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The Lilac Breasted Roller the National emblem of Botswana.

From: damag@bigpond.net.au

To:

Cc:

Sent: Thursday, June 20, 2002 7:52 PM

Subject: Beautiful Botswana

Dear All

 

Today we leave to fly back to Aus.  Maybe that is why, at some ungodly hour, I am up writing to all of you.  It really doesn't seem real that it is all over - for the timebeing.

 

My purpose, however, is not to lament our leaving our lifestyle of the last few years but to tell you all about how wonderful Botswana was.  Having now edited the 1500 pictures we have been able to relive the amazing time we had there and marvel at the closeness to the animals that we achieved, without feeling either threatened or, we hope, threatening them.  Lets start at the beginning.

 

A lot of flying time.  10.5 hours from London to Johannesburg where, fortunately we only had about a 2 hour wait for our flight to Maun, in Botswana.  On arrival in Maun we were met and then flown again (on ever decreasing sized  planes) out to Deception Valley.  Awaiting us on the runway was Kim, our guide and guardian for the next two weeks.  Not only was he there to meet us, and the other 5 weary travellers joining us for the trip, but we were greeted with a white-clothed table with champagne and nibbles.  Nice!  A bumpy trip to Deception Valley Lodge (where we spent our first night) was filled with sights and smells we had only imagined. 

 

Up a tree was the evidence of a leopard kill - dangling legs and head of a now deceased impala.  To whet our appetites for what was to come, we also saw warthogs, kudu (a type of antelope) and lots of birdlife. Deception Valley Lodge was the only place we stayed for the 2 weeks that was not under canvas.  It is a lovely, environmentally friendly and aesthetically pleasing place where we were warned that we must not walk around alone at night - we don't know what might be out there!

 

However it wasn't night and we went on our first "safari".  This was not so much to look for game but to be introduced to the life of the bush and the Bushmen.  It was fascinating to watch our two young bushmen showing us how to get water (remember we were in the Kalahari Desert), their methods of stalking and catching animals for food, their musical instruments and which plants we could and could not eat.  We were treated to a demonstration of their stalking prey (without the final kill - which is never done unnecessarily) and we watched the sun go down out in the middle of the bush.  This was to be the first of a nightly tradition - the sundowner - where we would have a drink somewhere beautiful and different every night and watch the sunset.  Boy, have I got some sunset pictures!

 

Next day we were off into the Central Kalahari Game Reserve to meet up with the mobile camp team who were to be ready for our arrival at lunch time.  No sooner were we inside the Reserve and we had the first of our 4 punctures of the trip.  It didn't take us long to realise that Kim needed little help to fix it (7 in 2 weeks is his maximum of flats so far).  Huge thorny bushes abound here and when you see the size of the thorns, it is amazing that it isn't 7 per day.  Despite being busy fixing the tyre, when we got underway Kim said that he was sure that there was a recent kill up ahead because "Did anyone notice the vultures circling just ahead?"  Well, of course we did!!!!!!!  We realised we had to increase our powers of observation.  Sure enough, a  young ostrich had been killed the night before and, when Kim went to investigate, all that was left were the pelvic bones - not worth the vultures effort really.

 

We arrived at our mobile camp and were massively impressed by what we saw.  Four accommodation tents, a dinning room tent, sleeping quarters (tents) for the staff - Lidia the cook, Connie the housekeeper, Victor the Camp Manager, Bevan the Waiter (in training), Richard the Barman and Simasiku the real waiter doubling as the general all purpose odd jobs man.  The set up was fantastic (you will have to see the pictures).  An immaculately set table awaited us where a smorgasboard lunch was presented and we were told that hot water was in our bucket showers ready for us.  Our tents contained campbeds with mattresses, duvets, blankets (and we found out that night, hot waterbottles) a bucket shower, washing basins and a pedestal toilet.  There was not way, even out here in the Kalahari Desert, that we were roughing it.  Light was provided by battery and all food was cooked either on the 2 hob gas burner or in the camp oven, made of metal that worked by sitting it on the hot coals of the fire and putting more coals on top.  We were VERY impressed.

 

Ablutions and lunch over we set off again.  The Kalahari is not the best  place for seeing game, we were warned, because it is, afterall, a very dry desert and not a real lot choses to live there.  Nevertheless, we saw black backed jackal, yellow mongoose, a honeybadger, some ground squirrel and suricate.  This will be a long (very) letter if I do a day by day report so from here on in some things may get clumped together.

 

Forgot to mention that the bar (remember we had a special barman) was huge.  Best quality South African wines with almost any pre or post dinner drink imaginable as well.

