has everything but rhino. Consistent poaching has all but decimated Botswana�s rhino population and attempt to reintroduce both black and white rhino have been largely unsuccessful, except for in small pockets in the Chiefs Island area of the Mombo concession within the Moremi.
It means you don�t get to see the Big Five, but certainly the remaining four are available in abundance. In addition, sightings like red lechwe, the rare sitatunga and tsessebe more than make up for the absence of rhino.
And the birdlife is out of this world, with carmine bee-eaters, pied kingfishers, rufus-bellied herons and African fish eagles as common as mossies.
After the lush wetlands of the Delta, the 55-minute transfer from Xakanaxa via vacationtechnician air to Deception Valley Lodge in the central Kalahari area brought with it a huge contrast.
Where there had been river channels and swamp there was now an unending wilderness of parched land with its own, peculiar brand of stark beauty. Where there had been a hot, but moist climate there was now the blistering heat of an almost desert environment. The thermometer hit 42 degrees C as we landed at the Deception Valley airstrip.
Deception Valley Lodge is located on a 15,000-hectare private farm adjacent to the Central Kalahari Game Reserve in central Botswana. It�s a 20-minute flight from Maun.
The lodge is owned and run by Braam and Susanne Badenhorst and is managed by Bruce and Arenell Robinson with the help of Johnny and Jackie Minaar.
This is San country and members of the local bushman tribe, the Basarawa work at Deception Valley Lodge as trackers and bush educationists, taking guests on walks into the bush and giving them a glimpse of the San way of life, using Bruce and Johnny, who act as guides, as intermediaries.
The lodge consists of five twin chalets with comfortable sitting rooms with cozy couch, coffee table and mini-bar and spacious bedrooms cooled by ceiling fans. The bathrooms have large Victorian-style baths and outdoor showers.
Connected to the main lodge building by a series of wooden walkways, the facilities are all open to the bush, again with nothing to keep the wilds of the Kalahari at bay.
At the main lodge is an open-plan dining area with a huge, sleeper wood table. Here a range of marvelous, home-cooked meals are served by Arenell and Jackie which are guaranteed to satisfy even the most grumbly tummy. There�s a cosy bar and comfortable lounge area with a selection of reference books available for guest use and outside is a braai area and fireplace where guests congregate for drinks. Upstairs is a small curio shop selling bushman artifacts and items of interest. There is also a nice pool deck with a decent-sized plunge pool, loungers and umbrellas to fend off the scorching sun.
A family of porcupines is in residence at the main lodge. Spike, Lucy and their daughter Cheeky put in nightly appearances for the guests� and guides benefit alike and the chance to get close to these strange but fascinating creatures is a highlight. But without a shadow of doubt the chance to trek into the bush with the San Bushmen is the main draw card at Deception Valley Lodge.
Two tribesmen, Xhasi and Sthibo, worked with Bruce to educate me in the ways of the Basarawa, digging up bi � a huge juicy tuber � and showing me how they scrape and gouge it, and finally crush the scrapings to drink the precious liquid it unlocks. It�s bitter to the taste but certainly life sustaining in such a harsh environment.
They also showed me the kan-nie-dood bush from which they harvest their fire sticks. These they rub together to make campfires.
The kan-nie-dood also offers up a curious poisonous grub which lives in its root system. This grub, when squashed and squeezed over arrow tips, becomes a deadly poison, helping the Bushmen to bring down steenbok and kudu.
I was also shown the San hardware shop, which comes in the form of the brandy bush. The wood of this bush becomes pliable when heated in fire and is harvested to make throwing sticks, bows, spears, digging sticks and walking sticks. Kudu sinews are used to make bowstrings. All of the above are packed into a soft skin bag and provide the San with everything they need to survive in the Kalahari.
A bit of target practice with a bushman bow soon elevated me to the ranks of honorary San as I discovered a natural ability as an archer. The few short hours spent in the bush with these incredible people was an experience I�ll never forget, and one which has shown me just how resilient the human spirit is.
Life at Deception Valley Lodge runs on the same timeframe as Xakanaxa, with early wake-up calls, morning game drives or bush walks, brunch, siesta or swim, afternoon snacks, afternoon-evening game drive and sundowners and a hearty dinner and drinks. The difference is the environment and the type of game in the area.
Aardvark, pangolin, springhares, brown hyena and huge Kalahari lions make the place truly special, as do the sightings of leopard and honey badger. Then there�s the smaller, more unusual inhabitants such as the lethal black hairy thick-tailed scorpion, huge baboon spiders and a variety of snakes and lizards.
During my stay there was a huge rainstorm, which afforded me the chance to see long-dormant bullfrogs digging their way out of hibernation and frolicking in fleeting desert puddles.
Deception Valley Lodge�s brand of home-from-home hospitality and the down-to-earth approach to life in the bush is a breath of fresh air compared to the stresses and strains of urban living, and is the perfect partner to Xakanaxa and the Okavango Delta. It�s a definite not-to-be-missed experience.
ENDNOTE:
Next article experiences lion infanticide at Kwando Kwara Camp in the northern Okavango Delta and the magic of wild dogs at Kwando Lebala Camp in the Linyanti area close to the Caprivi Strip.
About the areas:
Botswana is roughly the size of France or Texas but with population of only 1,7-million. More than 40% of the land is reserved for conservation and wilderness.
The topography of the Okavango was formed through process of erosion and deposition. Two things influence the topography � first is the flatness of the area which makes termite mounds the highest landforms. The land slopes very gradually � 1km for every 4km - to the southeast. Secondly there are very few rocks or stones.
The Okavango Delta lies within the Kalahari basin � a depression of wind-blown sands which extends from the northeastern corner of South Africa to just south of the equator in the DRC.
The underlying bedrock is volcanic sedimentary rock and the entire area is seismically active and prone to quakes.
Historically, it is thought the Okavango river extended to the sea but there are different schools of thought as to which sea it flowed into � some believed it joined the Limpopo and flowed into the Indian Ocean, others that it met the Orange River.
Flow movement was arrested due to tectonic movement which caused a series of parallel faults and a section of the earth�s crust to collapse, leading to the formation of the inland delta, as we now know it. Geographically it is known as an alluvial fan.
The Okavango River enters Botswana at Mohembo after traveling 1000km from its source. It�s channeled through what is known as the panhandle � a 15km wide swathe between two of the geological faults. There is a 6000 sq km area of permanent swamp, beyond which is a 12000 sq km area of seasonal swamp, fed by an infinite number of small channels. This becomes open grassland when floodwaters recede in the dry season.
Four rivers influence Botswana today � the Upper Zambezi, Kwando, Okavango and Limpopo.
The Central Kalahari, as its name suggests, is located roughly in the middle of the Kalahari basin. Water is scarce here, a fact learnt through hard experience by the Dorsland Trekkers in the late 1800s.
The trek party of roughly 300 boere families and their agricultural retinue reached the area hoping to find water. A mirage fooled them into thinking they had found the precious fluid and the deceit gave Deception Valley its name. Approximately half of the families perished. The descendants of the survivors still farm around the Ghanzi area.
The local inhabitants of this stretch of the Kalahari are San Bushmen of the Basarawa tribe.
Part 2 of this article found here
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Vacationtechnician personalized luxury adventure travel transports you to the most exquisite wilderness and chill out retreats on Earth. Conserving rare biodiversity through low volume tourism; our aim is your indulgence -at no one's expense. Plan now to be assured a rejuvenating escape at a restful pace -to an unspoiled gem in the purest sense.
North Island: One hour by launch out of Victoria, the Seychelles islands' sleepy capital (I opted out of the chopper ride), I waded ashore at North Island, a just-opened private island hideaway cum eco-Noah's Ark in the turquoise waters of the Indian Ocean. I found my way to the main lodge, designed by South African architect Silvio Rech to dramatize the Seychelles' ancient role as a crossroads of Asian, Indian and African cultures. Rech underlined the theme with a hand-crafted ensemble of rich woods, intricate details and contrasting textures: The lodge's floors gleam with teak and sand-blasted pine, and thick, gnarled trunks of takamaka and casuarina trees support thatch roofs woven by Balinese artisans from imported ylang-ylang fronds. And not a wall in sight: The "rooms" are open to every tropical breeze and sea sound. The result is beyond stylish. It is, as a visiting Londoner observed, "achingly hip and sexy--the perfect place for a fashion shoot." Robinson Crusoe, meet Giorgio Armani.
Not bad for an island that Jon Duncan, North Island's environmental manager, tells me "had been abandoned and ecologically degraded for decades." Enter Wilderness Safaris, which operates upscale, ecologically responsible safari lodges and bush camps in seven African countries. In 1998 Wilderness introduced what Duncan calls "the Noah's Ark concept"--a total ecological restoration to protect and restore North Island's native flora and fauna. Some of the species to be reintroduced, such as the giant Aldabra tortoises for which the islands are famous and the Seychelles magpie robin, are rare, and this may be one of the only places you'll see one in the wild.
Arriving at my villa, an imposing spread of nearly 5,000 square feet, I'm happy to see that nonendangered humans are also well-sheltered on North Island. Each of the island's 11 secluded thatch-roof villas has its own distinctive setting. In my villa, number 2, the master bedroom comes with a 180-degree view of the sea, floors of burnished teak and, under a cathedral ceiling, an immense bed carved from dark Indonesian wood. My compound also includes a plunge pool and a study with satellite TV and high-speed Internet connections. And of course Nisbert, my personal butler, has his own spiffy little kitchen to see to my drinks and snacks.
It's hard to break away from these posh digs. According to one staff member, "Some guests, especially honeymooners and big names, immediately vanish into their villas for their entire stay." Too bad. Outside, they could prowl the island's coral reefs or swim with the docile whale sharks that hang out just offshore.
Back at the ranch, Chef Geoffrey Murray, formerly of SoHo's Boom and Miami's Bang, prepares a flavorful and refined fusion of traditional Seychellois cuisines: Asian, Indian, African and French. Says Geoff, "When you blend local produce with Creole flavors, something wonderful happens." Geoff's happenings usually involve tuna, sea bass, snapper and other fish caught minutes before in North Island's waters, often by guests, and grilled over a banana-leaf fire. The lodge's outdoor dining area, like the rest of North Island, combines the rustic with the refined: simple tables crafted from weathered timber set with Milanese linens, French porcelain and glasses of Reidel crystal.
The dining area also attracts an unusual clientele: large hawksbill turtles that crawl ashore to nest on the beaches, sometimes at tableside. No charge for the floor show.
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Vacationtechnician personalized luxury adventure travel transports you to the most exquisite wilderness and chill out retreats on Earth. Conserving rare biodiversity through low volume tourism; our aim is your indulgence -at no one's expense. Plan now to be assured a rejuvenating escape at a restful pace -to an unspoiled gem in the purest sense.
The Okavango Delta comprises approximately 18 000 square kilometres of pristine wilderness that covers both permanent water and seasonal floodplains.
Within both these ecosystems one will find various localized habitats ranging from deep -water lagoons and shallow wetlands to riverine forests and dry woodland, all linked by a myriad waterways and extensive tracts of grassland.
Visitors to the Delta often ask which of the many destinations is most representative or typical of the Okavango. Any objective answer would surely include the Jao Concession very near the top of that list.
Situated in the central regions of the Delta, Jao straddles the divide between the permanent and seasonal water habitats, allowing visitors an insight to both systems and the faunal and floral highlights that are associated with each. There is very little of the Okavango's terrain that is not in some way captivating, but there is something seductive about the mix of extensive floodplains, waterways and heavily wooded islands that make up most of this concession.
Besides the visual splendour, Jao offers fantastic birding and great game-viewing throughout the year, and is one of the Delta's prime areas for being poled about in a mokoro the traditional african dug-out canoe.
Until 1998, the Jao Concession had been in the hands of one of Botswana's most notorious hunting operations. That era came to an end when the Kayes family was awarded the concession for what is in effect a 15-year lease. Now fifth-generation Motswanan, the Kayes have a long and distinguished association with Ngamiland, which includes being proud members of the Batawana tribe. It is fitting that one of the Okavango's prime concessions should now be in responsible local hands.
Since the change-over, Jao has lost its association with notorious hunting practices and assumed the mantle of innovator. The design and layout of the concession's flagship lodge, which also goes by the name of Jao, has forsaken the concept of what the traditional Okavango camp has become over the last two decades. It has made an audacious and courageous statement about the way a segment of the tourism market in Botswana may be headed by accommodating the finer comforts, which until now have been the domain of lodges in East and South Africa. In so doing, it has brought a fresh and expansive dimension to the photographic sector and has placed itself firmly amongst the top few of what can only be termed the luxury end of the market. Its sister camp, Kwetsani, offers similar safari refinement but on a smaller scale.
On a less conspicuous level, but with potentially far more significant ramifications, is the decision by the Kayes to forgo all hunting and fishing rights for the time being on what is categorised by Botswana's wildlife authorities as a hunting concession.
In doing so they have become the first concession-holders in the Okavango Delta to take a bold stand on the issue of hunting. Besides the obvious ethical and emotional issues, the decision will challenge some of the long-held socio-economic beliefs about hunting's contribution to the tourism economy. In essence, the Kayes believe that photographic safaris can be as financially lucrative as hunting safaris but, more importantly, in the long term they believe there are far more substantial benefits to be gained that involve investment, employment, education, training and the environment.
Some of the statistics make interesting reading. For the 1999 and 2000 seasons combined, the Jao Concession was entitled to shoot a total of 693 animals covering 24 different species, which included three lion, eight leopard, 14 buffalo, 12 elephants, 40 zebra, 46 wildebeest, 188 lechwe, 10 kudu and 20 hyena. For the hunting operators, the big money is in the big game.
On average, a 21-day elephant hunt (which would in all likelihood include other species as well) will cost a client between US$38 000 and US$45 000. Over the two-year period with 12 elephants on license, that is a total of approximately US$498 000 gross income.
By comparison, 12 photographic tourists each spending 21 days on safari would only gross approximately US$126 000. (The fact that hunting operations are able to charge upwards of three times the daily accommodation rate that photographic lodges do has always been an intriguing anomaly between the two industries. There has to be a reason, although it has yet to be articulated logically.)
Notwithstanding these numbers, the Kayes have chosen not to hunt Jao's quota of animals and have instead turned the concession's allocated areas into photographic camps. They are banking on sound marketing over a 12-month period (the hunting season is a six-month period) to make the camps profitable.
Another way of looking at it is that they have chosen to invest a greater amount of capital in the tourism industry by building a photographic camp. A camp of this nature will also entail employing a lot more people over a longer period - all to make less money in the short term. Whatever the eventual outcome, they deserve to be applauded for having the courage to put social and environmental benevolence ahead of financial gain. Maybe they are just ahead of their time?
Although Jao and the Kayes have not been without criticism, most of which has stemmed from their detractors' inability to accept a fundamental departure away from what has been the norm, they have seen through their first season very successfully.
In embracing change, the concession has set new standards that will in all likelihood become the yardstick in years to come. It will be interesting to see how the rest of the industry responds.
The Jao Concession presently has three camps within its boundaries, with a fourth to be built in the near future. Jao, a 16-bedded lodge, and Kwetsani, an eight-bedded lodge, both cater to the luxury end of the market, while Jacana is a more rustic eight-bedded option.
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Vacationtechnician personalized luxury adventure travel transports you to the most exquisite wilderness and chill out retreats on Earth. Conserving rare biodiversity through low volume tourism; our aim is your indulgence -at no one's expense. Plan now to be assured a rejuvenating escape at a restful pace -to an unspoiled gem in the purest sense.
vacationtechnician.com Botswana Safari Guide Profiles: Gareth Flemix
"best guides = best safaris~a bad guide in the best camp will ruin your safari."
Gareth was born in Cape Town, South Africa. He speaks 3 languages (English, Afrikaans, and Shangaan)
Gareth has worked for some of the top Game reserves in the Eastern Transvaal in South Africa. He was guiding and involved in habitat management at Mala Mala and Singita (Voted the best game lodge in South Africa), and was the head guide at Ulusaba reserve.
Gareth lives by the philosophy �the best room is room for improvement� which he applies to the running of Kwando Safaris Lebala camp and to his life in general. His personal interests include game drives, bush walks, birding, photography, botany and studying the behaviour of leopard and wild dogs.
He is comfortable with guests from around the world having visited Germany, Austria, Italy, Holland, UK, Switzerland, France, Mozambique, Zambia, Namibia, Angola, Malawi, Kenya, Tanzania, Swaziland, Zimbabwe and Thailand.
In addition to many years of still photography he is now passionate about video photography and due to the opportunities presented by Lebala camp he is working on making some video films of what he sees around him every day. Personable, knowledgeable, and one a hell of a 4x4 driver make time with Gareth a precious commodity. vacationtechnician recommends that you book Gareth for private game drives at least 12 months in advance due to the limited availability of rooms in the luxurious Kwando Lebala Camp.
Report from Lebala:
Gareth Flemix, Kwando Safaris camp manager at Lebala Camp in the Okavango Delta, Botswana, wrote on 9 Oct. 2002:
During my time here at Lebala, I have noticed a definite symbiotic relationship between baboon and impala. I have also noticed baboons interacting with other antelope species. On two occasions I have seen a troop of baboons not far from the Camp feeding with a herd of Roan antelope. Both of these occasions were at midday (11:00 � 12.10). It was in an area of tall thatch grass, Acacia tortilis, Acacia luderitzii, and sausage trees (Kigelia africana). While the Roan were resting, I observed them rubbing and thrashing small trees, I presume for territorial status. As soon as the Roan moved away, the Baboons rushed over to feed on these trees and bushes. After feeding they rested, staying in the area. Then the Roan returned, perhaps having gone to drink, and stayed in the shade among the Baboons.
I observed some of the adult baboons getting very close to some of the Roan. It seemed to me that both species were comfortable in each others presence, quite unusual for Roan, which are shy by nature to other species.
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Vacationtechnician personalized luxury adventure travel transports you to the most exquisite wilderness and chill out retreats on Earth. Conserving rare biodiversity through low volume tourism; our aim is your indulgence -at no one's expense. Plan now to be assured a rejuvenating escape at a restful pace -to an unspoiled gem in the purest sense.
vacationtechnician.com Botswana Safari Guide Profiles: Richard Randall
Richard who speaks English and French, is a vacationtechnician professional guide with more than 30 years of bush experience in Southern Africa. He is a citizen of Botswana and lives in Maun. Richard is one of the best ornithologists and birdwatchers in Southern Africa, and is considered one of the top safari guides.
No wonder he was given the responsibility to share his knowledge and the beauty of the bush with thousands of people from around the world, among them Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton former President of the United States.
Richard always tries to show the bush as an amazing ecological complex of organisms, small and big, all of which he considers equaly important and fascinating. The wildlife of Africa is much bigger than the spectacular mammals that we all love and want to photograph, and in the process we miss the whole immense drama of life.
"the best guides = the best safaris~ a bad guide in the best camp will ruin your safari."
Je suis arriv� en Afrique australe en 1957 a l�age de cinq ans avec mes parents qui avaient �migr� l� de l'Europe. Tr�s t�t j'ai d�velopp� un int�r�t vif en ce qui concerne, en effet une passion pour, la faune qui abondait dans beaucoup de parcs dans notre nouveau pays la Rhod�sie, maintenant le Zimbabwe. La plupart des mes vacances ont �t� pass�es dans la nature o� je pouvais �tudier la flore et faune locale. Plus tard, pendant que j��tait '� l'�cole secondaire et ensuite � l'universit�, j'augmentais mon horizon de naturaliste pour inclure des visites aux parcs et r�serves au Kenya, au Mozambique, en Afrique du Sud et au Malawi. J'ai travaill� pendant quelques ann�es en tant qu'administrateur de gouvernement dans des endroits �loign�s et sauvages du Zimbabwe.
J'ai visit� la premi�re fois le delta de l�Okavango en 1977 et j�etais tellement impression� que j'ai d�cid� plus tard de me d�placer l�, prenant le poste de Directeur des Op�rations et Naturaliste pour une compagnie de safari bas�e au coeur du delta. Pendant mon temps dans le Delta j'ai accompagn� beaucoup de groupes et d�individus en promenades 4x4, � pied et en de bateau, et j�ai form� les guides professionnels locaux. Certains de ces groupes �taient associ�s avec des mus�es ou les �tablissements universitaires (par exemple l�universit� de Harvard, le mus�e Smithsonian et la California Academy of Science). J'ai �galement men� des groupes de langue fran�aise, ayant appris le fran�ais � partir de ma m�re qui �tait parisienne. En 1992 j'ai obtenue le poste de Directeur G�n�ral et Naturaliste dans un nouveau et grand loge de safari � Kasane, dans le nord lointain du Botswana. J'�tait responsable de 12 guides professionnels et j�ai personnellement pris en charge le guidage sp�cialis�.
Pendant mon temps l�-bas, j'ai guid� sur demande, des groupes, des familles et des personalit�s internationaux. Parmi le dernier �taient le Pr�sident du Botswana, le Pr�sident Rawlings du Ghana, le Premier Ministre de la Malaisie, Princesse Alexandra du Royaume Uni et, en 1998, j�ai �t� s�lectionn� p�r la Miason Blanche des Etas Unis pour conduire un Safari sp�cialement pour le Pr�sident Clinton des et son �pouse Hilary. Depuis juillet 2002 j'ai r�sid� dans la ville de Maun, et j�ai tenu le poste de G�rant d�une compagnie de safari, ou je travaille aussi comme guide professionnel pour des exp�ditions dans le delta de l�Okavango, les parcs de Mor�mi et de Chob�. Mes int�r�ts entournent les mammif�res, les oiseaux (je suis membre du Comit� de BirdLife Botswana), les reptiles, les amphibies, la flore et l'astronomie. Je suis un citoyen du Botswana.
Apart l�anglais et le fran�ais, je parle aussi le Setswana (du Botswana) et le Shona.(du Zimbabwe).
KWANDO SAFARIS G�RE 4 CAMPS, INTIMES, PRIV�S ET PERSONNELS.
� Kwara Camp situ� au sein des 175. 000 hectares de la concession de Kwara, dans le delta de l�Okavango
� Lebala Camp situ� dans la partie sud des 232.000 hectares de la concession de Kwando
� Lagoon Camp situ� dans la partie nord des 232.000 hectares de la concession de Kwando
� Songwe Village situ� pr�s des chutes du lac Victoria Zambia sur 125 hectares de terrain priv�.
POUR QUOI KWANDO SAFARIS & vacationtechnician.com?
Kwando Safaris a �t� fond� afin d�offrir aux amateurs l�exp�rience unique d�un vrai safari africain � Tout ce que vous attendiez.
� Kwando Safaris n�organise ses safaris que dans des zones enti�rement priv�es.
� Nos camps sont ouverts toute l�ann�e.
� Pas plus de 6 h�tes par v�hicule.
� Nous organisons des randonn�es d�observation des animaux sauvages en dehors des pistes.
� Nous organisons des randonn�es nocturnes d�observation des animaux sauvages (30% des animaux les plus fascinants sont essentiellement nocturnes).
� Nous utilisons des bateaux � deux ponts d�observation afin de garantir une visibilit� panoramique maximale.
� Nous avons recours � des guides et traqueurs afin de maximaliser les possibilit�s d�observation de toutes les esp�ces.
� Nous proposons un tarif tout compris. � Pas plus de 8 tentes (16 lits) dans chaque camp.
� 3 repas sains et nutritifs chaque jour.
� Nos tarifs comprennent toutes les boissons alcoolis�es y compris les grandes marques, les vins, les autres boissons et les boissons fra�ches.
� Nos camps du Botswana, avec Songwe Village constituent un ensemble de 5 grandes destinations de safari.
� Service de r�ception et de reconduite � l�a�roport de Maun.
� Des camps intimes dans des emplacements priv�s avec un service personnel de style africain.
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Vacationtechnician personalized luxury adventure travel transports you to the most exquisite wilderness and chill out retreats on Earth. Conserving rare biodiversity through low volume tourism; our aim is your indulgence -at no one's expense. Plan now to be assured a rejuvenating escape at a restful pace -to an unspoiled gem in the purest sense.
SOUL SAFARI SANGOMA� :: CHRIS STORMER
9 � 20 OCTOBER 2004
Join vacationtechnician.com for the journey of a lifetime into the rich and diverse cultures of Africa. An adventure for the soul awaits you beneath the warm African sun and delivers the opportunity to connect with the land, the people and the creatures that call this powerful continent their home.
�It is not just about dreams coming true,
but also about being true to our dreams� - Skyros
vacationtechnician.com Soul Safaris through South Africa offers an intimate look at African culture and spirituality. Our objective is for our guests to integrate and interact, rather than remain simply tourist-spectators.
Guided & facilitated by Chris Stormer, this journey offers you a wonderful opportunity to gain a new perspective on life and an increased awareness of what it means to feel fully alive. Chris, the 'Universal Foot Lady,' is a recognized world authority on natural health and healing and foot reflexology.
While enjoying a well-deserved holiday, you can also taste something totally new, while developing skills and interests that expand your personal horizons. We invite you to relax, grow, share, laugh, enlighten and truly experience an AMAZING getaway!
Sketch Itinerary:
09 Oct: Land and orientate with accommodation arranged at a tranquil guesthouse in Johannesburg.
10 Oct: Morning Tour of Soweto. See the best of the sights after which a visit the the Hartebeestpoort African craft market. Meet VASAMAZULU CREDO MUTWA, our High Sanusi, who is the highest ranking Zulu Sangoma in the land, and overnight at Naledi House, which means �House of Enlightenment�
11 Oct: Travel to White Elephant Lodge
11 � 13 Oct: Enjoy the Wisdom of Elephants Ecotherapy experience with Mandy Young � An introspective game experience with wild elephants at White Elephant Bush Camp
14 � 16 Oct: Holistic Dolphin-Swim delight with Chris Stormer in Southern Mozambique
17 & 18 Oct: Visit Milimani Game Sanctuary, a haven for distressed or injured wildlife and visit the local village, an Inyanga (herbalist) and an African cr�che
19 Oct: Return to Johannesburg for an extra-ordinary night at the theatre with AFRICAN FOOTPRINTS then overnight at your guesthouse in Johannesburg
20 Oct: Breakfast & transfer to airport for your return flight
Detailed Itinerary:
09 Oct: Johannesburg International Apt � Guesthouse
You will be met on arrival at the Johannesburg International Airport and transferred to the guesthouse in Rivonia, Johannesburg.
