No Stopping for Lions (8 page)

After lunch on our third day at Mandavu we're lounging around camp, reading, writing up notes and generally taking it easy when three white Zimbabweans arrive. They are resident at the Masuma Dam campsite about 30 minutes' drive east of us and they've come to Mandavu on a game drive. They share their afternoon tea with us, so the next evening we take drinks to them at Masuma to watch the daily display of tens of thousands of
queleas
, a species of finch, as they come swooping and soaring over the water in shadowy 3D clouds. Over sundowners I praise the camp attendants and mention that Richard has been invaluable as well as an engaging companion. The Zimbabwean lady snaps back that he is only looking for a bigger tip then launches into a tirade in which she speaks about blacks, all blacks, with such childish vitriol it's apparent that she's totally lost perspective. Her bitterness and disillusionment is palpable and her husband puts a hand over hers while he explains. Her parents, intimidated and kicked off their farm by supporters of Mugabe, are now living in a garden shed dependant on handouts. They themselves have lost a catering business — just closed the doors and walked away because most of their customers had either left the country or could no longer afford the luxury of catering. Vulnerable and raw and middle-aged, our companions mourn what they've lost and blame all who are black for their downfall.

It's been a long day's drive after leaving first Hwange then Zimbabwe behind. We're making our way through the north-east of Botswana to Nata, en route to Maun, where we're to meet with my sister Viv. There's really only one place to overnight in Nata and that's Nata Lodge, something of an institution where chauffeur-driven businessmen and busloads of tourists are looked after by an efficient team of staff who display that rare skill of coping with herds of tired guests with grace and charm. The cleaning ladies here are even more affable than we've come to expect. Elaborate headscarves, smooth mahogany faces, gossip, laughter and ah-ah-ahs. One sings as they make slow progress, and they stop often to catch their breath or to emphasise a point. Here they come, with their mops and coloured buckets in their hands, ready with a smile and a handful of our favourite teabags. I have to admire the pace at which they move around the lodge — if we walked that slowly we'd fall over.

On the roads around Nata we see cowboys herding their cattle on horses. It all seems so romantic and old-fashioned; their horsemanship is wonderful to watch and the horses themselves are trotting along like prizewinners at the Royal Easter Show. The cattle are in good nick too although they look to be a rangy breed. The beef industry is the third-largest income earner for Botswana and its importance is evident in the network of veterinary fences that crisscrosses the country. The fences are intended to control the spread of cattle diseases, but their placement is becoming increasingly contentious and wildlife experts maintain that the fences prevent the free flow of game. They say that the fencing infrastructure is the main cause of the decline in the country's wildlife, another big income earner, but the beef lobby seems to have the ear of the government and we read in the paper that new fences being erected across a currently cattle-free northern sector will cut off vital wildlife corridors. We hope this doesn't happen in the next couple of weeks.

The group of seven huge trees known as Baines' Baobabs are in the Nxai Pan National Park abutting the main highway between Nata and Maun, and visitors to them are supposed to pay a park entrance fee. But the park gates are further in along the access track, way beyond the turn-off to the baobabs, so, like everyone else, we don't pay and veer off the track to head straight for the baobabs. We've been told that rangers have been known to hide out, ready to nab transgressors, so we agree on an excuse should we be caught red-handed.

The track changes from sand to salt and by the time we see the oasis of tall trees we're driving across a salty crust that cracks and snaps under the weight of the Troopy. It becomes glaringly white and images shift and shimmer on the horizon, but the cluster of baobabs is obvious in this otherwise treeless landscape. Once there, we begin to wish that there was a ranger lurking about because a group of overlanders are happily carving messages and initials in hearts on the trunks of these majestic trees, right by signs banning precisely that.