 

Our first sighting of lion was to be a very sad event.  We went to one of the very few pumped waterholes in the area and there, under a tree, we saw a lion.  Unfortunately it was a dying lion.  This big boy had come off second best with a porcupine.  Porcupine don't have a lot of defence, except their quills and when attacked they turn their backs on their attacker, stop dead still and hope that the predator will run headlong into the quills.  This had happened to the lion and he was dying from infection caused by the quills.  A nasty drawn out death saw this once massive 220 pound lion reduced to less than half his body weight and barely able to lift his massive head.  There wasn't a dry eye in the jeep.  Kim had seen this black maned lion as a cub, watched it grow and become the dominant animal in the area and now, the reality of the harshness and cruelty of African animal life was being very visibly presented to us.  It was a long time before we could leave this scene and a sense of complete helplessness prevailed.  It is forbidden by Botswana law for anyone but the gamekeepers to destroy an animal (not that Kim had a gun anyway).  It was to be another 24 hours before we could let the gamekeepers know about the lion.  Kim was almost hoping that the hyena would get the lion that night because he was in such a bad way.  I guess we will never know just how that lion eventually died.

 

In the game reserves the rules state that you have to be back in camp by 6.30pm - for both your own and the animals' safety.  Just as we were about to reach camp (it was dark by this time) an aardwolf (a type of hyena) ran across the road in front of us (no time for a picture unfortunately).  Kim had not seen an aardwolf in this area for over 4 years.  After a wonderful dinner of smoked ostrich, rare fillet steak, stir fried vegetables, garlic bread (fresh bread was made very day in the tin box oven) and flambe peaches we went to sleep to the lullaby sung to us by the black backed jackal.

 

Time to break camp.  The team were to demolish the camp, drive about 400km and re-establish it whilst we went on a plane trip north to the Okavango Delta.  We spent the next two nights in a very posh safari lodge called Nxabega where we were taken on morning, afternoon and evening game drives.  Here we saw our first giraffe and heard our first elephants.  The scenery in the Okavango is phenomenal.  Although it is now the dry season, the Okavango is starting to fill because the waters that fell in the rainy season are only now just arriving there.  They have to travel about 600km from Angola to reach Botswana and then life returns to the Delta. 

 

The way to see the Delta is in a mokoro, a dug out canoe.   Traditionally these were made out of ebony or the wood of the sausage tree but today conservation says that they are to be made of fibreglass.  At dawn we were "poled" through the shallow waters of the delta, stopping to enjoy the wonderful waterlillies and malachite kingfishers all around us.  We stopped on one of the islands and (apart from having a wonderful morning tea) we went walking.  Tshabo and Carlos pointed out animal tracks and how old they were etc etc and we were quite grateful that the big cat tracks were 3 days old.  We did, however, come face to face with a very curious giraffe.  We also saw a Pel's Fishing Owl (twice) - so rare that it isn't in most of the bird books because no one sees it to identifiy it.

 

Later, our second meeting with lions looked as if it, too, was to be sad. Five lion cubs(14-18 months old and still unable to fend for themselves) seemed to have been abandoned.  No one had seen the mum for about 4 days.  These cubs were just sleeping, curled up together around a large termite mound and were looking very miserable.  It is quite normal for big cats to sleep up to 20 hours a day so their sleepy state was not the problem - their thinness and lack of interest in much was.  Again, what can we do - nothing.  Moving on we saw hippo in the distance.

 

A call on the radio alerted us to a lion kill and, after a very dark, bouncy and (probably) dangerous drive (we were in a private reserve not a government one) we arrived at the kill.  The lions had apparently just about finished their dinner (zebra) when the hyena decided they had waited long enough.  We arrived just as the hyena pack was driving off the lions.  They actually attacked one of the lionesses and the noise of the fighting was something I shall never forget.  The attacked lioness limped off into the bushes and the hyena went on with their meal.  We saw her a little later, bleeding quite badly but, again, what can you do?  Going back to the lodge, breathless from what we had seen, we also encountered leopard, springhare, large and small spotted genet and a few more antelope.  What a time we had in Nxabega.

 

To quote from my diary:  "Off at 7.15 starting the day with a small zebra herd.  Tsessebe (a brown antelope) was next followed by a large herd of buffalo.  The African Jacana (Jesus bird or lily walker) was followed by impala, vultures, lion, baboon and more lions - 11 all told - 2 lionesses and 9 cubs.  (Oh and by the way we also heard that the mum had returned to and killed for the 5 so called abandoned cubs last night.)  We were so close that if you reached out you could touch them.  As if that was not enough, after the short flight to Moremi Game Reserve (where we were met by Kim and our campsite team) we saw hippo sunning themselves, another lilac-breasted roller (a stunning blue and lilac bird that is the emblem of Botswana), warthog and crocodiles.  All this before lunch."

