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A
special concession
Sharon
van Wyk of The Mail & Guardian continues
her adventures on safari in Botswana. Part 2 of a 3 part
series of articles – December 2003.
" I’ll
just go and grab your pilot, I think he’s having
a fag.”
So spake my down-to-earth Moremi Air representative upon
welcoming me back to Maun whilst transferring me to my
next aerial roller coaster ride – yet another tiny
Cessna
– which would wing me northwards to Kwando Safaris’s
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 Safari
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 waitrons 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 Safaris 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. Even if the game viewing is slow, 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.
This
article has been edited for inclusion in the Moremi Safaris
and Tours website.
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