I met my parents in Johannesburg on the day of the South African Presidential inauguration; the hotel lobby was bustling with traditional African dress and sculpted hair. The hotel complex, called Emperor’s Palace, includes faux colonnades, the spinning and clacking of countless roulette wheels and slot machines and an artificial sky of spring-blue dotted with clouds and stars. This was an ostentatious and artificial environment from which to spring-board to going bush, getting feral and leaving behind all the trappings of life.
The morning awoke clear and bright and opened with a luscious breakfast buffet spread and moved rapidly along to the airport to check into a flight to Lusaka. The flight was as uneventful as a 2-hour flight across deepest darkest Africa can be. We transferred, with assistance from ground staff, through immigration and watched with some trepidation as a dishevelled expatriate pilot shuffled out towards the shiny gold plane waiting on the tarmac.
We flew over lurking clouds and landed at Mfuwe International Airport, which is a small hunched terminal building on the edge of the jungle. We were met by Robbie, our guide, and transferred to Flat Dogs Camp, on the edge of the river, with comfortable chalets, a camping area for the over-land travellers, and an extensive bar/restaurant area. The rules of the camp were that we were not permitted onto the river bank due to the risk of “Flat Dogs’ (crocodiles), and after dark we were to be escorted to and fro our chalet in case of wild-life in the camp. No sooner had we dropped out bags, than we set out on our first night drive.
The thing with safaris is that you get into a routine of getting up before the sun, taking a small breakfast and wrapping up in layers and layers of clothes to insulate against the crispness of the Southern African pre-dawn. Loading up with camera and binoculars you board the open safari vehicle to drive out into raw, unadulterated landscapes to observe the rhythms of nature that are only seen in condensed form on wildlife programs. Every animal is different and on different days, even if you see the same animal, there is a different social or environmental interaction going on which is a privilege to watch.
Once the sun has lifted away from the horizon, the deep amber and cerise colours have faded into the uniformly blue sky and the sunshine glows on the branches and stalks of the vegetation, there is a coffee break in an area assessed to be free of dangerous animals, with particular emphasis on checking behind a suitable bush for the use of the ladies, and a steaming mug of coffee is sipped on riverside/beside a waterhole/on an open savannah. Layers of clothes can be peeled off as the day warms. The drive continues in the full expanse of the day as the diurnal animals are going about their business and a slow drive back towards the lodge or camp reveals antelope sparring, baboons frolicking, elephants browsing and birds flitting like flying jewels.
Siesta at camp allows an opportunity to take a bucket shower (or real shower depending on the accommodation), at least one more meal and interact with whatever wildlife happens past the camp. High tea in the afternoon precedes the evening drive; sunshine gives way to deepening colours of sunset as a suitable spot is chosen to have gin and tonic and nibbles and see the changing of shift as the diurnal animals settle in for the night and the sloping, prowling nocturnal animals slink out of shadow. Reaching camp in the dark, the twinkling lights of the paraffin lamps welcome you to a hot meal, a glass of wine and sighs of deep satisfaction.
This was the routine of our 3-week safari, repeated at Flat Dogs Camp and Kapamba Lodge in Zambia, a 10-day mobile camping safari through Chobe and Moremi National Parks, and lodges in the Okavango and Nxai Pan regions of Botswana.
Unfailingly, the scenery was beautiful and unspoilt and for the majority of the trip we were an exclusive group of 3 with a guide to experience close hand magnificent animals. We were better informed about the habits and peculiarities of flora and fauna and learned to recognise paw-prints in the sand, differentiate birds on the wing and social hierarchies of herds/journies/pods/dazzles of animals.
On our first night in Flat Dogs we surprised a hippo, which was grazing between 2 of the chalets, as we were escorted back from dinner. The following night a pair of hippos came up from the river and grazed outside the chalet, the sound of tearing grass, grinding teeth and snorting rousing us from our beds to go and watch them from the balcony. Wherever there were hippos there was the deep rumbling chuckle as they called; it sounded like a Chinese whispers joke that was passed down the river from individual to individual and pod to pod as they chortled to each other.
We were lucky enough to have 5 separate sightings of leopard; on one occasion we happened upon one on the side of the road. As we approached, it disappeared into the bush, only to reappear moments later and walk around the vehicle so close that Mum could have reached out to touch it. Being a responsible tourist she did not do this but was so overcome that her photographic evidence of the encounter is a blurred shot of the back end, with characteristic markings, as it nonchalantly walked past her.
We saw so many lions that, although it is impossible to tire of lions, we were complacent about having fully grown males with bristling manes lying metres from us in the grass with tails and paws twitching in sleep or lumbering powerfully down bush air-strips past our vehicle close enough to hear their breathing. We watched courtships (mating is initiated by the female and the male lies at attention waiting for the signal until she is ready; it is amusing to watch the King of the Jungle looking downcast and beseechingly at the female while she sleeps), prides of lions stealthily and patiently following a herd of buffalo for tens of kilometres and 24 hours in hope of a kill and were roared at by a male, a mere 20m from us before he joined another male and walked up the hill towards our camp. We radioed up to tell the camp staff that 2 males were heading their way and drove up to intercept them; we found Sunday, one of the camp hands, hiding behind the tent taking photos with his mobile phone.
At Meno a Kwena camp, a luxurious and beautifully appointed permanent-tented camp near Nxai Pans we dozed fitfully, woken every 20 minutes throughout the night by the roaring of a male lion, probably 1km away, but the sound carries into every cell of the body.