This evening a welcome and introductions circle will be arranged to give everybody a change to meet and connect with Chris Stormer and the vacationtechnician team of co-facilitators.
Enjoy a relaxed dinner at Chris�s home, which is near your guesthouse.
Find out more about Chris Stormer.
10 Oct: Soweto, Hartebeest Craft Market & Naledi House
A guided morning tour of Soweto, visiting some of the most interesting sites, including Credo Mutwa�s �kraal� and Madiba�s house during the struggling apartheid years. A traditional lunch at a private house included.
Afterwards we drive to the Hartebeestpoort dam Craft Market, approximately 50 minutes away to one of the biggest craft markets in Southern Africa giving you the opportunity to collect arts and craft from all the regions and tribes of Africa.
Later in the afternoon, we relax and enjoy sundowners at Naledi House, a beautiful guesthouse not far from Hartebeestpoort. Nestled between a range of mountains that have witnessed the passage of unimaginable ages and with the Hennops River flowing nearby and abundant bird life, Naledi is a lush oasis in serene, rocky surroundings.
Here you will also have the honour of meeting VASAMAZULU CREDO MUTWA, our High Sanusi, the highest ranking Zulu Sangoma in the land, who is a highly regarded healer, shaman, spiritual leader and author, well known for one of his many books, Indaba My Children
Credo Mutwa will hold you spellbound with legends, tales and anecdotes of Africa, as he shares sacred information and leads a traditional African ceremony, at his Indaba Kraal at Naledi House, which only a few privileged novices have ever experienced.
A wholesome dinner follows these inspirational proceedings.
11, 12 & 13 Oct: Naledi House � WHITE Elephant Bush Camp
After a nourishing breakfast and we travel for approximately six hours to the White Elephant Bush Camp, in the Pongola Game Reserve.
White Elephant Bush Camp offers a tranquil retreat for those seeking an authentic bush experience. Set in a shady thicket of Knobthorn trees, the Bush Camp is completely at one with nature and the landscape. We stay in spacious thatched chalets, which are stylishly yet simply decorated in African hues to complement the spectacular views of the Lebombo Mountains and Lake Jozini Traditional bush comforts, uncomplicated dining beside an open fire, moonlit night skies and flickering shadows all add to the serenity and harmony with nature.
During your stay you are invited to participate in the 3-day �Wisdom of Elephants� experience facilitated by Mandy Young.
BRIEF INTRODUCTION TO THE PROGRAM:
Each game drive, facilitated by Mandy Young, offers an introspective experience while observing the wild elephants, whose whereabouts is not always predictable.
The eco-therapy group sessions provide an ideal opportunity to rest fraught psyches, whilst learning more instinctual ways of just being. The sessions assist in reconnecting to one�s true spirit through the interconnectedness with other species and the earth we all share.
MEET THE PROGRAM FACILITATOR:
Mandy Young, a Theta accredited Field Guide, has been actively involved as a psychotherapist, researcher, tutor and lecturer at the University of Cape Town since 1979. She assists children, adults, teenagers and students with depressive, abuse, addictive tendancies and counsels others through grief and trauma.
For the last 7 years she has studied the African Wild Dogs at wildlife reserves throughout South Africa and Zimbabwe, and more recently she has specifically focused on mothering behavior in elephants. Mandy finds that her wilderness experiences and research provide important understandings in assisting others overcome personal difficulties and challenges.
14, 15 & 16 Oct: White Elephant to Ponta d�Ouro
After an early breakfast, we take a short trip to Mozambique, where we stay at Ponta d�Ouro, Point of Gold. Here resident pods of over a hundred dolphins can be seen frolicking in the surf.
This is where there are several opportunities to encounter these playful, curious and highly intelligent mammals on their own terms - in the Big Blue. Dolphins seem to possess an extraordinary ability to trigger an often incomprehensible healing process and just being in their presence seems to evoke a feeling of profound inner peace and joy.
During the 3-day dolphin experience, Chris takes us on a journey of "What is a Foot" in a playful and creative way. Through studying the characteristics of your own feet you will receive fascinating insights about your character, your potential and challenges.
Drum circles facilitated by our professional musician, Vaughan Harris, and a sound journey, also form part of this wonderful program. During a sound journey you simply lie down and close your eyes to be massaged and mesmerized by a variety of soothing, harmonious sounds, produced completely by Vaughan and his experienced assistant. These powerful and evocative sounds are guaranteed to create �an energized calmness�. The use of many of the world�s indigenous instruments, with a range of birdcalls and an overtone of voices, crease a personal and totally rejuvenating experience, which is cherished as one of the highlights.
Please take a look at additional details on our dolphin research, our dolphin swim programs and facilities.
17 & 18 Oct: Ponta d�Ouro to Milimani
After an early morning swim with the dolphins and a tasty brunch we travel for approximately four hours to the Milimani Wildlife Sanctuary, nestled in the Rooirante mountain range of northern Kwa-Zulu Natal. Milimani is a safe-haven for distressed or injured wildlife and depending on timing, it may be possible to witness the delivery or the release of these animals.
Here a Sangoma will share his extensive knowledge of, amongst other things, the use of trees and shrubs for medicinal purposes. Around a campfire at night Zulu traditions and rituals frequently practiced by local Sangomas are shared whilst local children sing and dance with their abundant enthusiasm.
A guided visit to the local KwaDlakuse village is an exceptional and truly humbling experience. The residents greet guests with their embracing warmth and are extremely grateful for the interest in their lives. The children of the cr�che eagerly share their inherit love of music and dance, and we love to entertain visitors with their chaotic singing, so endearing of young people. Lois, our hostess, says �I am continually seduced by the warmth and friendship of this village, and it is Milimani�s privilege to be able to share it with visitors�,
19 Oct: Milimani to JHB Guesthouse
After a scrumptious breakfast, we take about six hours to drive back to Johannesburg to spend your last night in South Africa at the Kingsway Guesthouse in Rivonia.
This vacationtechnician.com Soul Safari ends on a high note with the spectacular performance of AFRICAN FOOTPRINTS, which is Richard Loring's dream being fulfilled as South African youth, especially talented young black dancers, become empowered through theatre. His vision is a high energy, awesome song and dance of emerging talents, known as an "Explosive Stampede of Song and Dance" a truly uplifting and emotional finale to this incredible Journey of the Soul.
Dinner will be enjoyed at a restaurant at Gold Reef City before the show � own account.
20 Oct: Guesthouse to JHB International Airport
Arrangements for an airport transfer will ensure that you get to the airport in good time your return flight.
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(An optional add-on to Cape Town can be arranged for those interested to visit the �Mother City�).
�Words fail miserably to describe this experience. You owe it to yourself and the universe to take this moving journey, which explodes your senses and sets your soul soaring� - Biff Fraser, Scotland
RATE:
2,702.87 USD per person sharing.
INCLUDED:
� Two nights at the guesthouse in Johannesburg on a bed & breakfast basis
� Dinner at Chris Stormer�s house on first night of arrival
� One night at Naledi House on a dinner, bed & breakfast basis
� Morning city tour of Soweto, including lunch and excursion to the Hartebeestpoort arts & craft market
� Three nights at the White Elephant Bush Camp on a dinner, bed & brunch basis.
� Wisdom of Elephant program facilitated by Mandy Young, including 4 game drives to observe the elephants
� Three nights at Dolphin Encountours on a Dinner, Bed & Brunch basis
� Full comprehensive snorkeling course & educational code of conduct slide show regarding the dolphin encounters
� Three launches to swim with the dolphins
� Full holistic program during the dolphin package, including a facilitated drum circle and sound journey
� Two nights at Milimani Game Sanctuary on a fully inclusive basis, including all activities and game drives
� Excursion to watch the AFRICAN FOOTPRINTS dance & music show
� All transfers and transport from and to the JHB International Airport as per itinerary.
� Full itinerary guided and facilitated by CHRIS STORMER
EXCLUDED:
� International Airfare
� Items of personal nature
� Drinks
� Lunches unless otherwise stated as per itinerary
� Dinner at Gold Reef City (prior to African Footprint performance)
� Fees & gratuity to Credo Mutwa for ceremonies & storytelling events
� Visa to enter Mozambique (30 USD per person)
� All other gratuities to staff members and game personnel (optional)
� Donation the the African village (optional)
� Travel insurance & medical insurance IMPORTANT NOTICE:
DUE TO CURRENCY FLUCTUATIONS AND UNFORSEEN INCREASES RATE IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE .
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Vacationtechnician personalized luxury adventure travel transports you to the most exquisite wilderness and chill out retreats on Earth. Conserving rare biodiversity through low volume tourism; our aim is your indulgence -at no one's expense. Plan now to be assured a rejuvenating escape at a restful pace -to an unspoiled gem in the purest sense.
A Rhino in Botswana's Okavango Delta sizes up vacationtechnician wildlife-watchers. "Safaris might be the key to winning the conservation battle in Africa," says Colin Bell, whose company won the World Legacy Award in the Nature Travel category.
On June 8, 2004, at National Geographic's Washington, D.C., headquarters, Queen Noor of Jordan is scheduled to again present the World Legacy Awards (WLA) for sustainable tourism�a joint program of National Geographic Traveler magazine and Conservation International (www.wlaward.org).
Queen Noor presided over the first WLA ceremony last year, announcing winners in three categories: Nature Travel, Heritage Tourism, and Destination Stewardship. Each winner works to protect the natural and cultural quality of the places we visit, supports local communities, and gives us lasting travel memories.
This week, in anticipation of the 2004 ceremony, we present the winners of 2003 as described in Traveler (September 2003), starting with the Nature
Wilderness Safaris, Southern Africa
"To me, there is no more uplifting, inspirational, or educational form of travel than a safari," Colin Bell, founder of Wilderness Safaris, tells me. So I'm learning in northern Namibia at the company's Skeleton Coast Camp, a 600,000-acre (240,000-hectare) reserve, one of 44 eco-friendly Wilderness Safari camps in seven African countries. The experience is more than just touring Earth's oldest desert (55 million years) with sand dunes that vibrate and hum under the chilly Atlantic winds. It's more than tracking springbok and desert elephant; more than combing beaches flecked with garnet, agate, and diamond; more even than visiting the nomadic Himba to witness their centuries-old way of life. It's complete immersion in the large, fantastic world of the desert.
When I ask if any industrial use threatens this land, our amiable guide, Douw Steyn, says, "Yes. It's widely used in the tourist trade." He shows us a gravel plain lacerated by the truck tires of joyriding tourists, saying the tracks will take a century or more to disappear. Southern Africa-based Wilderness Safaris, by contrast, has built its reputation on minimizing tourism damage and maximizing its benefits to both people and nature.
At the Mombo Camp in Botswana's Okavango Delta, for instance, my gin and tonic came with a slide show on the Wilderness Safaris backed rhino reintroduction program here. Poachers eradicated rhinos here in the early 1980s, but now 21 white rhinos nibble about. On a walking safari at Jao Camp, also in the Okavango, local guide Frank Mashebe thrilled guests by unlocking the secrets of�of all things�termite mounds. (They have an air-conditioning system, for instance).
Wilderness Safaris won its award partly because it hires, trains, and promotes talented locals like Mashebe. At Botswana's Savuti Camp, another skilled guide, Benson Siyawareva, tracked down the rare African wild dog, or "painted wolf." Only 5,000 or so still roam, but he finds a pack of 16�the gift of conservation.
"Our conservation ethic and community-based tourism model have resulted in threatened land becoming protected," Bell tells me. "And our Children in the Wilderness project, which has given week-long safaris to a thousand underprivileged African children, should help create the next generation of African conservationists."
For more information book via safari specialists such as New York-based vacationtechnician.com.
Watch for the Heritage Tourism winner in two weeks, and the announcement of the 2004 World Legacy winners on June 8.
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Vacationtechnician personalized luxury adventure travel transports you to the most exquisite wilderness and chill out retreats on Earth. Conserving rare biodiversity through low volume tourism; our aim is your indulgence -at no one's expense. Plan now to be assured a rejuvenating escape at a restful pace -to an unspoiled gem in the purest sense.
13 Day / 12 Night Traditional Mobile Safari (Maun � Maun)
Highlights Nxai Pan National Park, Moremi Game Reserve and the Okavango Delta
vacationtechnician.com detailed itinerary..
Day 1 � 3: Mobile Safari in Nxai Pan National Park (Full Board)
Your safari begins in Maun, the gateway to the Okavango Delta. Your specialist birding guide will meet you on arrival at Maun airport. Your first three nights will be spent camping in an exclusive wilderness campsite in the Nxai Pan National Park, exploring the surrounding wilderness on game drives.
Once part of the great lake that spread over most of northern Botswana, Nxai Pan National Park mainly consists of a series of fossil pans covered in short, nutritious grasses and dotted with islands of Acacia trees under which animals often retreat to rest during the heat of the day. A cluster of seven baobab trees, referred to as Baines Baobabs, form a historical landmark, which was used by early explorers.
During the summer rains (Nov � March), Nxai Pan becomes transformed to a green wonderland, abounding with larges herds of animals accompanied by their offspring. The veld flowers are spectacular at this time of year. A wealth of birdlife can be seen in the region, including the commonly sighted Black Korhaan, Kgori Bustards (the worlds heaviest flying bird), Kestrels, Falcons, Goshawks and Coursers to name a few.
Day 4: Lodge Accommodation at Tree Lodge in Maun (L,D,B&B)
After breakfast and an early morning game drive, you will return to Maun. Following a leisurely lunch, you may embark on a scenic flight, enjoying a birds eye view of the Okavango Delta. Tonight you will be staying at Tree Lodge which is situated on a private game farm on the outskirts of Maun. The lodge has ideal riverine habitat that makes for great late afternoon birding. The Thamalakane river offers the opportunity to see species like Lesser Grebe and Fulvous Ducks. The lodge has a resident pair of Giant Eagle Owls and the call of the Scops and Pearl Spotted Owls are common.
Day 5 � 12: Mobile Safari in Moremi Game Reserve and the Okavango Delta (Full Board)
The Okavango is a unique ecosystem, an inland delta situated in the middle of the largest stretch of continuous sand in the world � the Kalahari basin. This wetland lies like an oasis in an otherwise inhospitable landscape. Where land and delta meet, a mosaic of pans, grasslands, forests and lagoons provide an extremely rich and diverse habitat where a multitude of animals and birds flourish. Moremi Game Reserve is situated in the eastern corner of the Okavango Delta.
You will spend the first three nights camping in an exclusive wilderness campsite in the Xakanaxa region of the reserve, exploring this oasis on game drives. This area boasts magnificent scenery as well as a multitude of bird and animal life. This is one of the few accessible areas where wet and dry habitats meet. Take this opportunity to find Wattled Cranes, Slaty Egrets and a variety of waders in the shallow pools. The woodlands are home to Arnots Chat, Orioles and the constant calls of the Woodland Kingfishers.
Day 8: you will embark on an island adventure deep in the heart of the Okavango Delta, exploring the endless network of crystal clear waterways and secret lagoons by motor boat, and the surrounding palm fringed islands on foot. This swampland is home to the elusive Sitatunga antelope as well as a variety of spectacular bird life including the elusive Pels Fishing Owl and a host of migrant birds. You will spend two nights camping on a remote island with only the bear essentials � a true wilderness experience. The waterways are prime habitat for Lesser Jacana and Malachite Kingfishers. The dense riverine vegetation is home to the shy Purple Galinules and Greater Swamp Warbler.
Day 10 we return to dry land and make our way towards the Khwai region of the reserve, enjoying a game drive and picnic lunch en route. The Khwai River forms the eastern boundary of the Moremi Game Reserve. Vast herds of buffalo and elephant are common in the dry season with regular sightings of leopard, lion and cheetah. This area is one of the best in Botswana for raptors like Martial, Steppe and Booted Eagles.
The following three nights will be spent camping at a Khwai community private operators camp site on the border of the Moremi Game Reserve, exploring the area on game drives both during the day and at night. Exploring after dark with spotlights offers you an opportunity to experience some of the nocturnal animals that are rarely encountered during the day. You will also have the opportunity to explore the surrounding wilderness on foot and enjoy an up close and personal encounter with Botswana flora and fauna. It is important to note that night drives and guided walks are not permitted within the National Parks and Reserves. These activities are conducted outside the boundaries of the Moremi Game Reserve in the Khwai community area.
Day 13: Safari Ends
Following breakfast and an early morning game drive, you will be transferred to Maun Airport for your onward journey.
Package Price
Off-Peak Season: US$2468.00 per person sharing (No single supplement subject to booking terms and conditions)
Includes
� Airport transfers
� 1 Night lodge accommodation at Tree Lodge (L,D,B&B)
� 11 Night mobile tented safari with Game Trails on a Traditional Mobile Safari basis, including the services of a professional guide, camp manageress and full staff compliment with support vehicle, tented accommodation with shared ablution facilities, transfers and game drives in customized safari vehicles (guaranteed window seat), the use of exclusive mobile operator campsites within the national parks and reserves, all entrance and camping fees, all meals and drinks (mineral water, soft drinks, beer and wine).
� Two day motor boat excursion in the Okavango Delta
� 10% Vat
Excludes
� International and domestic flights
� Travel and medical insurance (manditory on all vacationtechnician.com safaris)
� Visas
� Drinks at Tree Lodge
2004 Scheduled Safari Dates
Arrive Maun Depart Maun Season Availability
20 November 2 December Off-Peak Seats Available
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Vacationtechnician personalized luxury adventure travel transports you to the most exquisite wilderness and chill out retreats on Earth. Conserving rare biodiversity through low volume tourism; our aim is your indulgence -at no one's expense. Plan now to be assured a rejuvenating escape at a restful pace -to an unspoiled gem in the purest sense.
It's the beginning of a new era for private jet travel. Within the next two years, the luxury air industry will welcome a new category of entry-level, ultra-light, business jets. These planes will be constructed of light weight materials and have advanced designs, lighter engines and sophisticated avionic systems.
This is important news for you, as a vacationtechnician.com customer. Ultimately, it will mean lower costs for your point-to-point travel. As some of these aircraft qualify to become part of vacationtechnician's network, their lighter weight will require less fuel for each leg of a one way trip, therefore lowering your cost.
Currently, there are seven contenders in the super-light business jet category. They include: Adam Aircraft Industries (A500 & A700), Avocet Aircraft LLC/ Israel Aircraft Industries Ltd. (ProJet), Diamond Aircraft (Diamond Star DA-40 180), Eclipse Aviation Corp. (Eclipse 500) Japanese car maker Honda Motors in a joint manufacturing arrangement with General Electrics' Transportation Division (HF-118 engine and the HondaJet), Safire Aircraft (Safire Jet) and Textron Inc.'s Cessna (CitationMustang).
Most all of these planes will be ready for flight between the end of 2004 and 2009. They will cost between $1 million to $2.5 million. So, keep an eye out for opportunities to fly on these new birds. They'll offer lower costs per trip when chartering them!
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Vacationtechnician personalized luxury adventure travel transports you to the most exquisite wilderness and chill out retreats on Earth. Conserving rare biodiversity through low volume tourism; our aim is your indulgence -at no one's expense. Plan now to be assured a rejuvenating escape at a restful pace -to an unspoiled gem in the purest sense.
The atoll that time forgot: Aldabra Islands
Campaigners fear for future of giant tortoises and crabs.
For millennia the atoll known as Aldabra has bloomed in the absence of man. A speck in the Indian Ocean hundreds of miles from inhabited islands, it spawned tortoises big enough to knock over trees and crabs powerful enough to rip open coconuts.
White-throated rails, the last surviving flightless bird of the Indian Ocean, wandered the scrub, and in the lagoon darted sharks, ray, groupers and other exotic fish. Sailors occasionally landed but did not linger, for want of fresh water and timber.
But in the mid-1960s Britain appeared to deliver the unique ecosystem's death sentence by deciding to site a military base at Aldabra, effectively turning it into a giant aircraft carrier.
Campaigners rolled back that decision in what was feted as a landmark victory for the modern environmental movement, leaving the atoll's four main islands, Grande Terre, Malabar, Polymnie and Picard, largely untouched to this day.
Now that may change because a luxury safari camp is being planned for Aldabra. The age of ecotourism has caught up with the land that time forgot. The government of the Seychelles, the archipelago east of Africa which administers the atoll, has tendered for a resort to cater for the super-rich in anticipation of charging each visitor thousands of dollars a day.
The prospect has horrified conservationists. Tam Dalyell, the Labour MP who led opposition to the military base, vowed yesterday to launch a new campaign on behalf of Aldabra, which remains part of the British Indian Ocean Territory. "I am absolutely dismayed," he said. "It would alter the nature of the atoll. The idea was to keep it as pristine as possible."
Mr Dalyell, now the father of the House of Commons, said he would raise the issue in parliament when it resumes after the Easter break and lobby the Foreign Office.
But the South African company which has tendered to build the resort, Wilderness Safaris, said its environmental record was impeccable and it would manage the world heritage site better than scientists who, it said, treated the atoll as a private playground while stationed there for research.
"Why should it be scientists that have exclusive access? They can be the worst when it comes to looking after the environment," said a company director, Russel Friedman.
Aldabra is situated in the extreme south-west of the Seychelles archipelago, 375 miles east of Africa, 250 miles north-west of Madagascar and 685 miles south-west of the main Seychelles population centre, Mah�.
It is the world's largest raised coral atoll; its last submergence was about 125,000 years ago. It hosts endemic insects, plants and mammals, including 152,000 giant tortoises, the world's largest population of this reptile. Believed to live beyond 100 years, the tortoises weigh up to 250kg (39 stones) and are known to push over shrubs and small trees when foraging for food.
Robber crabs measuring up to a metre long - the world's largest terrestrial arthropods - rove the beaches and climb palm trees in search of coconuts, which they open with huge pincers. The world's second largest population of frigate birds use the atoll for their sanctuary.
Described by Sir David Attenborough as "one of the wonders of the world", the atoll was declared a world heritage site by the UN in 1982.
The government of the Seychelles, whose beaches attract celebrities such as the England rugby star Jonny Wilkinson, wants to attract rich tourists and for Aldabra to pay its own way.
"It costs us $500,000 a year to run Aldabra," Lindsey Chong Seng, executive director of the Seychelles Island Foundation (SIF) which manages Aldabra, told Reuters. "In order to maintain the atoll, we have to put Aldabra on a sustainable footing by introducing an upmarket eco-lodge."
He said plans included building six blocks, accommodating a total of 12 people, on the western island of Picard. Visitors will be expected to pay up to $2,000 (�1,090) a night.
Wilderness Safaris, a vacationtechnician.com partner, is the only company to have tendered, according to Mr Friedman. The Johannesburg-based company runs 48 lodges across southern Africa, many of them in environmentally sensitive areas.
Non-governmental organisations promised funding but it never materialised, Mr Friedman said, prompting the authorities to seek alternative means.
He envisaged a maximum of 20 visitors spending a week at a time on the atoll, adding that it would be better off hosting monitored tourists than PhD students duplicating predecessors' research.
"It's an awesome place, really amazing. If you go there and don't enjoy yourself there must be something wrong with you," Mr Friedman said.
But he said the company had asked the authorities to suspend the tender process for 12 months while the tourism market improved.
A marine researcher who spent several months on the island but declined to be named said a luxury safari camp would compound rising sea temperatures and erosion which are already threatening the ecosystem.
Mr Dalyell echoed those concerns, claiming that no matter how well intentioned, a resort would damage the atoll.
Paradise being lost
The Galapagos Islands
The Galapagos archipelago, 600 miles off Ecuador, was discovered by Charles Darwin and is home to giant tortoises, lava lizards and penguins. The ecosystem is threatened by fishermen demanding laxer laws and by the 2001 oil spill which killed 60% of the unique marine iguanas. The tourist trade is also a concern.
Great Barrier Reef
Off Queensland, the 1,250-mile long series of reefs is home to sharks, turtles and more than 1,500 types of fish. Concern that overfishing is depleting marine life has led to a law that will leave tourism the only permitted industry in one-third of the world heritage site. The million visitors a year bring problems of pollution.
Maldives
A chain of islands off the Indian sub-continent, the Maldives are a sought-after destination for scuba divers. But the coral reefs are being damaged by effluent by the tourist cabins. Global warming makes their disappearance a real possibility.
Antartica
Mining and mineral exploitation has been banned from the last great wilderness, which occupies a 10th of the plane. It is home to penguins, albatrosses, elephant seals and whales. But there is a also a burgeoning cruise industry. Environmentalists point out that if you leave a footprint in moss on Antartica it will take at least 10 years to recover.
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Vacationtechnician personalized luxury adventure travel transports you to the most exquisite wilderness and chill out retreats on Earth. Conserving rare biodiversity through low volume tourism; our aim is your indulgence -at no one's expense. Plan now to be assured a rejuvenating escape at a restful pace -to an unspoiled gem in the purest sense.
World Watch Advisory
vacationtechnician.com
04/12/04 22:45 GMT
Heavy flooding leaves at least 10 dead in Nairobi and in other Kenya provinces. Additional rains expected. Defer travel to affected areas if possible.
A week of heavy rains in Kenya's Nairobi, Nyanza, Central Rift Valley and Western Provinces has left at least 10 people dead as of April 12 and caused significant flooding rendering many rural roads impassable. Kenyan authorities advised Kenyans nationwide April 12 to expect heavier than usual rainfall during this year's rainy season (April-May). Flash floods in the town of Narok on April 10 cut off sections of Narok/Mai Mahiu road leading to the Masaai Mara Game Reserve leaving motorists stranded for several hours.