 

It was here that we saw our first elephants up close and personal and to cut lots of stories very short, we sat and watched as a large old bull elephant ripped all the leaves from the trees in front of us, then started to knock down the trees so as to reach the top leaves.  This was happening within 5 metres of us.  Kim had the car in reverse and the clutch in.  However, the big old guy was only interested in eating and when he was through he walked straight in front of us and charged off into the bush to knock over a few more trees.  Amazing.

 

All in all we saw over 50 individual lions.  Photographing animals in the early morning light and with the setting sun has produced some great results.  Elephants in the sunset go really well too.  But there is still more to come and, as it is now bright day light, we still have packing to do, and the computer is very hot, I will end now and carry on with more of Beautiful Botswana in a few days time - from Australia!

 

See some of you in a day or two.  See some of you in a year or two (maybe).  Whatever the case, we will be in touch and will certainly finish Botswana by this time next week.

 

Til next time

Deb & Arnold

Note to Deb Walsh - Thanks for all the times you have forwarded our email - this one you don't have to - Thank God for Australian communications.

FOR REAL UP TO DATE INFORMATION OF WHAT IS HAPPENING NOW - GO TO THE END OF THE LETTER.

Hello from Aus

Home, safe and sound, exhausted, sad, exhilarated and glad to see the smiling faces greeting us as we came through the doors.  Now, almost a week on, we are talking serious turkey about a house and have looked at several cars.  Arnold's old Lancia is almost working and Botswana, Egypt and all things north seem a long time ago.  Fortunately, I am still fine tuning the pictures so memories are not far away.

Before I say anymore, I must thank Barb and Lyndon Hutchinson for

1.    Having us to stay

2.    Organising the best welcome home party ever.

Thanks so much for all the hard work that went into it and thanks also to Nadine and Time and Neroli and Jason.  We had a ball and I am sure everyone who came did too.  The food was out of this world.

We had just left the Okavango Delta, heading for Savuti when I last wrote.  Lots more elephants and lions there.  The Lodge at which we stayed (Savuti Elephant Camp) really lived up to its name.  It is at one of the few pumped waterholes in the area and elephants and giraffe (when given the chance by the elephants) come to drink.  The vervet monkeys also perform tricks, hoping that you will feed them (absolutely forbidden because the little beasties just become pests).  

During our time in Savuti we really did see loads of both elephants and lions.  We saw one pride of lions, quite content to sleep and while away their day until a silly little warthog, completely oblivious of their presence, wandered into sniffing distance.  The pride, as one, raised their heads, got to their feet and slowly, ever so slowly edged towards the warthog.  The warthog did live to see another day and the lions were not too upset by missing a small breakfast.  Well, they went straight back to sleep anyway.  Fascinating stuff.

The next lot of lions stopped us in our tracks - literally.  Driving along we found, on the road, lying in the hollow made by previous tyre tracks, was a very fat young female lion, dead to the world.  She was completely oblivious to our presence and we could neither drive round her not, obviously, over her.  The longer we waited for her to wake up and move, the more lions we found lurking in the bush.  Their camouflage is terrific.  All of these lions were bloated with food and had absolutely no interest in us whatsoever.  When eventually we were able to move on  it was to come across more and more elephants.

As sundowner approached we found a herd of elephant mums and littlies having mud and dust baths and just thoroughly enjoying themselves.  Our plan was to watch the sun go down over the elephants.  Scenery was magnificent and all was peaceful and quiet until some bloody idiot (sorry about the language but by choice I would use something stronger) came charging along the riverbank, at a ridiculous speed and sent the herd scattering.  We couldn't believe that anyone could be soooo stupid.  Not only did it spoil our wonderful peaceful evening but what hope did those in that car have of being able to observe the elephants at play?  No understanding other people.

Savuti march is now dry.  It dried up completely about 20 years ago.  We heard a report on the radio about a lone female wild dog being seen and headed in its direction.  The trail became cold and we found ourselves in the marsh.  OK says Kim.  We are going to find some cheetah.  He got on the radio to find out where the other couple of jeeps were and to see if anyone had a clue about cheetah.  All said that they were on the north side of the marsh and thought they might be in with a chance.  Kim heads south!  We were the only ones to see cheetah that day.  Two males dominate the area and they were together, just sauntering along in the grass.  We were a bit naughty and went off the track a little bit to get close enough for some pictures but we had 30 seconds close to the cats and we were out of there.  The grasses in this area are a little bit more resilient than in the Kalahari and not so much damage is done by the vehicle.  However, Kim was very aware of the "wrongness" of it and we did not labour the point.  We had seen cheetah up close.  They couldn't have cared less that we were there.