One of the camp sites near Moremi Park (voted Africa’s most beautiful National Park for good reason) was in a cluster of Camel Thorn Acacia trees, a tree favoured by elephants for their large fibrous seeds pods which they harvest by purposefully pressing their trunks and heads against the tree trunk and pushing, causing the towering trees to shake from their roots and a shower of pods to fall to the ground. Our camp being in the middle of a grove of these trees was no deterrent to the elephants who shook trees, tore down branches and gathered seed pods around the tents.
Driving along bush roads we were constantly surprised when massive elephants stepped out onto the road and disappeared instantly amongst the scrub on the other side of the road; there is an expectation that elephants should be fairly easy to spot but they are incredibly deceptive in their ability to be hidden completely from view while standing only a few metres away.
We were watching a mother elephant with 2 adolescents on the other side of the river in the Okavango one morning. All was at peace until we started moving off and with a bellow like a room full of 5-years olds learning to play the trumpet with amplifiers, the adult female charged across the river, pushing spumes of water over her flailing trunk and outstretched ears. She proceeded to chase us, continuing to bellow, for 400m as we drove as fast as the sandy/under-water river bank road would allow us; for the first 200m she was gaining on us and it was only when we reached firmer ground that we were able to get some speed and out run her. She turned back, thrashing her head and shrieking in anger all the way back across the river to her calves and we caught our breath, burst out laughing with relief and had a cup of coffee.
At the campsite in Moremi, Mum and Dad were woken in the night by a scuffling sound at the back of their tent, where the pit-latrine/bucket shower en suite was situated (this area was enclosed by a simple canvas but was separated from the tent by sturdy canvas and zips). At about 4.30am I heard a massive crash; I assumed that the camp hands had dropped something in the kitchen as this was the time they were up preparing hot water and breakfast and snuggled down under my blankets. Footsteps went past my tent and I looked out through the mesh as the silhouette of a hyena passed directly outside my window in the dark. Half an hour later, Power came to give us our wake-up call and bring hot water for freshening up; from Mum and Dad’s tent I could hear them saying to him “….. toilet seat…. in the bush…. toilet…. it’s gone….” or something similar. Once I’d dressed I went over to their tent and the story emerged that the something that had been scuffling outside their tent was the hyena who had put his head under the canvas, pushed the toilet base right across the en suite and had stolen their heavy wooden lidded toilet seat, dragging it some 10-15m into the bush out the back of their tent. Power thought they were joking, Mum had to dash out into the bush to retrieve the toilet seat and Power was somewhat embarrassed later when he realised it was a true event; as he said “it’s a very strange story”.
The same hyena came back to our camp for the next 2 nights, at one stage he was sighted right inside the camp as we were at the campfire; he was peering over the table with the coffee accoutrement on it with only his heavy muzzle and fluffy ears visible.
Wild dog are endangered and we were lucky enough to have 3 sightings of packs of dog playing, sniffing and scratching much like a group of domestic dogs.
We saw a sitatunga, a very elusive aquatic antelope which is rarely seen, in the papyrus reeds from a boat. We were immensely lucky in our wildlife sightings.
Giraffes loped behind bush as we approached and then stopped and watched us with big eyes set in their comical heads sticking up from behind cover. Zebras dazzled in herds, their stripes dizzying the eyes and concealing them in shadow.
Troops of baboons foraged and frolicked, under the watchful guard of one member of the troop sitting up high on a tree or a termite mound to look for danger. Impala leapt, grazed and males locked horns in combat. Jackals skulked on the periphery of waterholes and herds of antelope. Vervet monkeys capered in the trees, grooming each other, leaping with trapeze-artist graze from spindly branch to spindly branch and lunging at us from overhanging branches when they deemed us too close. Warthog trotted, warts proudly displayed and tails erect like tiny flags. Wildebeest wandered shaggily across the open plains. Large birds waded or expanded wings to full extent as they beat the air to launch into flight and small birds lifted and twisted in flocks or perched with iridescent colours glinting in the sun. 
Our staunch safari vehicles traversed deeply rutted tracks where elephants had churned the mud, flooded tracks with water rising up the sides of the vehicle and sandy roads shifting and squeaking under our tyres. Endless supplies of good food and drink were dispensed from the stashes in the vehicles and from the kitchens, with fresh bread, cakes, tender meat and well-seasoned vegetables appearing from the camp ovens cooked over open coals. Our accommodation was comfortable, with all amenities overlooking the wild – watching elephants from the shower is an incomparable experience and having to rescue 2 large tree frogs from the bath tub after they jetted out of the tap when I turned it on requires patience.
Our guides were incredible sources of information and skills – from knowing the mating habits of the smallest, seemingly most insignificant animals to rewiring spotlights in the middle of a night drive. We had a San guide in Nxai Pans who demonstrated bush skills and a complex language comprised of a set of clicks impossible for the untrained tongue to emulate.
We spent 2 days in Livingstone to see the Victoria Falls. Due to an exceptional amount of water falling on the Angolan Heights some months before, the Zambezi was flowing faster and harder than usual and the thunderous power of the Falls threw up drenching spray at the viewing platforms with sparkling rainbows arching into the lush rain forest and a mist of water visible from the plane as we landed at the airport. We also took a sunset cruise on the upper Zambezi, enjoying free flowing G&T as the river flowed, the sun sank like a maraschino cherry in a cocktail and the roar of the Falls thrummed in the night air.
It was a magical holiday and we’re already planning the next African safari itinerary…..