Areas that are susceptible to heavy rains, flooding and landslides include:
Central Province: The town of Murang'a could experience landslides.
Nairobi: Flooding is heaviest in areas with poor drainage systems, primarily in Nairobi's shantytowns.
Nyanza: The capital city of Kisumu, Kano plains, and in the districts of Homa Bay, Nyando are all experiencing heavy rains and flooding.
Rift Valley: Nandi district is experiencing heavy rains and flooding.
Western: Heavy rains in Mt. Elgon and in Cherangani hills will likely cause additional flooding in the towns of Budalangi, and Busia.
Postpone travel to rural areas if possible. If travel is unavoidable, carry plenty of bottled food and water, and a radio with spare batteries. A GPS is also recommended.
Expect road closures and detours; allow additional time to reach destinations. Avoid driving through water on roadways, as it could cause the vehicle's engine to stall. Do not attempt to move a stalled vehicle; abandon it and immediately move to higher ground. Do not try to cross where water is over the road; the road could be washed away. As little as 30 cm (12 inches) of running water can wash away most vehicles.
If in the area, monitor media reports for local impact and follow the guidance of local authorities. Flooding may cause unreliable telecommunications, electrical power and transportation disruptions.
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As they padded across the grass in unison, there was something distinctly otherworldly about them.
This pride of white lions has been brought to Britain as one of the rarest attractions of the animal kingdom. It is estimated there are only 70 in the world -- and four are now on show at the West Midland Safari Park in Worcestershire, southern England.
At a cost of $500,000, 16-month-old Mubuto, his sister Natasha, their half-sister Johanne, 15 months, and unrelated Maryn, 19 months, were bought from the Kruger National Park in South Africa.
The animals are not albinos because their tawny eyes are the same as any lion, but they are affected by a genetic condition known as leucism, which means they lose the normal pigmentation in their skin and fur.
In the wild, such cubs are sometimes killed by members of their pride, or picked off by hyenas. They also make profitable targets for poachers.
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Vacationtechnician personalized luxury adventure travel transports you to the most exquisite wilderness and chill out retreats on Earth. Conserving rare biodiversity through low volume tourism; our aim is your indulgence -at no one's expense. Plan now to be assured a rejuvenating escape at a restful pace -to an unspoiled gem in the purest sense.
April 08 2004 at 07:39AM
Windhoek, Namibia - Six people, including a baby and an eight-year-old boy, have drowned in north-eastern Namibia since being hit by the worst floods in decades, police reported on Wednesday.
The Namibian police listed the six drownings in a daily report, saying that an eight-year-old boy and two young men, aged 18 and 23, died in separate incidents last Friday.
"Two men drowned when their canoe capsized in flood waters due to strong winds," the statement said.
It added that another man was found dead on Sunday, and that a mother and her baby drowned in flood waters about a week ago.
'I have never seen such a sea of water' Prime Minister Theo-Ben Gurirab warned on Tuesday that the northeastern Caprivi region should brace itself for more floods.
"We see clear signs that a more severe flood is on the way. It is a perilous situation," he told parliament.
"About 5,000 people are at immediate risk and about eight to 10 thousand people are affected by the floods."
Abel Augustino of the Namibia Red Cross Society told AFP that about 400 people, mainly school children, had been evacuated with helicopters and boats by both the Namibian and Zimbabwean Defence Force.
Six schools in the area have been closed.
The first consignment of relief aid from the International Federation of the Red Cross in Harare was on its way to Katima Mulilo, the regional capital of the flood-stricken Caprivi region.
"These are non-food items like tents, blankets, water canisters, soap and mosquito nets," Augustino said.
The flood waters stem from heavy rains since the end of March in the Angolan catchment area of the Zambezi River, which forms part of Namibia's northern border with Zambia.
"I have never seen such a sea of water. These are the worst floods since 1958," Namibia Red Cross Society secretary general Razia Essack-Kauaria earlier said.
Namibia, a country the same size as South Africa and with a population of around 1,8 million people, consists mainly of desert and dry savannah and has an average rainfall of around 360mm.
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Vacationtechnician personalized luxury adventure travel transports you to the most exquisite wilderness and chill out retreats on Earth. Conserving rare biodiversity through low volume tourism; our aim is your indulgence -at no one's expense. Plan now to be assured a rejuvenating escape at a restful pace -to an unspoiled gem in the purest sense.
Namibia�s fairy circles leave scientists flummoxed
Attempts by South African botanists to explain �fairy circles� in Namibia � bizarre outlines in the grass, somewhat akin to Britain�s bogus crop circles � have drawn a complete blank, New Scientist reports.
The circles comprise innumerable discs of completely bare sandy soil, ranging from two to 10 metres (seven to 25 feet) across, found in grass on Namibia�s coastal fringe.
Over the past three decades, scientists have wrangled over how the shapes are formed.
There are three main theories: radioactive soil, which prevents plants from growing; toxic proteins left in the soil by a poisonous plant called the milkbush; and termite colonies that mop all the seeds, leaving nothing left to grow.
Each of these explanations has now been examined at length and then discarded, in a study by South African researchers.
Tests of soil samples taken from �fairy circles� found all to be negative for radioactivity, and desert plants were successfully grown in the lab on soil on which milkbushes had grown.
As for the termites, the team dug trenches up to two metres (seven feet) deep in and around the circles, but found no sign of these insects or their nests, present or past.
Lead scientist Gretel van Rooyen, a botanist at the University of Pretoria, is now exploring the theory that, somehow, toxic elements are deposited in the shape of the circle, making it impossible for plant life to get established there.
�But even if we find them, how they came there is the next problem,� New Scientist quotes her as saying in next Saturday�s issue.
For the moment, she admits wryly, �we�re left with the fairies�.
Fairy circles occur in a broken belt in the pro-Namib region, from southern Angola to the Orange River in South Africa and have become so famous that they are included in visitors� tours.
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Vacationtechnician personalized luxury adventure travel transports you to the most exquisite wilderness and chill out retreats on Earth. Conserving rare biodiversity through low volume tourism; our aim is your indulgence -at no one's expense. Plan now to be assured a rejuvenating escape at a restful pace -to an unspoiled gem in the purest sense.
South Africa is increasingly popular as a wedding destination, and when one considers the country�s scenic appeal, romance, and value-for-money status, it�s really not surprising.
According to vacationtechnician, a luxury adventure specialist, couples can afford a five-star wedding with all the frills for less than what they�d pay in the United Kingdom, Europe or the USA. The average cost of a wedding in Britain is around �15 000 or �20 000, but the same function would cost only R80 000 in South Africa or 12,474.1 US Dollars, despite the recent strengthening of the rand. Consequently, they say, the savings are enormous.
A draw for weddings in Southern Africa is the excellent weather. The "wedding season" in Southern Africa extends from September to the end of April, and even into May, with 39 weekends of good weather available. In contrast, only around 13 weekends in the UK offer good weather. Although of course, if you�re bringing your guests out from foreign climes, you can get married any day of the week.
So what are some of the most popular options for getting hitched in South Africa?
Winelands Wedding
The fairytale wedding you�ve always wanted can come to life in the Cape Winelands. Romance is in the very air here, among the historic oaks, rolling hills and beautiful old buildings, needing only a horse-drawn carriage (which of course can be arranged) to complete the picture. Perfect for incurable romantics and anyone who wants a �classic� wedding.
Many wine farms have award-winning restaurants, so excellent food and service is par for the course, and one less thing that needs to be organised. It�s also the perfect place for a honeymoon, with luxury accommodation often available at the estate.
Popular venues just a short drive from Cape Town include Buitenverwachting, Steenberg, Zevenwacht, Spier, the Lanzerac Manor and the Grand Roche Hotel in Paarl, but the list is endless.
Beach Wedding
South Africa has some of the world�s most beautiful beaches with long, idyllic stretches of white sand, dramatic scenery and crashing waves. Who wouldn�t want to get married here? If you get married between July and October, you might even have a Southern Right whale or two dropping in on the festivities.
Favourite locations close to Cape Town include Boulders Beach, with penguins in attendance, outside Simonstown, Camps Bay and world-famous Clifton beach. Another option would be some of the beautiful beaches on the Garden Route, the Eastern Cape or along the KwaZulu-Natal coast.
Beach weddings can be made easier with the help of conveniently-located restaurants. The Boulders Beach Lodge offers a function room, restaurant and pampering wellness centre, while the Strandloper Restaurant on the West Coast has become known for their excellent food and relaxed functions in their rustic outdoor restaurant.
Safari Wedding
Weddings in game parks combine breathtaking beauty and exotic experiences with a real "Out of Africa" feel. Don�t think you�ll be roughing it either � private game lodges combine wilderness and luxury in the most addictive of ways. If you ever wanted to be treated like royalty, this is your chance!
Lodges such as Shamwari in the Eastern Cape, Sabi Sabi, Phinda and Londolozi are very popular for weddings and honeymoons, with superb accommodation and cuisine. Limpopo, Mpumalanga and KwaZulu-Natal are especially renowned for their safari lodges.
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Vacationtechnician personalized luxury adventure travel transports you to the most exquisite wilderness and chill out retreats on Earth. Conserving rare biodiversity through low volume tourism; our aim is your indulgence -at no one's expense. Plan now to be assured a rejuvenating escape at a restful pace -to an unspoiled gem in the purest sense.
PHOTOGRAPHY
The choice of the correct camera equipment and film will determine the quality of your photographs on the trip. For good photography of birds and animals, a good SLR camera and telephoto lens is necessary. A zoom lens can be extremely useful on safari and the minimum recommended size is 200mm.
Consideration should be given before travelling with any lens bigger than 400 mm as most interesting shots are taken using hand held equipment. The new high-resolution digital cameras are outstanding and give great quality images, especially if you are using a digital camera body which takes normal camera lenses. Camera bodies like the Canon D60 and 1D are superb. The advantage of digital photography is that one can get instant feedback and adjustments can be made in the field to your techniques to ensure that your photographs are the quality that you would like. Color reversal film (slides) will give far better quality than prints.
Our guides have found that they are getting the best results using Fuji film. Fuji has brought out a good high-speed film that gives good color with very little grain (less so than any of their competitors). This is especially useful when using a big lens in low light situations. The guides' personal preference is the slower film (either 50 or 100 ASA) as this gives almost perfect quality for normal light. However, you may consider going to 200 ASA for a larger lens in low lighting conditions. The new Fuji 400, we believe is giving great results too.
The only disadvantage with the low ASA film is that you need a tripod for the early morning and evening shots.
IMPORTANT: BRING SPARE FILM (ALTHOUGH IT IS AVAILABLE IN MOST CAMPS/LODGES) AND A SPARE CAMERA BATTERY.
PASSPORTS & VISAS
International visitors require a valid passport together with onward travel documents. All passport holders should verify with vacationtechnician or relevant consulate concerning visa entry requirements. If you are extending your journey to other countries, please establish entry requirements for those countries as well. Please ensure that you have all the necessary visas prior to departure (unless available on entry).
VIDEO
Charging facilities for video cameras are very limited on the safari, so please bring enough batteries to last you at least 3 days of video filming. If you have a 12V charging pack which can be connected to the vehicle via the cigarette lighter, you may be able to charge your battery when it is travelling on the longer drives. Please bring your own attachment to connect your charger or video to the cigarette lighter.
WALKING
Walking is not allowed in the Chobe National Park nor the Moremi Game Reserve. It is allowed outside these reserves including much of the Okavango Delta. Walking can, however, lead to encounters with potentially dangerous WILD ANIMALS. Walking is, therefore, at your own risk. Never walk around unescorted.
DRIVING CONDITIONS
If visiting remote areas or national parks and reserves, the roads could be rough and bumpy and occasionally we will travel "off road", where it is possible that injuries may occur - if for example a hidden pothole is struck. Neither the vacationtechnician nor our staff members, associates nor agents can be held liable for any accidents or any damages!
RESPECTING WILDLIFE & SAFETY WHEN STAYING AT SAFARI CAMPS/LODGES
The wild animals are not like those found in theme parks They are not tame.
Most of the safari camps are unfenced and dangerous animals can (and do!) wander through the camps. Many of the animals and reptiles you will see are potentially dangerous. Attacks by wild animals are rare. However, there are no guarantees that such incidents will not occur. vacationtechnician, our staff members, associates, agents, or their suppliers can be held liable for any injuries caused during an incident involving the behaviour of wild animals.
Please listen to the camp staff and guides. The safety precautions need to be taken seriously, and strictly adhered to.
Do not go wandering off on your own without a guide -even to your tent.
After retiring to your tent at night, don't leave the tent!
Observe animals silently and with a minimum of disturbance to their natural activities. Loud talking on game drives can frighten the animals away.
Never attempt to attract an animal's attention. Don't imitate animal sounds, clap your hands, pound the vehicle or throw objects.
Please respect your driver-guide's judgment about proximity to lions, cheetahs and leopards. Don't insist that he take the vehicle closer so you can get a better photograph. A vehicle driven too close can hinder a hunt or cause animals to abandon a hard-earned meal.
Litter tossed on the ground can choke or poison animals and birds and is unsightly.
Never attempt to feed or approach any wild animal on foot. This is especially important near lodges or in campsites where animals may have become accustomed to human visitors.
Refrain from smoking on game drives. The dry African bush ignites very easily, and a flash fire can kill animals.
SATELLITE & IRIDIUM TELEPHONES
Telecommunications in the urban areas are easily accessible but please note that the campsites you may be visiting could be located in very remote parts of Southern Africa and do not have telephones.
An increasing number of guests have been bringing satellite phones along with them on safari. As most people come on safari to get away from it all, we feel that we must set some limitations on the use of these phones when on safari. We suggest the following guidelines on the use of satellite phones:
1. Please ensure the ring tone is kept at a low volume to avoid disturbing other guests.
2. Please use your phone in the privacy of your tent and not any of the common areas: dining area, bar/lounge area, or on any of the vehicles or on game drives.
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Vacationtechnician personalized luxury adventure travel transports you to the most exquisite wilderness and chill out retreats on Earth. Conserving rare biodiversity through low volume tourism; our aim is your indulgence -at no one's expense. Plan now to be assured a rejuvenating escape at a restful pace -to an unspoiled gem in the purest sense.
Our mokoro trips are one of the most enjoyed activities. We presently have 2 mokoro stations - each offers different vistas around the area, either a breaking dawn to remember or a memorable sunset. vacationtechnician guests are constantly commenting on this height of indulgence - toasting a breathtaking sunset from the mokoro with a G&T in one hand, and their bird book in the other. We offer a half or full day combination drive/mokoro safaris with picnics if requested.
A boating activity from Kwetsani is top of the list of highlights. There is no better way to appreciate the waterways of the Okavango Delta than from a boat moving through channels of papyrus, with abundant flora and water lilies where African Jacana hide along with Slaty and Little Egrets, Goliath Herons and a myriad of other water birds. Sightings of the hippo and crocodiles are also a big thrill for guests. We have a vehicle stationed at Hunda Island permanently and offer both half and full day drive/ boat safaris. vacationtechnician guests appreciate being able to see plains game on the drier savanna areas of Hunda with giraffe, zebra, kudu, buffalo, and elephant being regularly sighted. Some of the lucky ones were able to spend time with the Wild Dogs too.
Game drives around Kwetsani Island have been fantastic. The water has confined our drives to a smaller area, and involve exciting driving through water over half a metre deep in some places. The Kwetsani Pride has been very active and most guests visiting us have been able to see the 2 regal males with their pride - offering night time thrills with their territorial roaring.
A female leopard has been seen regularly on the island - playing out in the open, and frequently resting up in a shady tree - almost all our guests enjoyed a leopard encounter of some description this month. A very rare sighting of a cheetah had us all very excited. It is very unusual to have these cats in this part of the concession at this time of year with all the water around and was a lovely surprise.
The flood plains in front of the lodge are always alive with lechwe - with the water coming right up to the swimming pool, these unusual water antelope sometimes venture only 20m away from the swimming pool deck. Around Kwetsani Island serval, genet, porcupine and African wild cat have been spotted on late night game drives. Our honey badger population is as
cheeky and arrogant as ever, but great to have around the camp. Hyaena are also often seen both early in the morning and in the evening from the deck of the lodge.
The birdlife has been spectacular with many storks, egrets and Wattled Cranes wading across the floodplains just in front of camp. We had a small flock of Lesser Flamingo's in the channel behind Kwetsani for a week or two, and 4 African Skimmers were seen near MacFarlanes Bridge earlier in the month.
Each vacationtechnician guest has experienced either a Baobab dinner, bush cocktails or both. Compliments on the standard of food have been flowing as frequently as ever with our chefs often called to the table from the kitchen for applause. While the month started with deluge after deluge of rain, it seems the rainy season is slowly abating. We recorded 70mm of rain this month. The weather has been pleasantly warm to hot during the day, with windy evenings and the odd spectacular African thunderstorm on the horizons in the afternoons. Our March 2004 average low temperature was 21 and the high 32.
Kwetsani Camp Botswana is a five roomed luxury tented camp located in a private reserve 25km to the west of Mombo and to the west of the Moremi Game Reserve. The large elongated island on which Kwetsani is built is heavily wooded, cool and shady with Palm, Mangosteen and Fig trees and is one of the most remote camps in the entire Okavango Delta.
Kwetsani Camp is raised on stilts beneath the shady canopy, overlooking the expansive plains. The five wonderful, spacious tree-house chalets are built under a thatch roof, with wood, glass and a little canvas. All have en-suite facilities including a shower, flush toilet, twin basins and an additional outdoor shower for those who like showering in the open air. The camp overlooks an enormous floodplain that is dotted with lechwe and wildebeest. One can lie in one's room, or in the pool and watch the animals in front of the camp. All the Okavango's large predators are found here.
Activities include mekoroing, walking on palm-fringed islands and game drives during the day and night. The night drives are currently restricted , due to high flood water levels, to an hour drive around the camp island. In the height of the Okavango's annual floods, boats are used to get around the area and also to transfer to the islands where the game viewing vehicles are located. Lion, leopard, cheetah, wild dog, buffalo and elephant are all found in this area, as well as good concentrations of zebra, wildebeest, giraffe, and all the plains game. Access into this area is only by aircraft (dependant on the Okavango's flood levels, either Jao or Hunda airstrip is used for access to this camp).
Hippo, Sitatunga antelope and Crocodile reside in the deeper permanent lily~filled lagoons of the area. Lion, Leopard, Wild Dog, Cheetah, Tsessebe and Lechwe are among the major game attractions at Kwetsani. Nocturnal animals such as Porcupine, Aardwolf, Serval, Genet and Bushbaby can be observed on the night drives (water levels permitting).
Vacationtechnician personalized luxury adventure travel transports you to the most exquisite wilderness and chill out retreats on Earth. Conserving rare biodiversity through low volume tourism; our aim is your indulgence -at no one's expense. Plan now to be assured a rejuvenating escape at a restful pace -to an unspoiled gem in the purest sense.
News from the Kwando Concession in Northern Botswana
Quick Links to Kwando Botswana Information from vacationtechnician.com
Cheetah Hunt Lebala
Predator Safaris Kwando
Save the Botswana Bushmen Petition Drive
Kwara camp
* Excellent Leopard sightings of a female that was seen every day for 3 days
around the camp, walking around and marking its territory
* Good Cheetah sightings including the resident male that was found lying
up. A Cheetah kill on an Impala was seen from start to finish in an open
flood plain area. This was a female Cheetah with 2 cubs.
* Good Lion sightings of a mating pair that have busy for a few days. There
are 2 large males in the group but only one has established his dominance
and is mating with the female.
* There a 5 resident Elephant bulls that are hanging around camp and general
game viewing is good.
* Good birds in general with lots of activity before the migrants depart.
Lagoon camp
* Excellent Lion sightings and the 3 large territorial males have been
followed for 5 days in a row � no kills though! The pride of 5 females have
increased with the addition of 5 new cubs!
* Good general game of Tsessebe, Blue Wildebeest, Zebra, Impala, Kudu and
small groups of Elephants.
* Nocturnal sightings include African Wildcat, Springhares, Bush Babies and
Genets. There has also been some good sightings of Owls.
* Boat trips on the Kwando River are proving popular and the Kwando River
has risen 20 � 30 cm this past week. The Hippos are moving to the shallow
areas.
* An interesting sighting with birds included the successful rearing of
Striped Cuckoo nestling � one raised by a Cape Turtle Dove, and the other
raised by a Grey Loerie.
Lebala camp
* Pack of 5 Wild Dogs was seen 3 times for brief periods but they are
hunting mainly in the Mopane woodlands making it difficult to follow.
* Lion sightings include 2 large male together, a pride of 4 females and
numerous sightings of nomadic males.
* Excellent Leopard sightings of a female with 2 young cubs. These cubs are
relaxed and habituated to the vehicles. They have been seen virtually every
day.
* Excellent sightings of 2 Sitatunga that are being seen regularly from the
Lookout point in camp! One is a young male and the other is a young female.
* Good Cheetah sightings of a male on his own and then also of a female with
a sub adult male.
* Nocturnal sightings include African Wildcat, Serval and Caracal.
* Very good general game sightings, especially Giraffe. A grouping
comprising of 59 individuals was sighted! Other species include Blue
Wildebeest, Zebra, Red Lechwe, small groups of Elephants and also small
groups of Buffalo (18 � 100)
Vacationtechnician personalized luxury adventure travel transports you to the most exquisite wilderness and chill out retreats on Earth. Conserving rare biodiversity through low volume tourism; our aim is your indulgence -at no one's expense. Plan now to be assured a rejuvenating escape at a restful pace -to an unspoiled gem in the purest sense.
This month has been one of quite incredible transformation. 2004 could just
enter the record books as one of the most remarkable years in the Okavango
Delta in living memory... after two years of below-average floods we are
finally seeing the full power and beauty of the Delta, in a way not
witnessed for 20 years... this year's flood is going to be awesome!
Water which fell months ago as rain in the highlands of Angola has slowly
been making its way towards Mombo, across Namibia's Caprivi Strip and down
the Okavango Panhandle, filtered by great stands of papyrus and sand banks,
until it began arriving in the Mombo area at the very beginning of the month
- a good two months early.
Combined with this we have had much of our year's rainfall arriving late in
the rainy season, with the result that huge amounts of water have caused
some radical changes in our area in the last few weeks... It is hard to
believe that an area as flawless and beautiful as Mombo could be improved
upon, but the arrival of the floodwaters have lifted the area to a new
level...
Those of us who have had the privilege of calling Mombo home for some time
are particularly taken aback by the earliness and intensity of the water
flows into the Mombo area. Comparing this year's flood with last year's,
there is already much more water here than there was at the height of last
year's much less impressive inundation.
You can see the water pushing in day by day as it creeps nearer and nearer
to the steps of Mombo. The view across the floodplains from the main area is
simply breathtaking - infinite expanses of green grass and reeds, and
occasional stretches of open water which reflect the glittering sun. The
floodplain is dotted with the black, half-submerged shapes of buffaloes,
each with a brilliant white cattle egret perched on its back.
The arrival of the floodwater at Mombo has brought many animals and birds in
closer to Mombo - we have seen slaty egrets and pygmy geese searching
flooded grassy areas for food, and we have had some remarkable moonlit
sightings of groups of hippos grazing. The buffaloes and red lechwes
especially have been enjoying the lush vegetation in the newly flooded
plains.
The late rains have added to this spectacular transformation - we have had
another good month for rainfall, with most of the rain occurring during
afternoon thunder storms, carefully timed so as not to interfere with game
drives!
As we head into winter, temperatures have been a little cooler - the sun has
lost a little of its intense summer heat and daytime temperatures are very
pleasant.
In March we have had a total of 121.5mm of rain, giving us a total of 400mm
since November. This however is only just above the average likely to be
experienced in this area around Maun during the summer season. While
temperatures have been generally getting cooler, with some cloudy and windy
days being experienced, the sun has been particularly intense following
rainstorms. This is probably due to there being less dust in the atmosphere
after each rain shower. Minimum recorded temperatures have ranged from 18�C to 23�C, with an average daily minimum of 20.16�C. Maximum temperatures have ranged from 21�C to 30�C, with an average daily maximum of 28.00�C.
This "sunshine and showers" weather has meant that we have regularly enjoyed
seeing rainbows arch over the Mombo floodplains... anyone looking for the
pot of gold at the end of the rainbow need go no further than Mombo!
As well as a month of water, March has been a month of leopards. After an
absence of almost a year, the Maun Road female leopard made a welcome
re-appearance in some of her old haunts, now accompanied by a ten month old
cub. This means that we currently have three female leopards in the area
with cubs born at various times during the last year. We believe that there
are about 30 leopards in total in and around the Mombo game drive area.
The huge Burned Ebony male leopard used the cover of some of the new plant
growth to kill an impala, and then concealed his kill close enough for us to
have some very personal encounters with this incredible but elusive
predator, the ultimate in deadly stealth.
March has also been a month of frogs - the nightly chorus fills the Mombo
opera house to the rafters, with hippos, hyaenas, and lions, all performing
too to create a perfect nocturnal African symphony - sounds that we know
none of our guests will ever forget...
As we reach the end of March, the moon is waxing again towards its monthly
zenith, casting a silvery light over the buffaloes and hippos as they graze,
and casting shadows over the water as the giant eagle owls drift silently
among the raintrees.
In the Camp itself, we are continuing to refine the many little details that
make a stay at Mombo or Little Mombo so special... couples on honeymoon are
enjoying intimate and romantic private dinners and our chefs have been busy
making special cakes for birthdays and wedding anniversaries. Freshly boiled
water delivered to each tent with the morning wake-up call gives our guests
the chance to have an "emergency" cup of coffee at first light - although of
course they soon realise that the bush experience delivers a far greater
boost to the body and soul than caffeine ever could!!