A long drive to Kasane gave us our first sighting of - bitumen road!!!  After 4 hours on sand and only 100kms travelled we were actually quite happy to do the other 70km on the bitumen in very little time at all.  We only had to stop twice - once for some Roan Antelope crossing the road and the second time because a rather large elephant thought the trees on the other side of the road looked better.

We spent the afternoon on a motorised launch cruising on the Chobe River that was chock a block full of crocodile, hippo and bird life extrordinaire.

Baboons were our entertainment one morning.  About 30 of them were sunning themselves in the early hours before getting stuck into their picnic boxes.  I don't think I mentioned their picnic boxes last time (sorry to repeat if I did).  Baboons love to pick over elephant droppings because of the number of seeds etc that pass straight through the elephant and are far easier for the baboons to get than having to forage for them.  If they get to the poo whilst it is still steaming it is a bonus.  If it has dried out a bit the baboons simply turn it over and work from the softer underneath.  Yummy!

There was also a very new baby.  Mum was still bleeding from the birth and the baby was being groomed over and over again.  All of the troupe came to look at the baby and it was almost as if they were coming to coo and cluck like a bunch of old grandmothers.  They touched the baby under the watchful eye of the mum and a big male just sat back and watched.  He then demanded that each female groom him as they went past.

The danger beasts of the area are the buffalo with their huge bosselated heads. We were happy to stay in the truck.  Pink elephants are under 1 month old.  Elephants are born more pink than grey and by the time they are a month old most of the pink has gone.  One little fellow was being taught to swim by the herd.  He walked quite confidently into the water and suddenly disappeared.  A bit of splash later and all you can see is a little trunk stretching like a periscope up out of the water.  The adult females gathered around him and ensured he did not drown by using their tusks to support his body.  It made for fascinating viewing. We got very close to a large male lion...very regal.

Sadly Botswana was almost over.  The next step was to get into Zambia.  Originally we were to have seen Victoria Falls from the Zimbabwe side.  However, Zimbabwe politics being what they were, the Foreign Office advised that we not go into Zimbabwe.  So, Zambia it was.  We had to cross the Chobe River to get into Zambia and this we did in a motorised row boat.  It was amazing.  We slowed down in the middle of the river and we were on the border of four countries - Botswana, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Numibia.  A potholed drive of about 80km saw us arrive at Livingstone and the Royal Livingstone Hotel.

Very sad what politics has done to tourism - this lovely new hotel (less than 12 months old) was virtually empty.  We were taken to the falls and had terrible difficulty taking photographs because of the spray.  550 million litres of water per minute tumbles over the falls and the roar and the spray was humungous.  Back to the hotel and watched the vervet monkeys playing trampolines on the hammocks that were in the hotel grounds.  Hours of entertainment there!  Sundowner was on the deck, watching the Zambese River flowing past, oblivious to the fact that it is dangerously close to tipping over the huge drop that is Victoria Falls.  We watched as the sun set, causing rainbows across the spray and the falls.   The spray can be seen from  up to 70km away and the spray we saw from 1km away was pretty spectacular.

A long wait in Johannesberg was the only impediment in our trip back to London and it was with tremendous memories that we sat on the plane back for our last week in London.  Here we caught up with Piers (Arnold's son) and his partner Josie after 3 years and had a good old chin wag.

Before we knew it we were killing time, waiting for the plane.  You can book your bags in at Paddington Railway Station for Heathrow Airport, so that you don't have to actually lug them all the way out to the airport.  This was very convenient for us and just as we were finishing up with booking in, I recognised a couple of guys I had known well from the theatre in Adelaide.  Tome and Claude were on a nine week holiday and were booking in to go to Norway.  Talk about a small world!  They told us about other theatre friends who were now living in London and it was great to be able to catch up with what was happening with a group of people I hadn't had much contact with over the time we had been away.

Now we are home, getting organised and, if we get our new house, we will be busy busy busy.  Hope that you have all enjoyed our travelogues and that next time we go away we will be able to communicate our travels to you all again.  In the meantime - we would like to hear from anyone who is still in the "travel business" and want to keep in touch with you all, no matter what part of the world you may be .

Until next time

Deb & Arnold

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