As this area undergoes its annual change into a much more watery kingdom, we
are taking advantage of living in a huge natural classroom to extend our
meet and greet talks to explain to guests some of the wonder of the flood
and the rivers that turn their backs on the sea. Many guests have commented
that this additional information has really helped them get even more out of
their Mombo experience as it has further opened their eyes to the wonder
that is the Okavango Delta...
While some of our roads have flooded and are now impassable, this has not
compromised the quality of the game viewing experience at Mombo in any way.
Rather, game viewing is in many ways more intense as with the floodplains
now inundated, many animals have been pushed into smaller areas in the
centre of islands. The beauty of Mombo, and the reason that it boasts such
exceptional numbers and variety of game, is that it encompasses a variety of
different and contrasting habitats, thus providing the perfect habitat for a
great many species of animal and bird all year round.
Recent unusual sightings include a caracal (a large lynx-like cat) and a
large grey mongoose, the largest southern African mongoose but a very
secretive animal and hard to spot despite its size. Also a male leopard
mating with two females at the same time, and somehow dividing his time (and
energy!) between the two of them. Also some rare daytime sightings of honey
badgers and porcupines.
Perhaps the most spectacular sighting was one which set a new Mombo record:
seven of the reintroduced white rhinos grazing together on a large open area
known as Suzi's Duckpond. One quarter of all Botswana's wild rhinos together
in one place at the same moment. It was late afternoon, and the sky was
brilliantly lit up by the setting sun, bathing the whole scene in that
special soft light so beloved of photographers... and what a scene to
photograph! In the background were hundreds of zebra, and a quick glance
around the area would also reveal giraffe, warthog, wildebeest, jackal and
tsessebe... Meanwhile the abrupt alarm calls of impala hung on the still air
as they spotted the female leopard we had watched playing with her cub only
a few minutes earlier... and that was not so very long after we had seen one
of the four black rhinos near the airstrip... the kind of hour that only
ever seems to happen at Mombo - a place so magical that it can have
twenty-four hours like that in just one day!
And of course we have still to see this year's flood reach its peak, so no
doubt many more spectacular moments and special sightings await us... 2004
is simply flying by, proof (if any were needed) of how much fun we are
having...
So the Okavango flood continues to push into the Mombo area, carrying us
forward to who knows what new adventures... We can only be certain of one
thing, that 2004 is going to be a memorable year for Mombo in a great many
ways... so you are all invited to help make these memories even more
special!
As ever, we will leave the final word on Mombo to some vacationtechnician guests who stayed with us in this special place in March:
� Everything was fantastic - a true five star plus experience - thanks
for everything
� Everything was simply perfect
� Francis (our guide) was top rate in all areas. A very dignified
gentleman and a prize for your Camp
� Thank you for the most wonderful three days
� The Little Mombo staff truly contributed to making this visit to
paradise a once in a lifetime (hopefully not!) experience
� It could not have been more enjoyable. We had the best time and will
come again
� Roger & Ella's hospitality made my group feel welcome & at home...
thanks for a wonderful visit.
� This trip was our first and we felt very spoiled and fully intend to
return. Thank you for making our African experience so great and unique
� We do not want to leave Little Mombo! Leigh & Sharon are the best
host and hostess...
� Mombo is a very special place! We now appreciate Africa even more!
Looking forward to our return!
� Everything exceeded our expectations - we can't wait to share it
with our friends
� Nothing was too much trouble for the staff - they were wonderful
� My stay at Mombo has been the highlight of ALL my trips - Mombo is a
MUST!
Mombo Camp is situated on Mombo Island, adjoining the northern tip of Chief's Island, and is within the Moremi Game Reserve in the Okavango Delta in northern Botswana. The camp offers abundant big game viewing, arguably the best in Botswana.
The highlight here are the concentrations of plains game and all the predators - including the big cats! Lion sightings are particularly good. Mombo is built on an island that is surrounded by open floodplains. The camp is largely built in and around the shade of some large mangosteen, ebony and fig trees and overlooks a wonderful floodplain that teems with game.
The camp has 9 comfortably furnished, luxurious tents, raised off the ground. The guest's rooms and the walkways that connect the rooms to the living area are up to 2m off the ground, allowing game to wander freely through the camp - but at the same time allowing for guest safety. One often finds that animals take refuge under the rooms. The canvas rooms are spacious and well appointed and have en-suite facilities under canvas and an additional outdoor shower for those who enjoy a shower under the stars.
The dining room, pub and living area overlook the open plain in front of the camp and there is a plunge pool for relaxing in the heat of the day. Activities at Mombo include morning and afternoon game drives in open 4x4 Land Rovers.
The game viewing in the area is excellent and guests could see lion, leopard, large herds of buffalo, cheetah, wild dog, elephant, white and black rhino, hyena, giraffe, wildebeest and zebra. Access into this area is only by aircraft.
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Vacationtechnician personalized luxury adventure travel transports you to the most exquisite wilderness and chill out retreats on Earth. Conserving rare biodiversity through low volume tourism; our aim is your indulgence -at no one's expense. Plan now to be assured a rejuvenating escape at a restful pace -to an unspoiled gem in the purest sense.
Michael Wines
New York Times
Friday, April 2, 2004
Excerpt:
Full Article Here
The British are coming to South Africa: 463,000 of them last year, up 45 percent in the last five years. So are the Germans: an increase of more than 50 percent since 1998. The Chinese may be the fastest-growing segment of all: More than 33,000 visited in 2003, an increase of almost 30 percent in a year.
And Americans? They have not come - not in the numbers dreamed of by South African hoteliers, restaurateurs and safari operators, who have now set about to change that.
South Africa is pursuing the American tourist - the last big game, so to speak, to elude this nation's increasingly savvy tourism industry. Last month, the government tourism office opened a Web site, www.southafrica.net/heritage, aimed at black and white Americans intrigued by the country's lush culture and uplifting recent history, and commercials extolling its charms are playing on U.S. television.
The idea, says Prudence Solomon Inzerillo, president of South African Tourism: U.S.A., is to broaden the nation's appeal beyond its base of aging baby boomers to a new, pick-up-and-go class of younger American urbanites who want a new thrill.
"They've heard of South Africa, but they're not quite sure what it holds," she said in a telephone interview from her Manhattan office. "Most Americans have a hard time with Africa. If something negative happens, they think it is happening all over the continent." The challenge, she said, is to separate South Africa's generally upbeat story from some of southern Africa's more problematic ones.
On the face of it, South Africa does not seem such a hard sell to Americans. This is Africa's first-world outpost - an effusively friendly English-speaking land with a rich mix of European and African culture, heart-stopping scenery and sophisticated food.
But, as for many tourist-hungry nations, Americans are a difficult sell these days. The threat of terrorism has affected travel by Americans far more than those from other countries; the U.S. economy also has been a factor...
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Vacationtechnician personalized luxury adventure travel transports you to the most exquisite wilderness and chill out retreats on Earth. Conserving rare biodiversity through low volume tourism; our aim is your indulgence -at no one's expense. Plan now to be assured a rejuvenating escape at a restful pace -to an unspoiled gem in the purest sense.
World Watch Advisory
vacationtechnician.com
04/05/04 05:00 GMT
Locations affected by this alert: Namibia
Serious flooding in Caprivi Strip, northern Namibia closes lodges and disrupts transport. Water levels may continue to rise.
Red Cross officials April 3 reiterated earlier warnings that the current floods in the Caprivi Strip in northern Namibia will likely exceed those of 2003 - which officials described as a major disaster. Anticipate significant disruptions in this region - including road closures - in the coming weeks.
Officials have been reporting rising river levels in the Zambezi and Kavango rivers since mid-January. The water level in the Zambezi River has already exceeded 2003 flood levels. The floods have already affected more than 15,000 people - compared to 12,000 last year. The flooding has also forced some tourist lodges in the region to close. Confirm reservations and availability prior to traveling to the region. Significant flooding may also affect the major east-west road running through the Strip connecting Namibia with Zambia and Zimbabwe.
Expect disruptions in road travel and public services, including power outages. Allow additional time to reach destinations. Consider postponing road travel to and through affected areas. If travel is unavoidable, carry plenty of food and water, and a radio with spare batteries. A personal satellite locator is also recommended. Avoid driving through water on roadways, as it could cause the vehicle's engine to stall. Do not attempt to move a stalled vehicle; abandon it and immediately move to higher ground.
As always in Namibia, drink bottled water only and use bottled water when brushing your teeth. Flooded conditions may lead to health risks and diseases such as malaria. Monitor media reports for local impact and follow the guidance of local authorities.
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^^^World Watch Advisory� serves vacationtechnician.com clients while home
via email and while abroad via email, sms, and GSM/Satellite phone by
specific request.
Travel alerts are issued at three levels of importance:
Critical -- Will Impact Travel
Warning -- May Impact Travel
Informational -- Monitoring Situation
vacationtechnician.com security
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Serra Cafema in Namibia is not just the most exotic safari camp ever, says JAMES DELINGPOLE, it is also thrillingly remote..
There's dust in my eyes and grit in my teeth. I'm careering down a stone track at suicidal speed into the sunset and I'm about as happy as happy gets. In the distance, craggy, arid, ancient mountains in every shade from purply brown to red ochre. Beside me, golden sand dunes, rocky scrub and the occasional curious oryx with its tall horns and face like a mask designed by Picasso. In front, my thrilling downhill, twisty-turvy racecourse with boulder obstacles hurtling towards me faster and every faster because I've opened up the throttle now, I can't resist, I'm having too much fun already but a little more wont' hurt.
Probably, if I stopped to think, I would realise how irresponsible this is. Until this morning I was a quad-bike virgin and the machine does have this tendency to veer off the track of its own accord. It's now so dark I can hardly see a thing and it doesn't' help that the only eve protection I have is a pair of sunglasses. And if anything does go wrong, I 'm at least an hours rough drive and another hours plane journey from the nearest help.
But when you're in The Zone, you don't' think about these things. The Zone is the term given by the writer Geoff Dyer to that blissful state where you know for certain there is nowhere in the world you would rather be at that moment. And that is where I am now. In the Hartmann Valley in northern Namibia, overlooking the most remote, the most exotic and probably the best safari camp in Africa: Serra Cafema.
Yes, this may sound an extravagant calm but I don't think it is too far-fetched. I've climbed Kilimanjaro, I've swam the Blue Nile, I've watched the dervish dancers at Omdurman, traded for bangi with Pygmies in Zaire and been drenched by the Victoria Falls. And as African experiences go, Serra Cafema is right up there with the most memorable of them.
As for the remoteness, when I mentioned it a few days later to an imperious, mega-rich Texan crone in Skeleton Coast - another Namibian safari camp in the same prestigious Wilderness group - she cold barely contain her jealous rage. "What, you're trying to tell me Skeleton Coast isn't remote enough?" she snapped. But the facts speak for themselves. Perched on the banks of the Kunene River on the Angolan border, 12 hours drive from the nearest proper village and surrounded by deserts and mountains, Serra Cafema really is about as far from anywhere as you could get.
Up close, it looks a bit like a giant adventure playground or maybe the Lost Boys hideout from Peter Pan: a canopy of tall Albida trees, aerial walkways, huts on stilts, hammocks, swaying rope bridges and even - if you are lucky enough to bag the honeymoon suite, which sits on a river bank overlooking the rapids - the odd snoozing crocodile. Every detail has been taken care of, from the sweet little bench in the lover's nook among the reeds to the marquetry in the tropical hardwood doors of the huts. "It took them a million Namibian bucks (about 100,000 pounds) over budget" admitted Grant, the bearded Kiwi and expert safari-camp builder who put the whole thing together. "It wasn't what they asked for. But it's what I thought the place deserved"
Though it's true the Wilderness Safari camps in Namibia are all pretty special - Damaraland with its red, red rock and desert elephants; Sossusvlei with its towering dunes up to 1,000ft tall; desolate, breathtaking Skeleton Coast - Serra Cafema is the most the rangers talk about in the most reverent tones. Maybe it's because of the view you get on seeing it for the first time - an emerald strip, hugging the deep blue river, the only apparent life, is a huge lunar wilderness of dunes and rock; maybe it's because you know that, barring fellow guests, camp staff and the odd Himba tribesman, you are the only human for hundreds of miles. The apocalypse could come you would never know it. It feels like the last place on earth.
And if it were, what a way to go. There are evening boat cruises to drink sundowners on a beach on the other side of the river; there are smiling staff waiting to greet you with a cool drink and a flannel with which to mop your dusty brow after a mornings quad-biking; there are sumptuous barbecues of oryx kebab (much sweeter and more tender than beef) by the pool at night. It's not an Africa that Rider Haggard or Dr Livingstone or the early Voortrekkers would recognise.
Nor, for that matter, is it the one I first fell in love with as a teenage over Lander. When I think of Africa, I think of the camaraderie of exhaustion, danger and shared hardship; of foraging for firewood, while trying to avoid puff adders; of boots upturned to check for scorpions; of lions bellowing in the darkness; of nights under a mozzie net and the stars; of hours and hours just staring into the campfire - the "bush TV". Yes, the Wilderness brochure still refers to the company's canvas camp accommodations as "tents". But they are not tents as I would recognise them: not when they have solid doors, large comfortable beds and bathrooms with crapped soap bars and chi-chi little decorative displays of objets toruves.
I had a good chat about this in the bar one night with the Serra Cafema "family". One of the camp managers Hartmut Kolb, used to bring tented safari groups here 15 yeas ago, when the site was first discovered. There was no airstrip then, so the journey would last days. And the final boulder-strewn stretch was impassable until two Himba tribesmen spent two months smashing a route through with sledgehammers. When you arrived there, everyone would pitch their own tent. "It was the end of a long trip, and we'd camp under the stars" said Hartmut. "I miss those times".
But those times, everyone seemed to agree, can never be regained. Though Wilderness is planning to introduce a sew series of roving, tented safaris for tourist who want their Africa a touch more "echt", the tendency through much of Southern Africa -from the parks of Namibia to Botswana's Okavango Delta - is for high-cost, low-impact tourism. There are only so many visitors these fragile eco-systems can tolerate, their governments have decided. So you might as well make your tourists rich, high spending ones, rather than shoestring- budget ones.
Part of me - the long- haired, free spirit - finds this monstrously unjust. Another part of me though wonders how it could reasonably be otherwise. Take Skeleton Coast, the desert crust in this pristine wilderness is so delicate that, in places, you can see the wagon tracks made in the 19th century by the first trekkers; and, elsewhere the tyre marks from the British army Bedford trucks that crossed the desert to rescue the survivors of a wartime shipwreck. No one knows how long it will take the landscape to recover, but it has been estimated at least 200 years. Just imagine what would happen to Skeleton Coast if tourist were allowed unfettered access.
So the only real alternative is to do what the Namibian government has done declare whole chunks of it off-limits, except to a small number guest staying with one privileged franchise holder - currently Wilderness Safaris. In return for the business ( and a hefty 120 pounds per guest paid to the Namibian government), Wilderness acts as the landscape's guardian, helps fund conservation projects - such as the monitoring of desert giraffe - and works with the local people, either employing them as staff or helping them out with basic commodities and medical care.
At Serra Cafema, one of the local Himba girls was trained up to be a maid. This might not sound a big deal, but as Hartmut's wife, Helen, explained, you have to start from scratch. "We had to explain what glass is and how it can break; about the properties of ice. She just sat there amazed, watching it melt. She had never seen anything like it before"
It was the Himba, too, who did much of the building work on the new camp. In return, Grant thought them as much as he could about joinery. "I like to leave them with a skill", he said. But is this really doing them a favour? To practise joinery skills, you require timber - something the Himba have hitherto been able to do without, relying instead on brushwood, which is about al you can find in their arid environment, now, suddenly you have created for them a need that never existed. To buy timber, they will have to trade; to trade, they may have to abandon their self-sufficient, nomadic pastoral existence.
I felt similar guilty twinges in a Himba village called Otkivahurau (or Place Where We Stop) as I haggled for native crafts that the Himba never used to make until tourist came along to buy them. Most of the money I knew would end up being blown by men folk on booze and fancy western kit. The women still looked splendid with their bare breasts, necklaces of beaten fence wire, fat snakes of braided hair and thick coating of red ochre paint with its pungent smell of rancid milk; the children, naked save for a loincloth, still tended the herds; but the head man rather spoiled the picturesque authenticity with his safari hat and desert boots.
Yes, it's a tricky one, Grant and I concluded after several more beers. But we both agreed that there is nothing you can do to stop the march of civilisation, even in places like Serra Cafema. All you can do, Grant said, is "try your best to ensure it happens in the right way, not the wrong way". And if you want to know the difference, you should try visiting one of those Potemkin-style Maasai villages in Kenya were the only purpose is to extract money from tourists. At least when you visit the Himba ones, you know they really couldn't care whether you turn up. You're a mild curiosity, at most. Definitely not their livelihood.
And if those Victorian pioneers are turning in their graves at the way parts of a once dark and mysterious Africa are being transformed into a rich man's playground, well, I'm sure it's only because they never knew better. Fighting restive natives, discovering elusive sources, and annexing great territories are all very well. But until you've raced over the dunes of the Hartmann Valley on a quad-bike as the sun sets over Serra Cafema, you can't seriously claim to have experienced the best of Africa.
Article published in The Daily Telegraph - United Kingdom Saturday 30AUGUST 2003
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Vacationtechnician personalized luxury adventure travel transports you to the most exquisite wilderness and chill out retreats on Earth. Conserving rare biodiversity through low volume tourism; our aim is your indulgence -at no one's expense. Plan now to be assured a rejuvenating escape at a restful pace -to an unspoiled gem in the purest sense.
When drought and war struck Namibia in the 1980s, it looked as if the culture of the indigenous Himba people might disintegrate. Ninety percent of Himba cattle, the center of their economy and identity, died. Some families left for Angola. Lacking any other means of survival and desperate for cash, a number of men joined South Africa's army in its fight against guerrillas seeking Namibian independence. Unable to feed themselves, Himba flowed into the town of Opuwo for relief food, settling in slums of cardboard and plastic sacks.
But the estimated 20,000 to 50,000 Himba, long among Africa's most prosperous herders, are resilient. In the 19th century those in Namibia survived cattle raids by marauding ethnic groups from the south. Most fled into Angola, joining with the Portuguese military and forming their own armies of raiders. Eventually many returned to Namibia. Starting in the 1920s, South African rulers confined them to a prescribed "homeland," officially forbidding them to trade, graze livestock freely, or garden and gather wild plants along the Kunene River. Yet they endured�even if at times it meant eating the hides they slept on.
With the peace and good rains that came to Namibia in the 1990s, the Himba rebuilt their herds and, working with international activists, helped block a proposed hydro-electric dam that would have flooded ancestral lands along the Kunene. They also have benefited from new opportunities provided by the government of independent Namibia�mobile schools where Himba children learn English, and conservancies that give Himba control of wildlife and tourism on their lands. Vengapi Tijvinda, a grandmother in her 50s, lived through this rebirth. In the 1980s she was making baskets for tourists near Purros. Now she has returned to farming and raising goats and cattle: "Life is still the same, but the children can read and write. I am a member of a conservancy, and we have tasted game meat again."
Historically, the Himba and other pastoral peoples have had little interest in sharing their communally managed grazing lands with large populations of wildlife. Because domestic stock had either to compete with wild grazing animals for scarce plant resources or be defended from dangerous wildlife such as lions, a smaller game population meant more profitable herding. In 1996, however, the government of Namibia made it possible for the Himba and others to profit from increased wildlife populations and the tourists that wildlife brings through a program that allows them to manage their shared property as a registered conservancy.
This program officially called the Community Based Natural Resource Management Programme requires that a group wanting to form a conservancy establish its membership and define the boundaries of the land its members share, write a constitution stating the goals of the group, and elect a governing committee. When the group's application is accepted by Namibia's Ministry of Environment and Tourism, the conservancy begins to manage the wildlife and other resources on its land according to principles of sustainable use, while continuing with traditional farming or grazing. Because conservancies can also control tourism on their land, they are able to contract with commercial tour operators and establish their own tourist facilities.
By mid-2003, 29 conservancies had been established in Namibia. Together they include more than 28,000 square miles (73,000 square kilometers) and have more than 39,000 members. Management and operation of the conservancies and the services provided to growing numbers of tourists are creating new jobs that keep conservancy members in their communities. Profits from conservancy managed businesses stay in the community and can be distributed directly to the members, used for local social programs, or returned to the conservancy to expand operations. Because a healthy wildlife population is a big tourist attraction, poaching is down, animal numbers are increasing, and efforts are going into maintaining the natural environment that supports wildlife. And perhaps most important, indigenous people like the Himba, whose lives were for generations largely controlled by outside governments, are regaining local control over the future of their communities.
Serra Cafema Camp is one of the most remote camps in all of Southern Africa and offers one of the most memorable experiences in Namibia. The small 16 bedded camp, whose only access is by aircraft, is located in the extreme north-west of Namibia and is further away from Namibia's capital city, Windhoek, than from Botswana's Okavango Delta.
Serra Cafema shares this region with the wonderful and colourful Himba people who are some of the last true nomadic people of Africa. The Kunene River is the only permanent source of water and creates an oasis along its banks surrounded by rugged mountains and sand dunes.
The camp is situated under big shady Albida trees overlooking the Kunene River and comprises 8 canvas and thatched chalets that are raised off the ground, each with its own en-suite bathroom. Other facilities include a small swimming pool, dining room and bar. One goes to sleep at night to the gurgling water sounds from the rapid just downstream from camp.
In stark contrast, during the day, guests spend their time exploring one of the planet's driest deserts. Activities include enjoying the breath-taking landscape scenes with Springbok, Ostrich and Oryx dotted here and there, traversing the sand dunes in 4x4 Landrovers and boating on the Kunene River where we can watch for the Kunene crocodiles.
Walking in the remote mountain and river valleys are also a highlight. Serra Cafema is often visited by the native Ovahimba families who live in the nearby vicinity, which gives guests the opportunity to learn about their lifestyle and traditions. One of the highlights of Serra Cafema is the carefully guided quad-bike excursions that tread lightly on the dunes.
Guests can get into some of the massive sand dunes to the west of the camp.
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Vacationtechnician personalized luxury adventure travel transports you to the most exquisite wilderness and chill out retreats on Earth. Conserving rare biodiversity through low volume tourism; our aim is your indulgence -at no one's expense. Plan now to be assured a rejuvenating escape at a restful pace -to an unspoiled gem in the purest sense.
Catamaran Sailing Africa's Third Largest Lake
Recently "Mufasa" set off on her first exploratory voyage up the north, eastern shores of Lake Malawi, into Mozambique and Tanzanian waters. The yacht sailed up to Likoma Island, and we flew into Likoma, met the yacht there, and then carried on sailing North.
Our first port of call was Mbamba Bay, a very lovely little cove where we anchored down overnight. Next, onto Manda Bay, where the legendary story is told of how the first naval battle of world war 1 took place there. We sailed further north, arriving at Cape Kaiser and onto Lupingu, which is the site of an old monestry. The church is still functioning, but the monastry although well maintained, is empty. This far North, the majestic Livingstone Mountains form cliffs right down into the lake - quite spectacular.
We tried to enter the largest river which flows into the lake at Kathunga - the Ruhuhu River. No sooner had we stared along the river, when we hit a sand bank! Fortunately, "Mufasa" has a very shallow draft, and we managed to get out of the river and back onto the lake. We plan to try this again after the rains, and push through into the interior.
Heading back south, we stopped at Luili Mission and Papia Island. Here, in the centre of the bay is a landmark known as the sphinx. It is a huge rock, which stands regally looking out, exactly like a sphinx. We anchored down and did some snorkeling and scuba diving in the area. Some of our brave-hearted crew climbed the Sphinx and took a leap of faith into the water, after establishing that it was deep enough, and rock free below. We estimate the climb up his huge rock is equivalent of a four story building.
Sailing south we stopped at the skull shaped Mehlsaeka rocks. This area has an eerie feeling about it, a cold chill in the shadows of the cliffs, and we felt a need to move on. Our journey concluded with a return to Mbamba Bay, and then a beautiful sail back to Likoma Island. This ended a wonderful 6 nights on board "Mufasa", sailing into new territory and enjoying the comfort and luxury "Mufasa" offers. We relaxed at Kaya Mawa for a day, before taking our charter flight out.
We will be sailing these waters again during 2004 and beyond. vacationtechnician has an exciting itinerary entitled "Ultimate Lake Malawi Safari", which incorporates a stay at Kayak Africa, the fantastic live-aboard experience on "Mufasa" sailing up North, and stopping off for a few nights at Mchenga Nkwichi in Mozambique, Kaya Mawa on Likoma Island, exploring some of the bays mentioned in this update, and then a couple of nights at Chinteche before taking a road transfer back to Lilongwe.
Lake Malawi is Africa's third largest lake and stretches over 500 kilometres from North to South, and supports over 2000 species of fish, many endemic.
Palm fringed beaches and soaring mountains surround the warm crystal clear waters and picturesque fishing villages dot the shoreline, unchanged for thousands of years.
The northern lakeshore is the lushest region of the country with remnant patches of tropical rainforest and the dramatic backdrop of the Viphya mountains. This is the setting for Chintheche Inn.
Just south of Nkhata Bay, Chintheche Inn has a wonderful broad sandy beach and extensive grounds with many fine indigenous trees.
The Inn has 10 double rooms that open out onto the beach and are all brightly furnished using local crafts. All rooms are en suite with fans.
There is a central dining area and a swimming pool for those days when the lake is rough.
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Vacationtechnician personalized luxury adventure travel transports you to the most exquisite wilderness and chill out retreats on Earth. Conserving rare biodiversity through low volume tourism; our aim is your indulgence -at no one's expense. Plan now to be assured a rejuvenating escape at a restful pace -to an unspoiled gem in the purest sense.
Dominant Vumbura Male Lion attacks Hyaena
It was a happy hyaena, that is at least what it looked like. A few hyaenas were chewing away on the leftovers from a lion kill made earlier this morning. An unknown lion pride had caught an unsuspecting wildebeest in what is known as "Big Red Territory", the name referring to the mane of the dominant male lion in the north west of the Kwedi concession. They had just moved off, seemingly in a rush, as we arrived at the scene of the kill. But why so hasty? There were clearly not enough hyaenas to seriously threaten them.
20 minutes later, hyaenas still in feeding frenzy, we heard some zebra alarm calls in the distance. Shortly followed by a stampede of zebra on the horizon. Whatever had frightened the zebras, was coming our way. Another 10-15 minutes later we could make out the huge reddish mane of "Big Red", steering a clear course to the place of action. The hyaenas kept staring in his direction and all of us agreed that they must have seen Big Red approaching them in the high grass. He was still far away, leaving plenty of time for the hyaenas to keep on chewing. Big Red seemed on a mission, he moved fast and in a straight line until he was about 100 meters away, continuously being checked on by the hyaenas. He then lay down in the grass, observing the kill. The hyaenas clearly did not take this guy seriously enough as they did not realise when Big Red slowly emerged from his resting place and started to stalk them.
I was thrilled to get some lion-hyaena action as it had been a while since a had witnessed my last clash of these eternal enemies. None of us expected anything but a little chase by a lazy and way to slow male lion, however, things turned out differently. Big Red slowly crept forward, inching closer and closer by the minute. He was getting decent cover from the hyaenas in the grass, we had him continuously in sight. The game drive vehicle clearly had a better viewpoint than the hyaenas, however, we all agreed again that they must have been aware of his approach as they continuously scanned around.
Big Red was closing in, he took his time, inch by inch, meter by meter. He must have been about 25-30 meters away when he bursted into attack mode and came full speed towards the hyaenas. I was hoping for this as the vehicle was in a great position to photograph him running straight towards the camera. I was still convinced he would never be fast enough to get anywhere close to the hyaenas, as a result I had my 70-200mm telephoto lens mounted. I was wrong. The hyaenas were completely surprised by the attack and only realised the bad news when he was within 8-10 meters. Too late for one of them! I was still shooting with my 70-200mm lens when I realised he was going to catch one of them right in front of our eyes. I definitely had the wrong lens for this close action.
Before I could change my lens, Big Red grabbed one of the hyaenas by its neck/shoulder region. The hyaena screamed like hell, she had all the reason to. Big Red held it in a very strong grip. As they kept rolling in the grass, I kept shooting. It did not look good for the hyaena. I was certain Big Red was going to finish her off, not for a meal, but purely for territorial reasons. Lions will kill any potential competitor.
Surprisingly, Big Red suddenly let the hyaena go. Perhaps he just wanted to give it a warning or maybe he thought mortal wounds had already been inflicted. The hyaena shook itself off and simply trotted away. It had serious wounds on its neck and was bleeding heavily. As the hyaena walked away, we were certain it would not survive the next few days.
Big Red was still in a rage, searching for the invading lions. We followed Big Red for another hour and a half as he covered about 12km before he lost the other lion's scent. We then lost his tracks in the dense vegetation. What an exciting morning !! Vumbura and Little Vumbura did it again, delivering yet another thrilling and intense wildlife experience!
Vumbura Camp Botswana
(pronounced Vuumbera) is an 8-roomed tented camp situated to the north of Mombo, in a private concession bordering the Moremi Game Reserve in the extreme north of the Okavango Delta.
Vumbura offers both water and land activities. Mekoros (dug-out canoes) traverse the flood plains under the guidance of polers from the BaYei tribe, who have been using mekoros as their traditional form of transport for hundreds of years. Boats take guests onto the larger and deeper areas of water (water levels permitting).
Open 4x4 Land Rovers allow close proximity to animals in the savannah areas. This is possibly the only area in the Okavango where one can see Red Lechwe from a mokoro in the morning, then a Sable antelope from a game vehicle in the afternoon.
Add in Lion, Leopard, Elephant and Buffalo along with all the plains game, and one has an excellent all round game experience in a remote corner of the Okavango. Walks on the islands give guests the opportunity to enjoy Africa from a different perspective.
Each one of the 8 tented rooms has en-suite facilities with hot and cold running water, a shower, and flush toilet as well as an outdoor shower under the stars. The main dining, lounge and pub area is tucked beneath a canopy of indigenous trees with a view across the floodplain.
The camp has a plunge pool. Access into this area is only by aircraft and then by vehicle to camp. If the waters are high in winter, we may have to access the camp from the airstrip by mekoros or boat.
Little Vumbura Camp Botswana
is a beautiful six roomed tented camp situated to the north of Mombo in a private reserve bordering the Moremi Game Reserve in the northern reaches of the Okavango Delta. Little Vumbura offers both water and land activities, as well as walks for those who are keen. Mekoros (dug-out canoes) traverse the flood plains under the guidance of our experienced polers.
Open 4x4 Land Rovers allow guests to get close to animals in the savannah areas. However for much of 2004, this activity will be limited due to the high annual flood waters in the Okavango. For much of the March to October period, we will be boating to dry land and only board our game viewing vehicles there. Guests usually have the opportunity to see Lion, Leopard, Elephant, Sable and Buffalo, along with all the plains game, providing an excellent all round game experience in this remote corner of the Okavango.
Walks (on request basis only) around the islands give guests the opportunity to enjoy Africa from a different perspective. The tented rooms are large and comfortably appointed, with an en-suite bathroom with hot and cold running water, a shower, and flush toilet - and an outside shower under the stars.
The camp has a plunge pool too. Access into this area is only by aircraft and if the water levels are high in winter, a mokoro trip and / or a boat will transfer guests to camp.
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Vacationtechnician personalized luxury adventure travel transports you to the most exquisite wilderness and chill out retreats on Earth. Conserving rare biodiversity through low volume tourism; our aim is your indulgence -at no one's expense. Plan now to be assured a rejuvenating escape at a restful pace -to an unspoiled gem in the purest sense.
On the 3rd & 4th of March 2004 we accompanied the Mkambati Land Trust and all the chiefs & their headman to Ndumo & Rocktail Bay Lodge South Africa.
Leaving at 3am, in the pouring rain on a slippery dirt road was no fun, but once we had collected everyone there was an amazing sense of excitement and anticipation buzzing around the coach. When the bus arrived in the community, it was like nothing anyone had ever seen, it was as though a space ship had landed and the pneumatic doors were a huge fascination.
We had our little one year old with us, and she was like a mascot, everyone had a turn to baby-sit, they even gave her a Xhosa name- Monampondo (little Pondo girl). She was feeding the Lady Chief her cheese curl chips!!!
The rainy cold weather was soon forgotten and all they wanted to do was watch videos. We showed "Hole in the Wall" documentaries, the Wilderness Safaris "Conservation Through Tourism" video, "The greatest Shoal on Earth" as well as Paul Newman Classics such as "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" and "Road to Perdition".
We stopped just outside of Durban at an Ultra City for breakfast; most of them were totally confused with the sugar sachets and through them into their tea as is, paper and all! It was back on the long road after breakfast. Chatting to some of the ladies, most had never been further than Durban so for them this was an adventure to say the least. We had loads of discussions and meetings and really got to know each other on a personal level.
Jozini dam was the next leg stretching stop, everyone loved the scenery and took plenty photographs.After a beautiful singing session and a prayer by Mr. CK Qalaba, vice chairman of the Trust, we arrived at the Ndumo turn off at 4pm and the Mkambati Land Trust members hopped off the coach and got onto two landrovers that were waiting for them, major excitement and countless photos were taken of them on the vehicles. The chiefs and headmen remained on the bus with Linda and Tatum and went off to Rocktail Bay. It was still pouring with rain and out came the ponchos, well this everyone loved, all you could see were little eyes peeping back at you and huge smiles!
Arrival at Ndumo:
Jono & Nelly did an amazing welcome, everyone was totally overwhelmed. Mr. Nogilla nearly suffered from severe burns getting hot water out of the pump flasks at the camp fortunately we caught him in time. Once everyone went to their tents I never saw them! But boy could I hear them! That camp was vibrating with excitement. Dinner time came and everyone piled into a wonderful spread. Immediately after dinner, everyone went to bed, like clock work. The next morning some folk went on the boat & others on the Landrover. They all had a wonderful time and got to see what Ndumo is all about. Brunch came and went in a heartbeat, I recon 60 eggs were consumed. Jono then took everyone and showed them the back of house and the staff accommodation. Having Jono and Nelly as the Managers, was really an eye opener.
We then made our way to Rocktail Bay, South Africa...
We parked the coach at the Cashew Nut Plantation, and hopped into a landrover, thank goodness it had drop down sides as by this time it was raining cats and dogs. Needless to say everyone still wanted a poncho as the other group used them. It was a long and tedious road to Rocktail and we only arrived at the camp at 6pm, fifteen hours traveling, and everyone was still smiling, only too happy to have arrived at our destination. We were warmly welcomed by all Rocktalians, given a quick brief and shown to our rooms.
Meeting back at the pub for dinner, there was an air of satisfaction; we had all had hot showers and were feeling great. Drinks were served and when asked how they liked their rooms they all broke into a sing song of how wonderful they were.
Dinner was amazing as usual, and as the last knife and fork were put together, all the chiefs and headmen stood up in unison and excused themselves, they were off to bed........and could not wait to get back to their rooms to enjoy their luxurious accommodations.
In the morning, there was no sign of anyone, the guys only came out of their rooms at 9am, I asked them if they had overslept and they said no they had been up since 6am, enjoying their rooms!
They had a quick breakfast, trying everything on offer and then Simon took them on a tour of the lodge, back of house and to the beach. We said our goodbyes and off they went to Ndumo, in drier conditions thank goodness.
The Trust arrived at Rocktail at 2.30pm, very excited about the animals they had seen and the overall experience. We had high tea and zooted off to the beach, all in swimming gear. They took one look at the rough surf and plonked themselves on the sand dune. Charles, the coach driver and one of the Trust members braved the ocean, they were tossed around like corks and the rest of us had a good laugh. We had a short meeting on the beach and went back to the lodge to shower.
After an early dinner, we asked who wanted to go on a turtle drive and to our surprise everyone was keen, so off we went with Gugu and Mbongeni, and managed to see a nest of loggerheads scrambling for the sea. Everyone was amazed, asking questions and very concerned for the young hatchlings who had been nabbed by the crabs already. Back to the lodge for a well deserved sleep, as we were up early for our long road home.
After breakfast Robbie took us on a tour of the back of house, and we departed with thick clouds looming in the distance.
Sadly we departed for the long road home, collected the chiefs from Ndumo and we were on our way, and the rain came down!! Being in the coach was like being inside a beehive, chattering and laughing, stories about Ufudu (turtles) and crocodiles.
We stopped at the large craft and fresh produce market just outside of Empangeni, the guys bought gifts for their families and copious amounts of those small sweet pineapples, we have to confess we indulged in some too!
The last stop was the Ultra City for a take away dinner and then all the way home in the rain.
The last stretch on the gravel road was hair-raising to say the least, the coach was slipping and sliding all over the show, but Johan our driver was fantastic and handled the awful conditions like a pro, he got us all home safely.
After dropping everyone at their homes, we arrived at the entrance to the Reserve at around 2am, exhausted and happy to be in one piece, only to find they had dug a huge hole on the road to lay a pipe...so we had to maneuver around the pine trees around the back with the coach, we managed to get around and finally got to the cottages for a well deserved sleep........except Tatum, our one year old was wide awake after all the activity, so we got to bed at around 3.30am but it was the best sleep we have ever had!
The next day Charles followed the bus out to the tarred road, there must have been 2000 people standing in the rain alongside the road, just to get a glimpse of the "space ship" how they knew it was coming through at that time we don't know.
The trip was more than worthwhile; to have been able to expose these good folk to the "Wilderness Way" was truly a pleasure. We have had a tremendous response to it all and have certainly paved the way forward.
Rocktail Bay Lodge is situated in the northern reaches of the Greater St Lucia Wetland Park in northern KwaZulu Natal, South Africa. This whole area has been declared a World Heritage Site. Situated offshore from Rocktail Bay is the Maputaland Marine Reserve which offers an additional sanctuary with extraordinary diving and snorkelling encounters with huge shoals of fish, dolphins and whales.
The lodge is situated meters inland from the warm Indian Ocean and the most incredible beaches in all of South Africa. Surrounding Rocktail Bay to the north and south of the lodge there must be something like 40km of pristine and undisturbed beaches. Rocktail Bay itself was named after a trawler that sank off the Bay many years ago. The lodge is built out of the wind, just inland from the beach and within the forest canopy of vegetated dunes that occur along Maputaland's coastline. Rocktail offers perhaps the most private beach experience in South Africa, with a pristine coastline where it is possible to walk for hours without meeting another soul.
Accommodation is in 11 "tree-house" chalets. Each en suite room has its own balcony and an additional outdoor shower in the forest. The main area of the lodge has an inviting lounge, and meals are enjoyed either in the main dining room, at the poolside or outdoors under a huge Natal Mahogany tree.
At Manzengwenya, 11km south of the camp, we have our own fully accredited dive-centre with an unrivalled diving operation anywhere in South Africa. We offer boating excursions out to sea and around low tide to enjoy SCUBA (and snorkelling) on the pristine coral reefs offshore. (Please take special note that dive certification and pre-booking is compulsory for SCUBA activities).
Other lodge activities include fly-fishing, snorkelling, swimming and drives to Black Rock, the nearby hippo pools and to the surrounding community in open 4x4 Land Rovers. During the summer months Rocktail Bay Lodge is integrally involved in the ongoing turtle research that has been going on since the 1960s. Guests are able to accompany the resident turtle expert on research drives at low tide at night helping to monitor the turtle's nesting numbers and the turtle's behaviour.
NDUMO WILDERNESS CAMP is one of the oldest game reserves in South Africa having been proclaimed in 1924. It is situated in the Maputaland region of northern KwaZulu/Natal just south of the Mozambique border. Ndumo Game Reserve is about 10 000 hectares in extent and boasts approximately 60% of all bird species found in South Africa. The Green Coucal, Gorgeous Bush Shrike, Pink Throated Twinspot and African Broadbill are among the residents throughout the year. Game includes both Black and White Rhino, Buffalo, Giraffe, Blue Wildebeest, Zebra, Hippo, Crocodile, Nyala, Red Duiker and the elusive Suni, plus a wide variety of antelope and general game. All tents are equipped with the following for your convenience: bath towels, hand towels, torch, laundry bag and list, mosquito coil, insect repellent spray & bird list.
Ndumo Wilderness Camp has a large area of wooden decking and boardwalks. Stiletto type heels can get caught in the cracks and can cause damage to the woodwork. They are therefore discouraged ;-)
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Vacationtechnician personalized luxury adventure travel transports you to the most exquisite wilderness and chill out retreats on Earth. Conserving rare biodiversity through low volume tourism; our aim is your indulgence -at no one's expense. Plan now to be assured a rejuvenating escape at a restful pace -to an unspoiled gem in the purest sense.
"Imagine an island dedicated to preserving nature, in a climate of unabashed luxury. A private, reclusive villa would afford you a 270 degree view of clear blue equatorial waters and some of the world's most beautiful scenery. You would be pampered, yet completely secluded. You would be rejuventated as nature herself has been. Does such a place exist?"
Awards.
In our opening year, we were honoured to win two prestigious awards, the UK Sunday Times Travel Award and the Tatler Award.
The UK Sunday Times Travel Magazine declared North Island the Best Resort, Outstanding Style.
According to editor, Brian Schofield, "North Island has set a towering new standard in barefoot luxury and has leapt to the top of the world's honeymoon hot list. North Island is as luxurious and private as anyone can wish for. In addition, the judges were duly impressed by its dedication to the environment."
According to Tatler, "This is the ultimate in Crusoe living. Just 11 two-bedroom Villas set back from a sparkling-white sickle of beach, with wide decks - so fabulously eco that not a nail has been used - and the roofs of ylang-ylang wood. The pools are circles of deep blue sunk into the deck, gently swirling. Actually, not so gently: jets are strong enough to swim against, or float round and round on blissful silky water. These are pools that induce the goldfish attention span: a few seconds and you're happy to drift round all over again. The depth is irresistible for bomb-jumping. The resort is the Island, your castaway home - a new interpretation of barefoot luxury with laid-back lifestyle. Chef Geoffrey Murray, headhunted by Hillary Clinton for the White House, is here not so much as a chef as your private cook. No menus - you just tell Geoffrey what you like to eat. As lotus - eating goes, North Island sets a new standard."
Noah's Ark.
Our Island team are full steam ahead with the environmental rehabilitation programme, which consists of both land and marine based activities.
The initial focus of the project is:
1. To clear the Island of all alien vegetation, animals and birds. So far, the team has successfully cleared 1/4 of the Island of alien plant species (Lanatana, coco plums and coco nuts).
2. To develop an endemic plant nursery. About 90 000 plants have, at this point, been propagated from 75 species.
3. Finally, once a viable habitat has been created, to re-introduce endemic bird species onto North Island.
The aims for 2004 are:
1. To remove Indian Myna's and Barred Madagascan Ground Doves from the Island.
2. To undertake a basic biodiversity assessment of the Island in order to find out which birds should be introduced.
3. To introduce two endemic bird species on to North Island by the end of the year. This is dependent on the results of the biodiversity assessment.
Although not currently a primary focus, the conservation marine based activities, i.e. turtle, reef and beach profile monitoring, are ongoing processes.
Looking forward, the North Island Cook Book will be published sometime during the next couple of months. Written by our chef, Geoff, the book will be a collage of recipes, photographs and stories about life on North Island, through the eyes of the people who live there.
Seychelles
The 43 Inner Islands that cluster around the principal islands of Mah�, Praslin and La Digue are the world's only oceanic islands of granitic composition. They represent the mountain peaks of the ancient super-continent of Pangea that once encompassed the total landmass of a young, evolving planet and are thought to have erupted from the earth's core some 750 million years ago.Around 200 million years ago, the forces determining the continental drift split Pangea into Laurasia (modern Europe, Asia and North America) and Gondwanaland (South America, Africa, Antarctica, Australasia and India). 75 million years later Madagascar, Seychelles and India separated as one landmass, carrying with them certain species of fauna, such as the flying fox, that remain common to both locations, before Seychelles finally split from India about 65 million years ago.
North Island, and its close neighbour Silhouette Island, contain the only evidence of volcanic ash found above sea level in Seychelles. They are both granitic islands but are thought to be considerably younger than Mah�, Praslin and La Digue. Their syenite formation probably dates back to about 90 million years ago when Seychelles and India separated.Seychelles' Outer Islands are coralline and made up of coral or volcanic rocks from deep within the earth's crust. Produced by seismic events, these islands are mere juveniles in comparison to their aged granitic peers and date back only a few million, or perhaps even a thousand years.Seychelles' magnificent islands possess unrivalled beauty ranging from the verdant mist forests of virgin granite peaks to the powder-soft sands of secluded beaches and together represent the ultimate tropical destination for the discerning traveller, living up to the country's slogan - "Seychelles - as pure as it gets".
Tourism is the mainstay of the nation's economy and is considered one of the chief components in the sustainable development of the country, benefiting from policies, planning and marketing structures that take into account both the conservation of natural and cultural resources as well as the carrying capacity of the islands. Respect for other crucial factors such as the preservation of the social values of local communities, as well as the fragile and prolific bio-diverse eco-systems, such as coral reefs and mangroves, remain very much at the heart of planning initiatives.
Seychelles takes its role as custodian of a truly unique environment very seriously and, over many years, enlightened conservationist policies have set aside nearly 50% of a limited landmass as natural reserves. Seychelles boasts two UNESCO World Heritage Sites - Aldabra, the world's largest raised coral atoll (approximately 500 square kilometres) that is home to 150,000 giant tortoises and an abundance of flora and fauna, as well as the Vall�e-de-Mai on Praslin, the only place on earth where you will find the fabled Coco-de-Mer (the world's heaviest seed) and the rare Black Parrot.This impressive national heritage has remained virtually untouched for millions of years and today combines with other real advantages, such as the absence of venomous creatures, tropical disease (there is no malaria), cyclones, crime and poverty, to make Seychelles a most desirable tourist destination.
Racially harmonious and politically stable, Seychelles is one of the last true sanctuaries on the planet where man can still live healthily and in harmony with nature, benefiting from a carefree, island-style way of living and enjoying the space to breathe pure air and to roam free.
North Island is one of forty inner granitic islands of the Seychelles that are located around the two main islands of Mah� and Praslin. North Island provides a sanctuary for guests seeking an unspoiled tropical haven of peace and tranquility. The island offers four beaches that are located at each end of the compass and is able to ensure a wonderful year-round tropical beach and island experience. Facilities include 11 handcrafted air-conditioned guest villas. There are a central dining room, lounge and library; a beautifully located health spa and gym; a breathtakingly beautiful swimming pool hewn into a granitic outcrop and a sunset bar and restaurant tucked away on the western side of the island.
Each villa is completely self-contained and comprises a luxuriously proportioned bedroom; a writing and change-room area with a huge en-suite bathroom and outdoor shower; overhead fans; fully retracting sliding windows and mosquito nets. The master bedroom and change room is air-conditioned. An additional study or bedroom is equipped with a DVD/CD system, Internet access and can be rearranged to accommodate children. There is a kitchen, sun deck and covered lounge area and guests may elect to eat in their villas or in the main dining room. A private plunge pool and sala completes your private sanctuary within a sanctuary. A full butler service caters for your every need from in-villa meals to picnics on secluded beaches.
Activities include swimming and sunbathing on any of the 4 private beaches, excellent snorkeling right off the beaches, reef and wall scuba diving, massage and health therapy in the Spa or in your villa, gymnasium, nature walks, deep sea and fly fishing, windsurfing, guided and supported sea kayaking, hobie sailing, yacht charter, boating trips to the neighbouring island, mountain biking or golf at Lemuria Resort on Praslin (18 hole course but requires a private helicopter transfer).
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Vacationtechnician personalized luxury adventure travel transports you to the most exquisite wilderness and chill out retreats on Earth. Conserving rare biodiversity through low volume tourism; our aim is your indulgence -at no one's expense. Plan now to be assured a rejuvenating escape at a restful pace -to an unspoiled gem in the purest sense.
The Bukakhwe San, a Bushman clan who have inhabited southern Africa for more than 30,000 years, have over time been slowly abandoning their nomadic existence. Gudigwa, is a remote village in north-west Botswana and due north of the Okavango. One of the oldest and most vulnerable of peoples, they are now involved in an eco-tourism project which they hope will help preserve their culture - and provide a livelihood for the villagers.
Several Bushmen were waiting at the entrance of the Gudigwa Camp to welcome the tourists who had flown from Botswana's premiere wildlife destination, the Okavango Swamps, specially to experience San culture.
"Toyaate Tsekaraga," one of the hosts said. ("We hope your journey went well.")
A woman offered the visitors a pleasant berry drink, while a Bushman who could speak English prompted them to try the local delicacies: Mopani worms, biltong and dried fruits.
I was one of the guests invited to enjoy Bushman hospitality. Now we nibbled politely at these unusual snacks, anxious not to appear rude. We had first to eat, then we would be shown to our overnight accommodation.
And what accommodation. The grass huts were fashioned along the lines of traditional Bushman dwellings - with certain major concessions. A door was added to appease Western demands for privacy and the hut furnished with conventional beds. A wash-basin, bucket shower and septic tank toilet had been enclosed with reeds round each hut.
The Bukakhwe are new to tourism. The Bushmen in this part of Botswana have always been nomadic, moving with the seasons from one part of the country to another. They survived for centuries on wild fruits and vegetables such as tsamma melons and wild potatoes, berries and edible insects. These have traditionally been harvested by women, while it was the men's job to bring home the meat: hares and guinea fowl, impala and kudu hunted with bows and arrows.
With the nomadic life over as proclaimed by Botswana/DeBeers Diamond Cartel mandate and hunting forbidden, they faced an uncertain future. The Botswana government insisted they adapt to "modern life," send their children to school and find jobs. The 800-strong community were "resettled" in a village but, as is the case in 85% of Botswana, the soil was mainly sand and unsuitable for agriculture.
How would these ancient people survive in a world that demanded money in exchange for food, where they were expected to wear conventional clothes instead of skins and the children had to learn to read and write?
Wilderness Safaris, in partnership with the Bukakhwe Cultural Conservation Trust (a board elected by the clan) came to the rescue and a venture known as Gudigwa Camp was initiated. The project is fully owned by the Bukakhwe - one of five San clans in Botswana - with all proceeds funnelled into community development projects.
Our Bushman host, Dicks Tsima, 26, was "rueful." about the passing of the old ways.
"We are the people of the dry bush lands," he said. "We were resettled here in the early 90s and got special licences to hunt. But the government realized poachers were taking advantage of the Bushmen and now we must stay here ....."
Their camp, staffed by Bushmen under the sole guidance of Liza Humphries, opened in April this year. Wilderness Safaris, who manage some of the best camps in the Okavango Swamps, is overseeing the project.
A visit to Gudigwa Camp is a special - if somewhat artificial - experience. The village where the Bushmen live is tucked away among the bushes. Seen from the vantage point of an aeroplane seat, it comprises a collection of small grass huts, with just one conventional building - probably government-owned - near the entrance.
The tourists' camp, on the other hand, has been built among ancient trees and provided with all mod cons. However, despite the luxurious home comforts, the atmosphere at Gudigwa Camp is genuine enough. It is one place foreign visitors can go to gain some understanding of the ancient Bushman culture, now seriously in danger of extinction.
They are a people who have been persecuted for generations. As far back as the early 1800s, the explorer William Burchell noted in his diary that the Bushmen were "feared by the Hottentots for their lethal poisoned arrows, were hunted like wild animals by the Boers to avenge their cattle depredations and were slaughtered by the Bantus who invaded their hunting grounds."
Author Bartle Bull writes in his book "Safari. A Chronicle of Adventure" (Penguin 1992) that 200 years ago Burchell recorded his impressions of a visit to the home of Kaali, a Bushman who had accompanied his party from South Africa's Orange River. He provided what is probably the first ever descriptions of Bushman life in southern Africa. He wrote:
"They brought us to the summit of the ridge where, situated between hillocks and heaps of large stones and unsheltered by either tree of bush, we found half a dozen wretched weather-worn huts, only one-third of the circumference enclosed and utterly incapable of protecting the inhabitants from wind or rain. Within these huts there was no property of any kind, except in one or two a dirty furless skin or the shell of an ostrich egg. Never before had I beheld so complete a picture of poverty."
More recently, Sandy Gall in his work "The Bushmen of Southern Africa" - sub titled "Slaughter of the Innocent" (published in 2002) - provides an even more depressing picture.
He describes the ongoing persecution of the Bushmen, the beatings and brutality, the torture, the imprisonment, the disease and suffering inflicted on what has been described as "a harmless people".
He asks: "After centuries of genocide, dispossession and exploitation, what is the future of the 100,000 or so Bushmen who have survived into the 21st century" Is there real hope that they, the aboriginal inhabitants of the continent, who have been on the earth for so many millennia, may find the next millennium less terrible than the last"
There are, indeed, some hopeful signs. Perhaps the most hopeful is what happened in South Africa in March 1999. Thabo Mbeki (then deputy president and now President of South Africa) flew to a dusty squatter village on the edge of the Kalahari Gemsbok Park and ceremonially handed over to two Bushmen leaders the rights to their ancestral lands from which they had been evicted half a century before.
Gall is less optimistic, however, about Botswana's stance on the Bushman question, quoting disturbing accounts of torture allegations, beatings and arrests in that country. The problem is ongoing.
At Gudigwa, however, the Bushmen have faced the inevitability of their new life and are learning new skills to keep their culture alive. They are warm and welcoming hosts who have prepared a fascinating programme to keep their visitors entertained.
On our visit to the camp, the pots are bubbling on an open fire by 4pm, a cluster of San women in attendance. The dancers who were to entertain the guests arrived in their "skins" soon after. So did the drummers and musicians, the fire makers and the craftsmen who brought with them the bows and arrows they crafted to sell to the tourists.
"�sk me what you want to know about my people," Tsima urged. "We want to share our culture with you."
He talked about the time his father taught him, at the age of five or six, to hunt with a bow and arrow ("we never had guns"), about the role of men and women in Bushmen society, about the education of children, about life in a nomadic society, about sex, marriage and religion.
"Our clan has never had a chief," he said. "Decisions have always been taken by the elders. Now, however, we have elected a young man as our spokesman. He represents us because he can read and write and speak English."
Boys, he explained, could get married at the age of ten if they were able to provide a woman with food. A wife who complained that her husband was lazy, could be taken from him and given to another man. It was not unusual for a man to be given a girl child or baby - but the onus was on him to provide her with food and meat.
A girl was initiated after puberty and would then stay inside for four months before her "coming out". She would then be free to select the man she wanted as her husband. Tsima talked freely and openly about every aspect of his culture.
How did his people feel about being called Bushmen?
Tsima insisted that "we are men and we come from the bush, so we are Bushmen. We have no problem with that."
Night was falling when a Bushman, his face creased, arrived at the gathering carrying a "thumb" piano.
"His name is Zimbabwe and he will sing for you," Tsima said.
The sun had set by the time Zimbabwe started his melancholy tune. Tsima translated, explaining that the song was about a man whose in-laws had ill-treated him. There was total silence as the group listened to the achingly sad words.
Then his mood changed and Zimbabwe sang a welcome song, prompting dancers to leap to their feet and join the celebrations. The party was on. The local beer, "khadi", a mixture of millet, honey and brandy bush seed, flowed.
Tsima, his shirt tossed aside, joined his colleagues round the fire, the smoke adding a mysterious haziness to the proceedings.
Two hours later, the dancers stopped, their bodies glistening in the light of the fire. It was time for dinner: an ostrich curry, tomato bredie and chicken pieces cooked on the coals - a feast for the visitors who tucked-in along with their hosts.
The next morning the guests were roused before sun-up. It was time to gather berries and bulbs in the bush and learn about the uses of plants, medicinal and otherwise. Another day had begun.
The Bushmen of Gudigwa can host up to 16 guests at a time. They are waiting for you to arrive.
Gudigwa Camp offers guests on safari the opportunity to experience the cultural richness of Botswana. Gudigwa village is a settlement of 800 "Bukakhwe" San Bushman or "people of the dry country".
The Bukakhwe people are indigenous to the Okavango Delta, and though their physical attributes vary from the Bushman tribes of the Kalahari, their traditional ways of living off the land are very much the same. The Gudigwa experience highlights the intimate connection between the Bukakhwe people's cultural heritage and the natural environment.
By sharing this linkage with their guests, they are reviving a dying culture and passing on intricate knowledge to the future generations within the village. Activities focus around various aspects of both traditional and modern life in Botswana.
Walks will reveal the secrets of the bush and guests will learn about the medicinal uses of plants, discover where to find underground water, and will be given basic tips of how to survive off of nature's abundant resources. Villagers will perform traditional dances and songs, tell animated stories in their mother tongue - a language of "clicks" and guttural tones - and will cook local dishes for guests to sample.
Guests stay in large, cosy grass huts made from local materials and modelled after traditional bushman shelters. Each of the 8 units has comfortable beds and linen, solar lighting and its own open air toilet and hot shower. This camp and its activities take place 5 km away from the Gudigwa community so as not to disturb the daily life of the people.
Guests are welcome to take a quick tour of the village. As the largest remaining Bushman village in Botswana, the Gudigwa people are proud to be reviving their culture that is rapidly changing due to modernization, and to be promoting cross-cultural exchange with the rest of the world.
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The only major change to the appearance of the Damaraland Camp this month has been the locally famous 'rock pool' undergoing yet another colour change.
The Palm Springs style blue paint has been replaced with a more subtle charcoal grey. We may be slightly behind in global design fashions, but are confident that the new look will please swimmers as much as it does the flocks of parched desert dwelling birds that visit daily.
The camp and surrounding area has responded to the rains with an amazing carpet of fresh grass and flowers. This has temporarily obscured our traditional basalt strewn valleys and plains with a remarkable display of organic life. In particular, the local springbok herds are in premium condition and are feeding right up to the edges of camp were they are stalked by our resident urbanised wild cats, Thelma and Louise.
The thunder storms in the area have been mesmerizing with the majority of rain falling on the Huab river valley, leaving the camp dry and creating the effect that these electrical shows are put on for our entertainment. Rain in Namibia is as rare and elusive as the diamonds that rest beneath the sand. We had the distinct pleasure two days ago of being in exactly the right place as the heavens opened. Standing on the golden plains between the Huab and Aba-Huab riverbeds, with our bare feet in the hot sand whilst we were thoroughly soaked by the downpour, it was a perfect African moment.
This annual event gives the elephant population a chance to leave the river bed boundaries imposed by the usually arid terrain and move further into the mountains to feed. Watching them pick their way up the side of towering basalt mountains, sending loose rocks tumbling back onto the valley floor is a unique sight. The younger less experienced climbers often resort to sliding down the mountain side on their bespoke baggy trousers. We have found a solitary mother and young calf who have decided to remain in the river bed until the herds return. The calf was not strong enough to join the exodus and they are spending their time wandering between the areas permanent waterholes.
The most exciting news on the wildlife front has been the local tour undertaken by a lioness and her two cubs. They have been steadily moving south from the neighbouring concession, which has brought great excitement to the local subsistence farming community. An unfortunate incident with a local cow has led to a nocturnal curfew for all domestic livestock. The community receives a monthly income from the camp, which adequately compensates for stock loss and helps to improve the local attitude towards natural resource management.
On a lighter note, one of the camp guides went to investigate baboon alarm calls coming from a long deserted farm. He traced the noise to a defunct dam which had an entire troop of baboons trapped inside, evidently the thirsty primates had climbed into the dam to drink and then a combination of over full bellies and steep dam walls, led to their unhappy predicament. Although we have a strict policy of observing and not interfering with wildlife, given the unusual circumstances, a log was dropped found to provide a means of escape. Evidently, after realising they were stuck, the baboons had decided to make the most of the water available and just kept drinking. Aloysius described the water-filled band, hauling themselves with difficulty from the dam and staggering away like drunken sailors.
In the meantime, the people and wildlife of Damaraland enjoy the last of the rains and await the approaching winter when the waterholes will be hives of activity again.
Situated on the northern face of the Huab River valley and looking south toward the imposing Brandberg Mountains, Damaraland Camp offers its guests endless vistas.
Early morning mists generated by the clash between the icy Atlantic Ocean and the warm desert air of the Skeleton Coast, drift inland along the river sand canyon, providing sustenance to the flora and fauna of the region. This comfortable and friendly camp offers walks and drives in one of the best wilderness areas in Namibia.
Although wildlife is not concentrated, Damaraland Camp is situated where the rare Desert Elephant roams, alongside Gemsbok (Oryx), Springbok, Ostrich and other hardy desert animals. Rare succulent plants somehow manage to eke out an existence in this harsh countryside.
Damaraland Camp accommodates guests in nine comfortable tented rooms, with en-suite facilities including flush toilets and showers with hot and cold running water. As a result of water shortages, it is unfortunately not possible to offer a laundry service.
The dining room and pub are combined under canvas, and an open fire is enjoyed on calm evenings. A feature of the camp is the unique rock pool. Activities throughout the area are in 4x4 vehicles and on foot (as well as mountain bikes available for guest use from June 2003 onwards).
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March 2004 at Palmwag Rhino Camp Namibia has been permeated with alot of new beginnings. Most of these have been precipitated by much needed rains in the area this month. Our concession area is looking very green in patches, and where isolated showers have fallen, new shoots of grasses and forbes give the area a beautiful green carpet, with the inflorescence of the grasses blowing like waves in the wind.
The area became home to many new arrivals in the springbok herds at the beginning of the month. The lambs keep us entertained with their pronking and seem to be able to do this from birth.
The Hartman's Mountain Zebra herds are looking very plump and well fed, benefiting from the nutritious green shoots of the bushman's grass.
The numbers of Zebra in the area have increased due to the rains, having moved west out of the area in search of better grazing. The family of giraffe are still in the vicinity of the Uniab River, just west of Palmwag lodge.
The rhinos are doing well in the area. The sightings this month have included: Diana and her calf Takamisa (means "beware" in Herero), Ben, Micro, and Speedy. We have had 100% strike rate at finding the rhinos here this month, and thus all our guests have been able to enjoy rhino sightings (some having to walk a little further than others!).
This is mostly thanks to our excellent Save the Rhino Trackers who are expertly skilled in tracking as well spotting rhino from extremely far distances.
A family of Bat eared foxes, 2 cheetah (on two separate occasions), 2 lionesses and many black-backed jackal have been spotted during the month and enjoyed by the guests.
The area has also the new coloured blooms of the season with the large salmon red flowers of Hoodia currori, white flowers of the Catophractes alexandri, Devil thorn yellows, and a blanket of creamy Heliotropium curassavicum flowers. The pods of the Terminalia prunoides and the cones of the female Welwitchia mirabilis add spots of red to the green landscape.
Out on tracking excursions during the day, the colourful sound of the Bokmakierie, the frog- like croaking of the Ruppells Korhaan, the noisy chatter of the Cape Sparrow and last but not least the ascending call of the Benguela long billed lark can be heard. The evenings next to a blazing campfire under the stars are filled with the sounds of many insects, good conversation, and the eerie call of the jackal in the distance.
Palmwag Rhino Camp is situated in the 1 million acre private Palmwag reserve in Damaraland in north-west Namibia, between Etosha and the Skeleton Coast - few places on the planet can offer this level of privacy and wilderness experience.
This desert reserve has a number of fresh water springs that support healthy populations of animals including desert adapted black rhino and elephants as well as large populations of the rare Hartman's mountain zebra, giraffe, oryx, springbok and kudu. The predator population is the largest outside of the Etosha National Park with over 100 lions, cheetah, leopard, brown and spotted hyena.
Bird life is prolific and diverse with most of Namibia's endemics present. Palmwag Rhino Camp accommodates 14 guests in 7 large East African styled "Meru" tents (but can be sold to 8 tents if required) each with an en-suite bathroom comprising hand basin, flush toilet and a classic bucket shower that is filled with hot water whenever needed.
Lights are powered by solar panels and the tented dining room offers uninterrupted views of the desert and mountains. Welwitschia (ancient desert adapted plants) plants dot the plain in front of the camp. Activities include rhino tracking on foot or by vehicle as well as day and night nature drives. Guests often enjoy full day outings, with a picnic lunch, on the reserve.
Palmwag Rhino Camp is a joint venture between Wilderness Safaris and the "Save the Rhino Trust" - a non-profit conservation organisation that has been working in this area for 20 years. The Trust have been singly responsible for helping to ensure that these rare, desert adapted black rhino survived the slaughter that went on throughout other parts of Africa in the 80s and 90s.
Today this population of black rhino is growing in numbers and the area boasts the largest concentration of rhino anywhere on the planet outside of a national park. Community game scouts who were employed by the Trust to help with the patrolling and monitoring all these years are now seconded to the camp and are the trackers and guides. A portion of every guest's revenue goes to the Trust.
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Vacationtechnician personalized luxury adventure travel transports you to the most exquisite wilderness and chill out retreats on Earth. Conserving rare biodiversity through low volume tourism; our aim is your indulgence -at no one's expense. Plan now to be assured a rejuvenating escape at a restful pace -to an unspoiled gem in the purest sense.
The Story of Lonesome George the Chobe Elephant
We sat dead still. Nobody moved, not even to raise a camera and take a photo. A massive bull elephant was standing only a few metres away. He stretched his trunk out inquisitively, smelling the large obstacle that was parked adjacent to his path. When he carried on towards the water, the Land Rover and all its occupants breathed a huge sigh of relief.
This particular bull elephant was in musth. The secretions from his temporal gland, the dribbling between the back of his legs and the overpowering pungent odour gave away the fact that he had an excess of testosterone and other male hormones coursing through his body. This male was looking to mate - and fortunately for us, he decided that the Land Rover was not in oestrus. The fact that he was on his own and looking for female company meant that he quickly earnt the nickname of lonesome George.
We drove down to the Chobe River in Botswana and waited for George at a point on the river where elephants often gather to drink. Sure enough after a few minutes he came trundling along with the hurried but enthusiastic gait of a thirsty elephant. We watched him drink, slurping the cool clean water from the very surface. He then began to bathe and splash. His enjoyment clearly showed that cool clean water of the Chobe was definitely more than just something to drink.
We were just about to move on and have a look at some lions which we had found that morning when we saw a large breeding herd of elephants moving down to the spot where George was drinking. We all seemed to feel a connection to George - he was part of only a half finished story yet to be written. A collective decision was made see if George might possibly "get lucky" with the any of the female elephants in the breeding herd. The lions would have to wait!
Sure enough George stopped his aquatic cavorting and moved on to the more serious business of finding a willing female. As the herd drank, George methodically approached all the adult females, again using his trunk to try and detect any excessive levels of oestrogen.
As we watched, two more breeding herds came down, one after the other. There were now, close to a hundred elephants of varying ages all drinking and cavorting (already used cavorting). We felt sure that George would find a mate amongst this lot. He was easy to pick out from the rest of the scrum as he was truly gigantic, standing at least three feet taller than any of the other elephants.
We were parked in the same spot for over two hours, watching not only George but the rest of the elephants, drink, play, mud, dust and some of the younger ones just lay down and sleep. Slowly, the different herds began to dissipate, some heading north across the vast floodplains, some moving back to the teak woodlands. As the sun hit the horizon one elephant remained at the drinking spot on the river - Lonesome George.
He slowly moved off, displaying none of the enthusiasm that we had seen earlier in the afternoon. Using the same elephant path, he moved back up the sand ridge in the direction of our campsite. As it was getting dark we also had to move in that direction.
Whilst fortune had not favoured George, we felt fortunate to have been able to spend an afternoon with him. We had all gained a small insight into the trials and tribulations that are part of daily elephant life.
More than likely George is probably still lonesome - that is often the way with bull elephants. However he will certainly not be forgotten, at least by those of us on the vehicle him that afternoon.
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NXAI PAN NATIONAL PARK Botswana
Sitting at the one and only waterhole in the entire Park at 6 am, I was finally alone and at one with myself, waiting for the crimson ball of sun to cast it's light on the stage in front of me. I had the front row seats here, awaiting the arrival of the various actors that would play out various acts to me, in various stages.
The lions were already here, lying over on the other side of the water. Three energetic four- month old cubs were harassing two huge males. Three muscular lionesses, one with 2 tiny cubs, lay close to them and eyed the terrain.
In the distant shimmer of a mirage, duplicate figures of springbok make their way towards the pan, perhaps unaware of the danger that awaits them. In this seemingly inhospitable environment, known to me as "the Great Nothingness", creatures of all shapes and sizes have adapted themselves over time.
Squadrons of Burchells' sandgrouse fly in low over the scrub and settle by the waters edge, followed by droves of Cape turtle-doves. All of a sudden there's a flurry of feathers and pandemonium breaks out. A Red-necked falcon has taken advantage of the gathering birds, and dive-bombs them at the water. It misses surprisingly and perches atop an acacia, waiting for round two.
The springbok and some ostrich have moved closer to the pan, warily scanning the surrounding area for the obvious danger.
One lioness lying 50 metres in front of my vehicle gets up and walks straight towards me, giving me super photographic opportunities. The side lighting of the sun casts an aura over her muscular torso, shoulder pistons pumping up and down as she slowly walks. She stops some four metres away and eyes out the springbok at the pan, she shifts her gaze from them up to the vehicle window and our eyes meet. I shiver with a mixture of excitement and fear? and realize just how big and powerful these cats are. Weighing in at around 140 kilograms she walked past and lay down to the right of me, and waited.
I got the camera ready, checked my shutter-speed and aperture and made myself comfortable. As the springbok were bending down to drink the first sip of the day, she edged closer and stopped, crouched in typical feline posture. Cover is in short supply here bar the hundreds of elephant-dung piles that scatter the water perimeter. The lioness actually looked like she was blending into these piles, as funny as it looked, and she inched herself closer and closer.
Then she was off, an explosion of blurred yellow, slowly at first, her speed building up as she targeted one particular springbok. She was too slow and the animal bounded off in a cloud of dust.
As an exercise, I was working out with the different springbok herds, which individual would be the target. Predators including lion target the weak, old or injured animals in a herd and concentrate entirely on that particular individual. Another herd was coming down to drink only moments after the first attempt by the lioness. It seems that the animals are driven entirely by their thirst, and this would eventually be their downfall. The lion had cottoned on to this and spend the whole day in close proximity to the water for obvious reasons.
I lifted my binoculars and scanned the herds, noting that a young springbok ram in one herd had bit of a limp and I concluded that he would be the 'chosen one'. Would I be right I wondered?
The herd closed in and drank their fill. The lioness, already re-positioned, did a repeat of the first attempt and homed in on the same ram I had 'selected'.
A flurry of doves, dust, dung and antelope exploded as the lioness neared, her muscles bulging, and eager to get breakfast. Another miss ?. The springbok trotting off and turning around at the hunter, as if to say.."Is that your best shot".
This went on until 11h30 and I had counted ten unsuccessful attempts. A single lioness has a 10% success rate, as compared to hunting co-operatively in a group that have roughly a 15% success rate. At the rate she was going she would either have to 'team' up with the other lion or try a different strategy.
She and the others got up and moved to the shade of an acacia, as the sun was truly merciless now. The antelope and ostrich took advantage and drank their fill, while the lions contemplated whether they should try once more or sleep the heat off?..they opted for the later.
I was hot myself and I poured water on my kikoi, wringing out the excess water and placing the cool dampness over my head and neck. A strong breeze now blew swirling 'dust-devils' across the cooked and brittle plain.
The hot blizzard hit me with bits of desiccated leaves and stinging sand. Shadows flew over me like dark angels and on looking up, I noticed five Lappet-faced vultures on a thermal. Perhaps they, with their keen eyesight, had noticed the activity at the waterhole, or they were also in need of quenching their parched thirsts.
I was thinking about the lion again, while I waited for Act 2 to commence. later on, once it had cooled down for sure, they would try once more.
A predator with a high energy expenditure was far more successful than one without. A cheetah with its' awesome, blinding speed and radical energy output, had a higher success rate than these lion. In turn, lion had a much higher rate than leopard. Also what puzzled me was why don't the lionesses team up forming an ambush for larger prey like the kudu that have just come down? But who am I, a human, to anthropomorphically decide what is best for them? How dare I think that.
All this incredible energy consumption seemed a waste of time and effort for a paltry reward of a single springbok, who would probably be poached off the lioness by the huge males. I became frustrated for the lioness.
It was eerily quiet now, the mirages shimmering like some phantom sea off in the distance. The heat-waves distorted far-off images of ostrich and wildebeest, as if they were dancing some weird dance.
Most animals were in the scant, scattered shade, but the wildebeest who look really dumb at the best of times, were standing nonchalant in the sun like lone sentinels waiting for the rain. Two ostriches, their sharp eyes watching the now sleeping lions, stood ankle deep in the cool water, scooping long beakfulls of water.
At 15h30, more springbok started arriving in loose herds, and gathered on the outskirts of the pan. The five Lappet-faced vultures descended on huge wings, landing with a bounce, like a squadron of antique bi-planes.
A soft, shuffling sound from behind the vehicle to my right made me turn around. A single, huge and old bull elephant was on his way to water. He sauntered past the sleeping lions, who raised their heads in slumber at his passing. I was amazed that such a beast can survive out here, especially this time of year when browse was in short supply. He looked so much in charge, full of confidence and wisdom as he approached the pan. He slaked his thirst and mixed up a slurry of grey-white calcrete mud, and sprayed his entire body with the mixture. Under his belly and arms, behind his legs, over his head and on his back?..then he just stood there as if in some hypnotized state of trance. Mud dripped off him like melted white chocolate and his eyes were closed. Amazing. This behemoth had probably walked 30 kilometres to the water, the soles of his aged and cracked feet must have been so hot and sore, and all that moved was his tail, swinging like some pendulum in time with the cicadas.
More shuffling off to my right, more elephant. In fact 11 huge bulls of various ages and sizes approached now, desperate to cool off their feet and quench their huge thirsts.
The 'melted-chocolate' bull couldn't have seen them arrive, but as if by some unheard command, perhaps infrasound, he moved off as the others were approaching. He sauntered off, shimmering in his newly acquired coat of wetness.
He did not even greet the others physically but perhaps said "Hello" with a deep grumble, unheard through my ears. The others did likewise and preceded with the ritual of drinking, mud bathing and wallowing, followed by a dust-bath.
They too wandered off into the great nothingness, and I wondered if they would return again tomorrow.
The lion had now woken after some hours and the time was 17h15. I had been sitting here for 11 and a quarter hours, my buttocks somewhat cramped from not being able to get out the vehicle. The next hour saw the same lioness attempt another seven times at drinking springbok, but to no avail?.see and the others would just have to get their act together. I have never seen such hard working felids in action!
The sun was setting and the bulls were standing gossiping to one side, so I decided to start up the Cruiser. The sound broke the peace and I felt somewhat guilty for having caused this disturbance, but I had to get into camp before 18h30. I stopped with the elephants silhouetted against the orange wisps of cirrus cloud, and got out the vehicle. It felt so good to stretch away the long sitting, and I then photographed the huge bulls with a slow shutter speed, with me lying on my belly in the cooling brittleness of sand.
I arrived back in camp elated at my day spent at what I thought was the Great Nothingness?..but I was amazed at what an abundance of life this incredible, inhospitable place contains. Tomorrow is another day.
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Vacationtechnician personalized luxury adventure travel transports you to the most exquisite wilderness and chill out retreats on Earth. Conserving rare biodiversity through low volume tourism; our aim is your indulgence -at no one's expense. Plan now to be assured a rejuvenating escape at a restful pace -to an unspoiled gem in the purest sense.
Migratory Behavior On a Safari
By NANCY R. NEWHOUSE
The cheetah moved silkily, stealthily picking up one front paw, then the other. Behind her, imitating her movements, were two young males. Our guide explained in a near whisper that she was teaching her teenage sons how to stalk, aiming for a distant group of impala.
Three open Land Rovers, reasonably far apart, held us, the rapt audience. Fifteen minutes passed in utter silence as the cheetah paused to sniff the air, exhaustively scrutinize the terrain, then move on. Suddenly, she dropped low and started running at warp speed, in complete silence. Then to our immense disappointment, she suddenly disappeared behind some small trees on this mostly open plain. Our drivers threw their cars in gear and we careered down the dirt track, but we were too late.
It was the most thrilling moment in an afternoon of game viewing at Mombo Camp in the Okavango Delta in Botswana. But there were so many moments. That morning, we had seen three male lions patrolling their territory. Among the striking birds was the lilac-breasted roller, a lovely little creature (common in southern Africa) in Popsicle tones of lavender, green and turquoise. Zebra and impala were so common they were pretty much ignored, although the elegance of the dainty impala never ceased to charm me.
This was Day 7 of a two-week ''flying safari,'' a mid-May tour of southern Africa with Wilderness Safaris. The ambitious itinerary started in Johannesburg, going from there to Namibia, the Okavango Delta in Botswana, Zambia and Victoria Falls and finally Zimbabwe.
I had arrived in Johannesburg on my own, traveling anonymously, to join what I was told would be a group of 10 others. In fact, when I came down to the lobby of the elegant Grace Hotel, after a night to recover from the numbing flight from New York, just two people were there -- Dan, a lawyer from San Diego, and Bruce Van Niekerk, the young, chipper and omnicompetent South African who was our guide and pilot for the entire trip. This was a group?
I never discovered why the numbers shrank so, but one result was that Dan and I had a private pilot, as well as a terrific guide and companion, flying us around southern Africa in a small plane, a Cessna twin-engine 310. In short order we took off from Lanseria Airport, flying northwest across the Kalahari Desert to southern Namibia.
When, several hours and one refueling stop later, we approached Sossusvlei Wilderness Camp, the first of six lodges that we would visit, we were definitely in the middle of nowhere -- a stark, lunar gray-brown desert.
It seemed impossible that anything could live here, but waving cheerfully as we touched down on the small landing strip was Dios, crisply uniformed, who drove us in a Land Rover up a bone-rattling steep track to the camp, almost invisible above the plain. Two smiling staff members met us with cold washcloths and showed us the handsome lodge and our cabins. Nine of these thatch-roofed, stone and wood ''guest rooms'' (actually individual structures) were strung out along the hillside.
I was amazed at the comfort of my tile-floored bungalow, with its king bed draped in mosquito netting, a chaise and a few pieces of attractive dark wood furniture, a double free-standing sink and claw-foot tub, a toilet and a shower with a small window that opened to the desert. A tiny porch with a postage-stamp sized pool completed the setup, all sited for total privacy.
There wasn't much time, however, to luxuriate. We left after a quick late lunch to explore the Kulala Wilderness Reserve in which the camp is set, and before dawn the next morning, were off to the adjoining Namib-Naukluft Park to see the sun rise.
At almost 19,300 square miles, it is one of the largest nature reserves in Africa, noted not for game (although there are ostrich, springbok, oryx and many birds) but for the vast sweep of huge ocher dunes, truly orange-red at dawn and sunset.
Backpackers and tourists of all ages walked and hiked in the park. Bruce pointed silently to a dune lark, unique to this area, hopping in the grasses before we unpacked a generous picnic brunch under an acacia tree.
That night, back at Sossusvlei, we were surrounded by deep silence, and a black night sky brilliant with low-hanging stars.
The next camp, Ongava in northern Namibia, could not have been more different. We reached it after a diverting day flying up the coast, stopping for a boat ride to see seals, have lunch on the beach and walk around Swakopmund, a pristine little coastal town founded by German settlers in 1892.
At Ongava Lodge, we were in rich game country. The flat plain of vast Etosha National Park, 8,600 square miles, was practically next door. At a popular park watering hole we visited in a Land Rover expedition the next day, zebra, kudu, wildebeest, springbok and black-faced impala milled about. We saw 14 giraffes browsing, their necks sticking up at wild angles, and two young males fighting. A lioness thrilled us by giving chase to a jackal, as her five cubs popped their heads up.
The camp itself, undramatically set in scrub trees at ground level, is in the safari company's private game reserve. As a result, much of the same park game can be seen in relative solitude, or from the lodge, overlooking a watering hole lighted at night.
At Ongava the skill of Shadreck, our ebullient driver-tracker with superhuman eyesight, came into play, as an afternoon game drive extended into darkness. Driving while holding a floodlight, he showed us the track of a python, and knew an elephant's size, age and sex from a footprint. His triumph was finding a family of rhino. On the way, a group of rare Hartmann's mountain zebra dashed across our path.
As at all the camps, at night you are accompanied to and from your lodging by a staff member. After all that rough driving, I fell into bed after dinner, to be awakened by the roaring of a lion, near enough to make the air vibrate.
After arid Namibia, Jao Camp, in the Okavango Delta of Botswana, felt like a verdant water world. Our band of three flew there from the unprepossessing small city of Maun, the jumping-off point for the delta's many camps.
All nine units (wood floors, tented sides, thatch roofs) and the main lodge are connected by wooden walkways, high above the ground under towering trees. Even the animals like the arrangement, as it allows them free passage underneath.
My bungalow was downright luxurious, its wooden floor gleaming, with a comfortable couch and coffee table, free-standing double sinks and tub, and notably, a toilet in a separate enclosure with a floor-to-ceiling view of the delta. An open veranda ran its length. As at each camp, there was an outdoor shower; a mischievous vervet monkey in the canopy tossed a nut down at me as I showered, the closest I got to injury in the wild.
Another amenity, a deeply cushioned gazebo, looked out on the delta, one segment of a vast area where the Okavango River spreads out and comes to an end in an aqueous world of reeds and stunningly rich bird life. Water levels have been a concern in recent years, but the river had just released a substantial amount of water.
At Jao, the few hours of downtime between early-morning and late-afternoon game drives were particularly welcome, and the dawn symphony-- peepers, bell frogs, bird calls -- was scintillating.
It was also the liveliest camp socially, in large part due to the warmth and constant attention to detail of the couple who run it, Rebecca and Clinton. Often, Rebecca met groups when they returned from drives; Clinton quickly fixed a glitch in my outdoor shower. One very jolly dinner was held in a circular log stockade constructed in traditional form; inside, a bar, a communal dinner table and copious buffet, and a stomping, rocking group of welcome songs from the African staff kept us up late around the campfire.
As at other camps, guests were a mixture of Europeans and Americans. Among the 20 or so guests were four Belgians, a French father with teenage son; an Italian and several American couples. And there was at least one young honeymoon couple in each camp.
In addition to game drives, Jao offered boat trips. Moving silently, the narrow makoros, the traditional hollowed-out log boats poled by a standing oarsman, carried us into the mysterious, sinuous delta. We made our way in narrow channels through papyrus and thick reeds, opening into large pools studded with waterlilies. A thumbnail-size green painted reed frog clung to a reed, and a tiny brilliant malachite kingfisher flashed by. At sunset, we pulled up on shore near a huge baobab tree to observe the tradition faithfully followed at every camp, the sundowner. Out came the drinks kit, and shortly a cool vodka and tonic or a glass of good South African red wine was in hand as the sky lighted up and the reeds turned to bronze.
Just 10 miles away, but still requiring a flight, was Mombo Camp, less green than Jao but equally comfortable. The camp looks out on a large shallow lagoon, which animals sloshed across at all hours, particularly lechwe, a marsh-loving antelope, and elephant families.
One creature, the vervet monkey, was all too present; the monkeys had just learned how to unzip bungalow screens and had trashed three cabins.
Leaving Botswana for Zambia, we flew northeast, arriving directly over Victoria Falls before landing in Livingstone, just across the Zambezi from Victoria, which is on the Zimbabwe side. The river was so high that rafting was forbidden and the falls were only partly visible under a cloud of mist.
We were headed for the River Club, a delightful hideaway several miles outside Livingstone, run and co-owned by a paragon of English style, Peter Jones. The lovely small manor house, decorated with hunting prints and deeply comfortable furniture, is supplemented by 10 thatch-roofed, tent-sided bungalows high above the Zambezi. Simply but pleasantly furnished, they are completely open on the river side. To wake up looking directly out on the Zambezi, magnificent in its breadth here, was rivaled only by descending a short staircase to the open-air bathroom (the toilet was enclosed).
Lunch was pleasantly set up under the trees, then guests were free to swim in the pool or take the sunset cruise, as most of us did, seeing hippos and birds including the brilliant bee-eaters. Not a game lodge, the River Club offered a visit to a nearby village with traditional style huts, where we were able to meet Zambian children and talk with their teachers, as well as visits to the funky but interesting Livingstone Museum in town (now under renovation), and of course Victoria Falls. Under umbrellas and slickers in a drenching rain created by the torrent below, we inched along the slippery but well-fenced path on the Zambian side, as moved by the water's thunderous roar as the view, because only a portion of the cascade was visible through the mist.
When Peter Jones was in residence (one night of our two), the River Club was also host to passionate croquet matches.
Before leaving for our last stop, Chikwenya in northeastern Zimbabwe, I wanted to see the Victoria Falls Hotel, the grand 1904 hostelry on the Zimbabwe side of the river. We had already seen the blocks-long lines of cars waiting for gasoline in Livingstone, and an even clearer expression of the political turmoil in Zimbabwe was the near emptiness of the elegant and impeccably maintained hotel.
After meeting Bruce at the Victoria Falls airport, Dan and I were reassured by the long flight over Lake Kariba and hundreds of miles of bush: our Zimbabwean destination was truly remote.
Chikwenya is set in a valley of Eden-like beauty in Mana Pools National Park, a World Heritage Site. The Zambezi, much narrower here, is flanked by huge acacia trees, and game is plentiful, although the camp is known for its fishing. In style, Chikwenya is comfortable but rustic and plain; sadly but unsurprisingly, it was barely half full.
We joined an English angler, who comes here every year, on a morning fishing trip. He immediately caught three fish, including a fighting tiger fish the area is famous for; no one else had a nibble. Then to my astonishment a tiger fish grabbed my hook. I battled to reel it in, and succeeded, with the shouted encouragement of five males. What feelings of triumph!
On our final outing, we took a canoe trip downriver, carefully led by camp staff because of the hippos dotted around the water. A saddle-billed stork, baboons on the bank, egrets, all were at eye level, and as we paddled, the Zambezi was stained pink by a brilliant sunset. It was hard to imagine anything other than peace in this lovely corner of the world.
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INTIMACY. It is what most people search for in life, but few people find. I have lived and worked in and around the Okavango Delta in Botswana for over 5 years, but it was only just the other day, that we finally became intimate.
How?
I went on a three-day mokoro trail in the heart of the Okavango Delta.....
It is 2pm on an April afternoon and I'm sitting in a mokoro in Botswana's Okavango Delta. The sun is hitting us directly, as well as reflecting off the water. It is hot. Ahead of us, we can see hundred's of pelican's and Marabou storks lined up on a sandbank at the end of Xigera Lagoon. There are also red lechwe grazing peacefully on the bank to our north. Aside from the heat, it is a very peaceful scene. The serenity is accentuated by the fact that we are moving silently. With a BaYei paddler in the back of the mokoro, there is almost no sound as we move through the open water.
As we move closer to the pelicans, we understand why they are here in such numbers on today of all days. The annual flood of the Okavango Delta has just hit Xigera Lagoon, where we are camping for the next couple of days. Perfect timing. Xigera Lagoon is a huge expanse of fairly shallow water, and before the new floodwaters arrived, there were numerous sandbanks that had emerged. As these sandbanks had been covered with shallow water, the pelicans and marabou storks were lined up along them and were picking off fish as they arrived with the water. They were essentially making their own fish trap.
When we continue our approach, the pelicans begin to take off. There must have been over 400 White and Pink-Backed Pelicans that took to the air. Added to this were several hundred Marabou Storks that had come to feast on the incoming fish, and hundreds of African Skimmers that were flying in long circles above our heads. The skimmers had been nesting on the exposed sandbanks until the water arrived, but were now also making the most of the glut of food. Also in smaller numbers were Yellow-billed Storks, Saddle-billed Storks, Wattled Cranes, Fish Eagles, Greenshanks, Grey Herons, Goliath Herons, Squacco Herons, Rufous-bellied Herons, Slaty Egrets, Little Egrets, Malachite Kingfishers, Pied Kingfishers, Long-toed Plovers and a host more. It was an absolute festival of birds topped off by a sighting of a pair of Caspian Terns. We knew that this was a special sight when our BaYei guides, Ishmael and William, who had been born and raised in the area, admitted that they had never seen them before. Yet their shear size rendered them unmistakable.
As we checked our bird books to confirm the sighting of the Caspian Terns, we nearly fell out of our mekoro (the plural of mokoro) by a noise that sounded like a huge clap of thunder moving across water. We looked back to see the herd of red lechwe, that had previously been grazing peacefully, charging across the open expanse of water. Clearly unimpressed with us, but in doubt as to whether to carry on crossing the lagoon, the lechwe stopped midway. They seemed to be evaluating the relative risks. Us behind them or the unknown in front of them. They decided to take a chance on the latter and carried on their explosive mission across the lagoon.
With the spectacle of the birds and the lechwe behind us, my travelling companion (an American travel writer named Jeff) and I were keen to try some fishing. Ishmael found us a quiet spot on the main channel of the Boro River and proved that he had chosen the spot well by pulling in a huge tiger fish with his first cast. However, the next half-hour was spent casting unsuccessfully and the decision was made - collectively - to move to a new spot.
The new spot was perfect in every way - except for the fishing. But that didn't actually matter. We sat with fishing rod in one hand, cold beer in the other, casting into the rushing water. As we fished we watched another herd of lechwe grazing on a flood plain in front of us. A couple of bull elephants sauntered past us. All the while the sun was starting to sink slowly and the light was changing to a colour that fairly closely matched our beers.
I was getting intimate.
Jeff however was itching to move. He was in the process of telling Ishmael as much when his fishing line took off. He had latched himself a tiger. It took him a full ten minutes to bring it in, and whilst we didn't have a scale with us, it must have weighed in at about 4 kilograms. We decided to fish on. A couple of bream later and a fairly quiet fishing afternoon had turned into fresh fish for dinner.
We returned to our mekoro and headed for our fly camp. The sun had just set and a full moon was rising in front of us. The only distraction was a 747 that was still catching the sun that had so recently left us. It was flying so high that we couldn't even hear it. I wondered if they knew that at that moment they were flying over one of the most pristine areas left in Africa. I wondered where they were going but didn't worry about it for long. Wherever they were going I knew where I would rather be.
This mokoro trail was something of a renaissance. Twenty years ago, a few days camping in the heart of the Okavango, and travelling purely by mokoro was standard fare for most tourists who weren't into hunting safaris. Many of Botswana's top professional guides cut their teeth doing these sorts of trips. However, visitors to the Okavango these days spend almost all their time in up-market lodges and camps, where they hardly even feel the earth beneath their feet, let alone get their toes wet. These lodges offer an amazing experience, however for the most part, intimacy is no longer on the menu.
Hennie and Angie Rawlinson are the owners of Xigera camp. Located on the southwestern edge of Moremi Game Reserve, and right in the heart of the permanent water of the Okavango, it is perfectly situated for an amazing water experience in the Delta. Hennie was one of the Okavango's top guides in the early '80's, and was best known for his camping trips in the Delta. When he and Angie won the lease for the Xigera concession in the late 90's, they soon decided that aside from a beautiful, up-market camp, they were going to run mokoro trails as well. Hennie and Angie met at Xigera, and having spent much time being intimate in the Delta, they now wish to revive intimacy with the Delta for their guests
Ishmael Setlabosha is one of the more amazing people that resides in the Delta. He was born and raised on an island just north of Xigera lagoon and an incredible knowledge of the Okavango and its many inhabitants - both plant and animal - is now thoroughly ingrained. His knowledge is not from textbooks but from life. It is an intimate knowledge and those who have walked with him on the islands of the Okavango will not soon forget the experience.
I was fortunate enough to have this experience the next morning. We had a short mokoro ride to a large island where we began our walk. We set in behind Ishmael who was armed only with a rather fearsome looking, home-made spear, a pencil flare and a lifetime's experience in the Okavango.
He missed nothing. Any tracks and signs were analysed and a new route was taken accordingly. For example, Ishmael found fresh tracks of an old bull buffalo heading into a dense thicket. Whilst we were relieved when Ishmael started walking in the opposite direction, such was our trust in him that we would have been right there with him had he headed straight in after the tracks. We were able to stalk to within 20 metres of a herd of grazing impala, and tracked and found a small herd of kudu browsing on the edge of the island. He chatted willingly about many of the plants that we walked past. He gave us an indication of the full medical cabinet that exists in the bush, as well plants that poisoned fish, plants that you could eat, and plants whose roots would leave your baby smelling fresher than Johnson and Johnson baby powder.
We had walked for three hours, but hadn't raised a sweat. It was a botanical experience, an anthropological experience, and a cultural experience, but most of all it was an intimate experience.
On the way home, Ishmael spotted a female sitatunga - a rare and highly aquatic antelope, and one of the most prized sightings of the Okavango Delta. Once again, through the skill of Ishmael and William we were able to get close to the "tunga" before it leapt away into a thicket of papyrus.
We returned to camp around midday, had a substantial brunch and snoozed until early afternoon. We had planned an afternoon of swimming and fishing.
Swimming is the ultimate way to get intimate with the Okavango. Clearly safety is an issue, and swimming at random is not recommended as large crocodiles and hippos abound. Ishmael however, took us to his swimming pool.
It was a tiny channel between two small islands of sand that would soon be entirely covered by water. The new floodwater was charging through this little channel and staying in the one spot was difficult but not impossible. The water was deep enough for us to dive without danger, but shallow enough on its extremities, for us not to have to worry about the presence of unwanted reptilian visitors. Even at the deepest point of this small channel the water was clear enough for me to count all the hairs on my big toes. Yep, all three were still in place! The temperature was wonderful. It was cool enough for us to feel immediately refreshed, yet warm enough for us to rather stay in then get out.
At one stage I saw a tiny White Fronted Plover about twenty metres down stream from me. Using the fast current I drifted towards it with only my nose and eyes out of the water. I was able to float to within a metre it finally flew off.
The whole experience was absolutely unbelievable. Whilst sitting in the water with it rushing over my back and shoulders I knew that I was no longer just a visitor. At that time and in that place, I was a part of the Okavango. There was genuine intimacy.
It was with reluctance that we left our swimming pool and carried on our way. We were in the mokoro's for a while, but I couldn't say how long exactly. The rest of the world may have been in turmoil, but I was in a state of total peace.
I had a few interesting things happen to me on that afternoon mokoro ride. Firstly, as we brushed a reed, a tiny green frog jumped onto my lap. He was a Long Reed Frog. A very inappropriate name as he is only about 13mm long. He stayed in my lap until much later when I relocated him onto a water lily pad.
Secondly I saw a pair of bright orange dragonflies mating. Nothing unusual about that except that they were flying in the same direction as I was, they were moving at roughly the same pace, and were about a metre from my head. They spent so long travelling right next to me, that I was able to pull out my field guide and identify them - Urothemis assignata. Despite their long and complicated name I was touched by their intimacy and I could not think of any other mode of transport that would let me spend so long with a pair of amorous insects.
Before sunset we stopped so that Jeff could fish again. There is definitely a certain Zen that you get when fishing. However I didn't need to fish - I was there already. I instead stayed seated in my mokoro and watched as a Western-Banded Snake Eagle flew overhead and perched in a nearby tree. If I hadn't been in such a state of "Okavango Zen" I probably would have fallen out of my mokoro at this wonderfully rare sight. I listened to fish eagles and swamp boubous calling. On a neighbouring island a troop of vervet monkeys started chattering. From the same place came the alarm calls of a red billed francolin. I wondered what predator they saw, but marvelled at the fact that the feeling that I was still part of the Delta had not left.
That night during dinner we had a large male hippo come and join us on the small island on which we were camping. We saw him coming from a long way off as the moon shone brightly off his wet back. He wandered to within 20 yards of our small camp, before sensing that something was not quite right and moving back into the shallow water. He stayed close by for most of the night, and his slow footsteps and constantly munching jaws, were strangely comforting. The only other animal that disturbed my sleep that night, was a Pel's Fishing Owl, which issued its haunting call from somewhere close by on the island. We would look for him tomorrow.
Any sighting of a Pel's Fishing Owl is special. They are unbelievably attractive birds, not common anywhere, and are highly secretive - particularly in daylight hours when they spend most of the day hiding from the unwanted attentions of their main competitor, the African Fish Eagle. Xigera however, is one of the best places to find the "Pel's". The habitat is perfect, with many good hunting sites, and many safe places to roost and nest. Consequently, it should have been no surprise that we had three separate sightings of Pel's the next morning. We had to work for the first two - mokoroing to small islands, hopping out and closely inspecting the dense woodland. The tough task was made easier by the skill of Ishmael and William, who had an amazing sense for which islands and which trees to look in. We managed to accidentally flush the final Pel's whilst in our mokoro. As he burst out from within a Mangosteen tree, he was harried and harassed by a flock of grey louries. We were as sorry to have disturbed him as we were happy to see him.
Our safari finished later that morning when a boat from Xigera Camp came to pick us up. As the boat approached it struck me that for the last two nights and three days we had been without any artificial noise. There had been no engines. No boats, no vehicles, no generators, and best of all no radios blurting out depressing reports of wars in far off places. Whilst I was not happy that I had to return to the "real" world that afternoon, I felt a strong sense of relief that with the rebirth of the mokoro trail, should I ever feel the need, I would once again be able to get intimate with the Okavango.
Xigera
(pronounced Keejera) is a luxury tented camp in the Moremi Game Reserve and is situated in the heart of the Okavango Delta.
Xigera has something for everyone in an area where there are no other Moremi camps. Permanent water all year round allows one to enjoy an unparalleled variety of activities including foot safaris, mokoro trips, game drives and powerboat outings in total privacy. Enjoy a true Delta experience while you sit back in a mokoro (dugout canoe) and silently glide through the wonders of the tranquil Okavango waterways observed by a myriad of delta creatures. Watch the sunset and the birds gliding home to roost from a motorboat on the Xigera Lagoon. Observe the wildlife and unique delta scenery from the comfort of a landrover or, for the adventurous, track animals on foot. Or simply take in the beautiful sunrise from your comfortable bed while sipping your morning tea or coffee.
Nestled in a magnificent riverine forest, Xigera consists of eight luxuriously furnished tented rooms with en-suite facilities and an outdoor shower. Each room is raised off the ground on a wooden deck offering a superb view of the seasonal floodplain and waterhole. Meals and evening drinks are enjoyed under the thatch of the raised lounge, pub and dining area overlooking a permanently flowing channel. A traditional African boma offers alternative dining under the African stars. Wooden walkways wind through the forest connecting the rooms to the main living area. For those hot days there is a small plunge pool to cool off in. A feature unique to Xigera is the wooden footbridge connecting Xigera Island to the next. Guests are often treated to close up views of lions, hyenas or leopard padding across the bridge as they move between islands. The camp "newspaper" (a sand pit built into the bridge) is "read" each morning and provides information on unseen nightly visitors to camp.
Paradise for avid birdwatchers, Xigera is home to Pels Fishing Owl, African Skimmers, Slaty Egrets, Wattled Crane, Lesser Jacana and a host of eagles, vultures, raptors and kingfishers. It also boasts the highest density of the rare and elusive Sitatunga antelope found anywhere in the Okavango Delta. When water levels permit, game drives are an attraction. Some years we can drive throughout the year. If there has been a very high flood, we can only usually drive from late September to April.
Access to Xigera is by light aircraft only.
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Vacationtechnician personalized luxury adventure travel transports you to the most exquisite wilderness and chill out retreats on Earth. Conserving rare biodiversity through low volume tourism; our aim is your indulgence -at no one's expense. Plan now to be assured a rejuvenating escape at a restful pace -to an unspoiled gem in the purest sense.
Life and the daily stress that comes with it, tends to rob ones' soul of joy.
The newspapers and television are filled with sad stories and images of violence, and we easily forget that there is beauty to be found if we endeavour to find it.
On a recent visit to the Ongava Reserve Namibia we had the pleasure of observing a pride lions with three (three month old) cubs. It was late afternoon and the pride was still in a state of slumber. The cubs however were full of energy and demanded attention from the older members of the pride. "Father" lion with his impressive mane was pounced upon by one of the cubs whom took great pleasure in jumping on "fathers" head and biting his ear for good measure. "Father" lion was still too dozy to react and the cub then proceeded to "attack" his tail every time it moved! When this did not have the desired effect, it decided to give up and promptly flopped to the ground next to "father" with his light furry belly exposed and paws in the air.
The other two cubs where also entertaining themselves by growling loudly, and no doubt were very impressed by the sound that emanated from their jaws. When they became too restless, one of the older members of the pride put her large paw over one of the cubs as if to say " settle down little one".
God sure was in a humours mood when he created these little cubs!! I could have watched them for hours, and I feel enriched and filled with joy when I remember this sighting.
To put it simply, it was a picture of paradise!
Your sincerely
H.Y.
Ongava Game Lodge is situated along the southern boundary of Etosha National Park in the privately owned Ongava Game Reserve. Ongava is the ideal place from which to base your activities when visiting Etosha. Accommodation comprises 10 air-conditioned brick, rock and thatch chalets, each with en-suite facilities.
Meals are either served in the main dining area under thatch with a view over the camp's water hole - or on the dining deck under the stars. Activities include game drives in open 4x4 vehicles into the Okaukuejo area of Etosha where Lion, Elephant, Cheetah, Gemsbok, Springbok, and Hartebeest can be seen at many of the water holes in the park.
In addition, night drives, hides and walks with armed guides are enjoyed on the private reserve. Ongava has resident White and Black Rhino, giving guests staying at Ongava the opportunity to see both species.
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Vacationtechnician personalized luxury adventure travel transports you to the most exquisite wilderness and chill out retreats on Earth. Conserving rare biodiversity through low volume tourism; our aim is your indulgence -at no one's expense. Plan now to be assured a rejuvenating escape at a restful pace -to an unspoiled gem in the purest sense.
Mombo Rhino Project :: Botswana Rhino Relocation Project
Mombo Camp Okavanga Delta Botswana
Populations of rhinos have declined throughout Africa due to demand and over-hunting for their valuable horns. Due to inadequate protection, rhinos have become extinct in several former range states, including Botswana, where both black and white rhinos have become extinct at different times in the 20th century.
Since the mid 1990's conservation of white rhinos in fenced sanctuaries has proved successful through collaboration between the private sector and the Government of Botswana, and will provide the foundation for continued growth of existing rhino populations, and the establishment of new ones in the future. One such project is the proposal to re-introduce white rhinoceros (Ceratotherium simum simum) to the Mombo Medium Density Tourism Zone (Mombo) and to establish a healthy and sustainable free-ranging population of rhino upon the Chief's Island region of the Moremi Game Reserve.
Wilderness Safaris (vacationtechnician.com partner) primary objective, as the promoter of this reintroduction project, is to re-establish this locally extinct and important species in the Okavango Delta, the only species known to have been exterminated from the area. The result of this project would contribute towards the maintenance of the bio-diversity of the Mombo region, through the management and conservation of endangered species.
The success of the project will determine whether this region becomes an important release site for further re-introduction programmes within the country in the future. This programme will be carried out by means of full liaison with and approval by the appropriate Botswana Government authorities (including the Department of Wildlife and National Parks (DWNP), the Botswana Defence Force (BDF) and the Tawana Land Board).
The successful re-introduction of rhino to Chief's Island will be a unique example of co-operation between the private sector and Government and local authorities in an important conservation venture. Standards will be set for the region and it will cement Botswana's position as one of Africa's leaders in conservation and tourism.
This proposal contains the history of rhinos in Botswana, and covers every aspect of the project, including the reintroduction programme and its constraints, as well as the general management of the programme.
THE HISTORY OF RHINO IN BOTSWANA
The White Rhino and the Black Rhino (Diceros bicornis) occurred in northern Botswana until relatively recently. The Black Rhino seems to have been rare and confined to the Kwando-Chobe areas, but the White Rhino population was widespread and common throughout northern Botswana in the middle of the last century.
As a result of indiscriminate shooting of rhino, mainly by sport hunters, both species were reduced to very low numbers by the 1960s. A re-introduction programme began in 1967 when four White Rhino were introduced from Natal. Between 1974 and 1981, the Botswana Government, with support from Natal Parks Board, re-introduced a total of 71 White Rhino into Chobe National Park and 19 into Moremi Game Reserve. The animals were released directly from the transfer crates; many wandered considerable distances in search of suitable habitat, and some died.
When given the normal rate of increase of this species, the rhino population should have increased to about 200 in 1992 and about 400 today. However, by 1992, it was evident that the majority of the White Rhino population had either died or been killed by illegal hunters. It should be remembered that the 1980s saw a wave of illegal off-take of elephants and rhinos sweeping down from eastern Africa to Zambia, Mozambique and Angola. Botswana, Zimbabwe and, to a lesser extent, South Africa were affected by incursions from these areas and became conduits for the illegal traffic in ivory and rhino horn. As a result, the rhino populations of northern Botswana were greatly reduced.
A survey carried out by the Natal Parks Board in 1992 found only 19 White Rhino. Black Rhino appear to have become extinct by this time. At this stage, the Botswana Government developed a three-stage policy for the conservation of White Rhino:
* To capture as many surviving White Rhino as possible and translocate them to protected sanctuaries such as the Khama Rhino Sanctuary near Serowe and the Mokolodi Private Game Reserve near Gabarone;
* To allow the populations in these sanctuaries to increase, while effective protection was implemented in the national parks and game reserves, through effective law enforcement and the provision of conservation incentives to local communities and other strata of society; and,
* When it is safe to do so, to re-introduce populations of White Rhino from the protected sanctuaries back into the wild in the national parks and game reserves.
Implementation of the first stage of this policy was initiated in 1993, with the capture and translocation of the remaining White Rhino, of which there were four, from the Chobe National Park to the Khama Rhino Sanctuary. A sub-adult male subsequently died as a result of gun shot wounds inflicted by illegal hunters prior to capture. Between 1994 and 1996, three more rhino were relocated to the Khama Sanctuary from Moremi Game Reserve, while three remained uncaptured in the area.
In June 1995, the Khama Rhino Sanctuary received five more White Rhino from North West Parks Board of South Africa. There are currently 29 White Rhino held in protected sanctuaries in Botswana, of which 28 are under private management and 1 under Government management. These rhino are located in the following areas:
* Khama Rhino Sanctuary 16
* Mokolodi Private Game Reserve 9
* Gaborone Game Reserve 1
* Gantzi (private game farm) 3
The policy of re-introducing White Rhino to the wild was formalized in an internal strategy paper prepared by the Botswana Department of Wildlife.
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"I can't be told by anyone how to live. If I went to the minister and said, 'Move from your place', he would think I was mad." 'Bushman' elder, Botswana
Diamonds for Iman; are they worth it?
Region: Southern Africa
Population: 100,000
Who are they?
The 'Bushmen' are the oldest inhabitants of southern Africa, where they have lived for at least 20,000 years. Their home is in the vast expanse of the Kalahari desert. There are many different Bushman peoples � they have no collective name for themselves, and the terms 'Bushman', 'San', 'Basarwa' (in Botswana) and so on are used variously. Most of those which are widely understood are imposed by outsiders and have some pejorative sense; many now use and accept the term 'Bushmen'. They speak a variety of languages, all of which incorporate 'click' sounds represented in writing by symbols such as ! or /.
How do they live?
The Bushmen are hunter-gatherers, who for thousands of years supported themselves in the desert through these skills. They hunt � mainly various kinds of antelope � but their daily diet has always consisted more of the fruits, nuts and roots which they seek out in the desert. They make their own temporary homes from wood that they gather. Many Bushmen who have been forced off their lands now live in settlements in areas that are unsuitable for hunting and gathering � they support themselves by growing some food, or by working on ranches.
What problems do they face?
The Bushmen had their homelands invaded by cattle herding Bantu tribes from around 1,500 years ago, and by white colonists over the last few hundred years. From that time they faced discrimination, eviction from their ancestral lands, murder and oppression amounting to a massive though unspoken genocide, which reduced them in numbers from several million to 100,000. Today, although all suffer from a perception that their lifestyle is 'primitive' and that they need to be made to live like the majority cattle-herding tribes, specific problems vary according to where they live. In South Africa, for example, the !Khomani now have most of their land rights recognised, but many other Bushman tribes have no land rights at all.
The Gana (G//ana) and Gwi (G/wi) tribes in Botswana's Central Kalahari Game Reserve are among the most persecuted. Far from recognising their ownership rights over the land they have lived on for thousands of years, the Botswana government has in fact forced almost all of them off it. The harassment began in 1986, and the first forced removals were in 1997. Those that remained faced torture, drastic restrictions in their hunting rights, and routine harassment. In early 2002, this harassment intensified, accompanied by the destruction of the Bushmen's water pump, the draining of their existing water supplies into the desert, and the banning of hunting and gathering. Almost all were forced out by these tactics, but a large number have since returned, with many more desperate to do so.
How does Survival help?
Survival is lobbying for respect for the human and land rights of all Bushman peoples across southern Africa. In particular, Survival is campaigning with the Gana and Gwi Bushmen in Botswana, calling for them to be allowed home, for recognition of their land rights in accordance with international law, and for their right to live as they choose. You can join our campaign by writing a letter, joining our vigil, signing our petition or by donating to the campaign.
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Life at Jao has been very exciting these last few weeks. Once the flood arrived at Jacana, Frank moved the mekoro (dug-out canoes) from the mekoro station back to Jao.
That night at dinner his jovial bunch of Italian guests said that they wanted to mekoro the next morning, and Frank promised them a mekoro experience right from the front of camp. His guests thought he was crazy as the river was completely dry apart from one muddy patch in front of the lodge. Frank did not have an easy night as he worried about his hasty promise, but the next morning (25 February) the guests thought Frank was truly amazing as they arose to this huge river spanning over 400m across and spilling over across the road on the opposite side of the bank. During those few hours the water had filled the channel and risen over 700mm to be level with the lowest section of the Jao bridge and 30mm lower than the highest peak ever recorded in our 6 years of intense Jao knowledge (previous peak was July 2001).
The guests had an awesome mekoro experience and were totally absorbed with the miracle of the flood arrival. Within 2 days of the water arriving, the flood moved past the previous peak and the resistance of the water flow against the bridge caused the river to push past the sides of the bridge threatening the access road from Jao. This area had to be sandbagged and the road topped up with sand to repair the damage. The water is now 190mm higher than we have ever experienced and still rising. There is 50mm to go before the water flows over the low part of the bridge. From the air it is immediately apparent how little dry land is left on Jao, there is a dry patch from the main area to the kitchen, the tree line along the front of camp is dry, a little in the staff village and a little in the workshop - most of the island is flooded.
Our resident band of banded mongoose have relocated from the bridge area to just behind room 4 with all their little ones and are now a great source of interest from the walkway. The Kwetsani lions are now the Jao lions and are relaxing into their new home on Pupup Island which is the largest dry land we have on the floodplain side of the concession and a very sensible choice. Although we have not yet seen the cubs, we have seen their tracks a couple of times, and we have mating lions this week. We have completed the floodplain sleep out platform / hide although the lions stopped work for one day when they became a little too curious. We can now offer hide sleep outs from Jao, Jacana and Kwetsani (weather permitting).
We managed to extend the Jao airstrip by 100m on the higher eastern side before the flood arrived, and we have built a bund on the western side which is holding the water off the strip nicely. Should part of the strip flood we should still have at least 900m of usable runway.
Jao truly is at its best when it is surrounded by water, and this year it looks simply stunning with the camp perched right alongside this flood which is filling the Okavango to levels that we have not seen for 20 years although they were once the norm!
Jao Camp, Botswana is situated in a private reserve on a remote large island, to the west of the Moremi Game Reserve in the heart of the Okavango Delta. Across the waterway in front of camp, guests have access to open flood plains and savannah for a wonderful Okavango experience.
Guests are accommodated in 9 large and spacious rooms. Each of the unique and beautiful twin-bedded canvas and thatched rooms has been individually handcrafted under the direction of renowned architects Sylvio Rech and Leslie Carstens. The rooms are built under a canopy of shady trees, with en-suite bathroom, hot and cold running water, a large bath and double vanities. There is an additional outside shower under the stars for those more adventurous guests who want to shower closer to nature. There is an outdoor "sala" for guests to enjoy midday siestas with a view and a breeze. The rooms are raised off the ground and offer wonderful views of the surrounding flood plains.
A raised walkway connects the rooms to the dining room and lounge area. There is a plunge pool and an outdoor 'boma' for dining under the stars, as well as an excellent wine cellar. Jao also offers a Salon with a fulltime therapist offering a wide range of massage therapies. The activities at Jao include mekoros (dug out canoe) excursions, boats, fishing, day and night game drives and guided walks. If the area has a large flood, we will usually have to boat to a large island called Hunda Island where vehicles are waiting and the game drives start.
The area is extremely seasonal and the annual flood transforms the habitat from dry green open plains in summer to shallow flood plains in the winter. Access to this area is only by aircraft.
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Good news for the area, as everyone knows the Okavango Delta is having a huge flood but we are also getting a lot of extra early water . The water level in front of camp has risen about 1.5 ft and is still rising. The lagoon we call Kubu lagoon is full (half way to Zib lagoon ) and the water is flowing into Zib lagoon at a fast walking pace, so at this stage it looks as though we will get Zib lagoon back to its full capacity. According to Water Affairs officials there is a lot of water on it's way from the Kwando area !
The grass in the Savuti channel is starting to turn slightly brown which is surprising because we are still receiving a lot of rain but the animals are grazing it and it is slowly getting shorter and shorter - at last visibility will return and game viewing will once again be made easier. As far as game viewing goes we have had some great cheetah and lion interaction with the females from the Savuti pride chasing the three male cheetah off more than one of their kills.
The zebra and wildebeest numbers are quite good especially in the Savuti area and further east but they will slowly be drawn further west up the channel as it gets dryer in the coming months . All the pans in the mopane are still 110% full and covered with a topping of bright green algae which makes for great contrast on photos when photographing hippos or water birds etc .
On the bird front all of the migratories are still around and some large flocks of kestrels and cattle egrets are to be seen in the channel area and flood planes south of camp .The camp itself is still looking very green and jungle-like with the almost hourly storms we have been receiving over the past few weeks the trees are dripping and the camp is practically steaming when the sun comes out . The water is now visable in front of camp in the short grass and is rising closer to the camp on a daily basis and creating lots of shallow flooded areas making birding in front of camp interesting .
I hope at the end of next month when I do the next report I can still say that the water is rising and that Zib lagoon is almost full!
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DumaTau is a 10 roomed luxury tented camp, in the private 125 000 hectare Linyanti Wildlife Reserve which borders the western boundary of Chobe National Park in northern Botswana. The camp is built on raised boardwalks under a shady grove of mangosteen trees, overlooking a large hippo-filled lagoon on the Linyanti waterways. The source of the Savuti Channel is close to the camp and game drives along the Savuti are one of the highlights of the camp.
The rooms are spacious, raised off the ground and under thatch with canvas walls, allowing guests to enjoy the night sounds of Africa from the comfort of their rooms. The bathroom facilities are en-suite, with hot and cold running water. Each room has an additional outside shower. There is a dining room, pub, lounge, plunge pool and a special guest toilet with a fantastic view. The region has all the habitat diversity to make it a haven for wildlife.
Activities are diverse and allow guests time on the water, on land and occasionally on foot. Day and night game drives are conducted in open 4x4 vehicles along the Savuti Channel and the banks of Linyanti River. There are many hides in the area where guests can enjoy wildlife viewing close up and away from a vehicle. One of the best hides is right at the source of the Savuti and many species of game and birdlife can usually be seen from this hide.
The area is famous for its Elephant concentrations in our winter months and for the great game viewing all year. Huge herds of elephant congregate in winter along the waterways and lagoons - and at the waterholes that are located along the Savuti Channel. During these dry months Sable and Roan traverse the flood plains. All the predators..... lion, leopard, cheetah and wild dog feast on the prey species in the area impala, zebra, giraffe, wildebeest, lechwe, tsessebe and all the other plains game.
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World Watch Advisory 03/17/04 04:54 GMT
Authorities warn March 16 2004 that serious floods are likely in northern Namibia in the coming weeks. Namibian Department of Water Affairs officials March 16 warned that impending floods in the Caprivi Strip in northern Namibia are likely going to exceed those seen in 2003 - which was described as a major disaster. Anticipate significant disruptions including road closures in this region in the coming weeks.
Officials have been reporting rising river levels in the Zambezi and Kavango rivers since mid-January. The water level in the Zambezi River March 14 was measured to be at least 1.6 meters higher than last year's level taken at the same time. Authorities estimate that additional rains in southern Angola are likely to push the levels well beyond those experienced in 2003 when floods submerged large parts of the Caprivi Strip and caused serious population displacements. Fears are even expressed that Katima Mulilo - a major town in the Caprivi Strip - may be flooded. Lake Liambezi in southern Caprivi has already begun flooding. Significant flooding may impact the major east-west road running through the Strip connecting Namibia with Zambia and Zimbabwe.
Expect disruptions in road travel and public services, including power outages; allow additional time to reach destinations. Consider postponing road travel to and through affected areas. If travel is unavoidable, carry plenty of food and water, and a radio with spare batteries. A personal satellite locator is also recommended. Avoid driving through water on roadways, as it could cause the vehicle's engine to stall. Do not attempt to move a stalled vehicle; abandon it and immediately move to higher ground.
As always in Namibia, drink bottled water only and use bottled water when brushing your teeth. Flooded conditions may lead to health risks and diseases such as malaria. Monitor media reports for local impact and follow the guidance of local authorities.
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The Ongava Tented Camp Namibia has been busy during February & March 2004, however the number of game drives conducted was affected by the quiet season. None the less, there was an abundance of sightings, especially lions with 34 sightings on the reserve, giving a massive total of 248 lions. The three young cubs born early December continue to provide a lot of entertainment as they frolic in the veldt, pouncing on swishing tails and generally causing havoc while the rest of the pride is trying to sleep.
The last two months have provided 19 white rhino sightings, and an impressive 50 animals seen. Many of these sightings were conducted on foot, sometimes after 5+ km of tracking!
More emphasis has been placed on night drives recently, with rich rewards. There have been fantastic spotted hyena sightings, as well as white rhino, lion, caracal, small-spotted genet, aardwolf and more. During the day we have seen some of the more elusive mammals, such as damara dik-dik, klipspringer, aardwolf and striped polecat.
The greatest excitement was generated by two sightings of a female leopard in the Margo dam area. During one sighting she let us view her two tiny cubs! There have also been tracks and signs of her activity in the hills around that area. One afternoon we followed a path through the bush which she had created by dragging a kill. Unfortunately we had to give up the pursuit when the bush became too thick, perhaps a new road could be built around the base of these hills to enable more leopard sightings.
The camp waterhole is frequented by game on an on-and-off basis, depending on the rain. Lions have been seen drinking five times, and some guests heard five lions killing a young hartmann's mountain zebra late one night. The lions stayed by the kill for two days, within 100m of our carpark. We were visited by two white rhino during dinner for the first time in over four months. As a result we have modified the waterhole to include a mud-pool to encourage them to return.
Etosha provides great birding and the park is now full of summer migrants, especially abdim's storks. General game and zebras are also abundant. An old elephant bull has been seen of several occasions, but there are still no signs of the herds returning. There have been only six lion sightings in Etosha during the last two months, however one sighting was unforgettable? three subadult lions hunting from a herd of 1000+ zebra, just dust and stripes everywhere. A vacationtechnician client comment was very apt "just like the discovery channel!"
A honey badger was seen early one morning in the park, then on the same day a black rhino bull took offense to the game-drive vehicle and charged to within five metres. The guests were photographers, but they became so caught up in the action that they forgot to take any pictures! Another memorable moment in Etosha occurred when NJ stopped to look at a leguaan by the roadside and it proceeded to board the vehicle from under the engine then came out almost on the lap of the guest in the passenger seat - she leapt into the back with amazing speed.
GENERAL COMMENTS
The rain is continuing, if a little sporadically. There was 156mm at Tented Camp during February and March. As a result the veld is green and carpeted with flowers. The animals are all fattening up nicely, especially our staff who have gone 'mopane worm mad' to the mixed delight and disgust of our guests who tentatively taste them with screwed up faces.
The most fascinating changes occur in the veld after rain, and the land has recently sprung to life with grasses whose inflorescences (flowers and seeds) provide rippling fields of colour. A comprehensive study of the grasses of Ongava has been conducted in parallel with a veld survey to determine the grazing value of the land.
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Ongava Tented Camp is situated along the southern boundary of Etosha National Park in the 30,000 hectare, privately owned Ongava Game Reserve. The small tented camp is built in a different sector of the reserve to Ongava Lodge.
Accommodation comprises 7 large comfortable walk-in tents (but can be sold to 8 tents if required), each with en-suite facilities, including flush toilet and a hot shower. All meals are enjoyed in the thatched dining area that overlooks an active waterhole.
There is a small pool as well. Activities include game drives into the Okaukuejo area of Etosha where Lion, Elephant, Cheetah, Gemsbok, Springbok, and Hartebeest can be seen at many of the waterholes in the park.
In addition, night drives, hides and walks are offered on the private reserve. Ongava has resident White Rhino and Black Rhino, allowing guests staying at Ongava the opportunity to see both species.
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March 2004 has been mostly cloudy and overcast with a few days of clear blue sky. Huge thunderstorms have been a common thing this month, mostly at night , and with not nearly as much lightning as in the previous few months. Our total rainfall for the month was 103 mm. Our temps for this month were max 29 deg C and min 18 deg C and overall very comfortable. Evenings and mornings are now starting to cool down as the days get shorter and we get into winter.
With the good rains there is water absoloutly everywhere! Ngamo Plains now resembles parts of the Okavanga Delta! There are still a huge number of wild flowers out and the bush is very thick making spotting difficult in parts! With all the good food in abundance the wildlife all are in very good condition.
WILDLIFE SIGHTINGS
37 Species of mammal were sighted this month in Linkwasha, Zimbabwe . Our average species sighting for the month was 15.6/day and on the best day of the month 21 species were sighted! Not bad at all considering the thick bush and the amount of surface water around. Highlights for this month was the sighting of an Aardwolf near the old camp. It was very close and right out in the open. We haven't seen one for a few months nows. There is alot of activity at Ngamo Plains as it seems the female Wildebeest are starting to come into season and as a result lots of sparing and chasing by the males over leks and the ladies! We pressume it is a little earlier than most years because of all the late rains? Huge herds of Wildebeest still roam the plains and on a few occasions the huge Lioness there has been seen on some carcasses. There is still a good number of Zebra on the plains but already some herds have started moving north west and can be seen in fairly good numbers (30-40) in and around camp. Herds of Buffalo generally seen in small numbers now, and all in great shape! Have had a huge herd of Eland 70 plus hanging around at Back Pans with plenty of new calves.
vacationtechnicians observed as the resident pack of Wilddogs tried to catch a youngster but were driven off by a very protective cow. They have been in and out of camp often this month terrorizing the Impala, Kudu and Waterbuck! We are carefully watching a new edition to the Waterbuck family, about a week old now, and hoping the dogs don't pick it up in their sights! The little Hippo calf, born last month, is fine and well. It seems that any calves born out of winter have a much better chance of survival here! The Leopard sightings have been good and all in the area around camp. The young male still walks through camp regularly at night and a mother and sub adult cub, very relaxed, has been seen on a few occasions between camp and Scotts Pan.
Lions sightings this month mostly came from Ngamo Plains and were of the big "Queen" lioness and 2 other sub adults. Six new lions, mostly males, were seen on the fringe of our concession and we hope to see more of them this month. Hyeanas been very vocal around camp and a pack of 6 , 4 young pups, have been sighted a few times from the main deck. The lone Cheetah male showed himself once this month at Back Pans eyeing out a small herd of Impala.
Our percentages for this month were Buffalo 55%, Eland 97%, Elephants 74%, Giraffe 87%, Hyena-Spotted 32%, Wilddogs 19%, Leopard 16%, Lion 29% and Sable 42%.
Zimbabwe Birds
Species total for this month was 141. Ngamo Plains with all the rain is unbelievable with Spoonbills, Crowned Cranes , Sacred Ibis , Painted Snipes , huge flocks of Knob Billed Ducks , Egrets and Herons !! Our highlight this month was the sighting of a SPURWINGED PLOVER on the 20th March at Ngamo. We have reported the sighting to various birding organisations and are eagerly awaiting for news to see if it is at all possible that this could be the first sighting in Zimbabwe!!! The observations were all made at at distance of less than 15 meters, right out in the open and we were also able to get some excellent pictures of the bird. Everything seems to be breeding, Dabchicks, Spurwinged Geese, Knob Billed Ducks, Red Billed Teals, Egyptian Geese, White Faced Ducks and also a first for most of us here in Hwange were Painted Snipe with 3 chicks! We are closely watching a few African Jacanas nests with eggs and also a Whiskered Tern on eggs near camp.
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Okavango Delta Botswana Flood - Apr 01 2004
The flood of 2004, as of 30th March, 2004 is middle stage. The first wave of water, has now entered the system and the flood levels are dropping at Mohembo. Traditionally the Okavango Delta system has two peaks if plotted on a line graph. The reason for this is that the Cubango river has it's input, up to 6 weeks before the Cuito. Thus, the water entering the Okavango panhandle had a peak inflow of 778 cubic meters per second in late February. This has dropped to 555 cusecs as of yesterday. However, this will definitely rise sometime in the next two weeks and probably top out in the region of 800/810 cusecs.
The Okavango Delta is an extremely dynamic system, driven by tectonic, gradient, sediments, vegetation growth, and mammal movement. No less important is the dynamic and hugely varying climate and weather conditions, and the effect of this on the Okavango.
It is well known that the Okavango Delta has an external catchment, in the central highlands of Angola. From these highlands rise the two rivers that feed the Okavango. From a catchment more west in Angola rises the Cubango and further east the Cuito. The average rainfall in the catchment is in the region of 1000 mm per annum, falling during the months of October, November, December, January and February. There have in the past been considerable rains as late as Mrch and April. These are the very same months that rain falls over the Okavango alluvial fan(or delta) itself.
The timing of the rains, both in Angola and over the fan has a huge effect on the total amount of water that enters the Okavango region in any given season.
What I meant earlier about the dynamics of the weather enters this domain. For example, in the last two decades we have had extremely dry rainfall months over the Okavango itself. Combined with evapotranspiration this has meant that the Kgalgadi sands which underpin the Okavango have been extremely dehydrated WHEN THE FLOOD ARRIVES in January at the top of the panhandle. The amount of floodwaters have to, therefor, firstly fill the sand and then spread out over the delta proper.
If there were good rains as in 2000/2001, they arrived out of sinc with what turned out to be a smallish flood. Thus the area that was flooded in the following season, was relatively small.
This season 2003/04 we have has a wonderful set of dynamic timing.
The rains started to fall very early in October in the Cubango section of the catchment. In other words they started to fall in October in the highlands. When these waters started to arrive in the delta they coincided with the arrival of the local rains. These local rains have themselves been better than those of more than 9 years. Of some importance, is the fact that they have been spread out in such a way that, as the flood spread out over the fan, the rains had saturated the ground ahead. This has resulted in the water being able to move relatively quickly and more widely that for more than two decades.
The total input of rain has been estimated to be between 2 and 30% of the total flood that enters the Okavango. Early estimates, based on rainfall figures from Shakawe and Maun, as well as from our camps in the delta, would indicate that this year, the rain will contribute about 14% of the total. This is not measured at any discharge meter, but can be seen on the ground, with gleaming waters spreading throughout the delta.
On the Jao, Xigera, Pom Pom system, there has also been a net gain of water at the expense of the Boro system. The Jao camps, Xigera and Pom Pom are surrounded by good deep water and are a must see for wetland lovers. The Kwedi concession camps of Duba, Vumbura, Little Vumbura and Vundumtiki have returned to the wonderland that that area can be. Boating to and from the camps and to the dryland for game drives. Mombo is in effect and island, with wildlife being extremely concentrated. Fantastic viewing of many, many species in a relatively small area is the order of the day in the delta. I can hardly believe the bird life this year so far.
Anyone, who is awe inspired by natural places, and understands the importance of wetland bio-diversity, absolutely must visit Botswana's Okavango this year.
Vacationtechnician personalized luxury adventure travel transports you to the most exquisite wilderness and chill out retreats on Earth. Conserving rare biodiversity through low volume tourism; our aim is your indulgence -at no one's expense. Plan now to be assured a rejuvenating escape at a restful pace -to an unspoiled gem in the purest sense.