We call in at the infamous Club Baobab to check it out. On the edge of the Nxai saltpan and shaded only by some baobabs, it offers a variety of accommodation ranging from shabby-chic safari to funny little grass Bushmen's huts containing little more than a couple of cots. The restrooms have bowlfuls of free condoms and there's a funky bar playing groovy music. It's fun and upbeat but has copped a lot of bad press recently for charging for the use of a glass when people order a drink. That might explain why the place is nearly empty but management is sticking to its guns. Maybe it wants to discourage the overlander crowd and encourage a more salubrious, free-spending clientele. Like us. But we decide that it's not our cup of tea and push on, leaving the music blaring into the quiet of the desert.

Lying on the other side of the road to Nxai Pan is the huge Makgadikgadi Pan, also a national park and home to a great wetlands bird sanctuary. It's bordered to the north-west by the Boteti River and we've heard that game congregates here in winter. This time we do pay park fees and the ranger at the gate tells us of a cunning trick the lions have come up with. There is a village on the other side of the river and a veterinary fence has been erected to protect cattle from the wild animals in the park. The fence has a gate in it, positioned in a sort of cul-de-sac on the park side. The lions have worked out that if they chase prey along the fence it will become trapped, herded into the cul-de-sac with no way out except past the incoming lions. As we drive towards the gate there's a strong smell in the air and then we see the evidence of the carnage, with many carcasses and skeletons scattered about. In the trees above are dozens of vultures, resting or fighting for territory as they wait for the next massacre to be played out on their doorstep.

Email between Viv and me has become more frequent as her arrival date draws nearer. As well as the usual concerns about travel in Africa, she worries that Neil and I might be getting lioned out, that by the time she arrives we could be driving right past wild animals and amazing sights with barely a blink. But the thing is that you never know what's around the corner, the thrill is in the unexpected as much as the discovery. Thinking about it, it's probably the main reason that Neil and I are travelling so well together: we are both constantly excited by what we chance upon, and the anticipation that something new could be just about to reveal itself becomes a carrot which draws us along the road to the next camp, the next national park.

Maun is the epicentre for tourist traffic into the Moremi Game Reserve and the Okavango Delta. The town itself is a dusty mix-and-match of circular one-roomed rondavels and functional modern buildings, while donkeys and goats share the roads with safari vehicles and Zimbabwean traders. The airport, however, is one of the busiest I've seen, with air charter operations providing the only transport into camps in the delta for most of the year.

The town started life in the early 1900s as a trading hub for the hunting and cattle ranching concessions in the area and there's still a frontier feel to it. There's a café just across the road from the airport, the Cafe Bon Arrive, in which every traveller through Maun must have had at least one caffelatte, and it manages to combine a laid-back, cosmopolitan atmosphere with the excitement of discovering the new world.

It's the day Viv flies into town. I wake up early, excited and expectant, and at the airport I can't stand still. When I see her walking across the tarmac I wave and try to attract her attention. Perhaps fearing a scene, Neil wanders off to wait for Viv and me to get our greetings out of the way.

She's here, and we hightail it to Leroo La-Tau Bush Lodge on the opposite bank of the Boteti River to the Makgadikgadi Pans National Park. It's dusk by the time we arrive and just as we walk in the door the call goes up
lion! lion!
and we're waved down to the edge of the garden. In failing light we peer down into the dry riverbed below, just in time to see a sleek golden body fade into the shadows. The frustrated rumble is undoubtedly a lion's, annoyed at having his prey alerted. I couldn't have written the script better for Viv's first bush encounter — she's hooked.

Things don't go as planned after that. At the main lodge to collect the keys for two cabins in the adjoining Xwaraga campsite, we are told that the young manager has double-booked both. There are also no rooms free in the lodge itself. He makes a plan. While we drink free wine and eat a free dinner he arranges for two pup tents to be put up in Xwaraga and later the rheumy old guide shows us the way to them through thick, thorny bush. The tents look pretty good and we settle down for the night in cosy bedrolls with the sounds of the bush around us and a roll of toilet paper strategically positioned between the two tents.

Early next morning we wake to South African accents moving around outside our tents. It's a family of fellow campers, tracking the footprints of a big lion that wandered into the camp during the night and passed right by us. We were too exhausted — or full of free wine — to hear it, but Neil does go quiet when he remembers that he'd gone out at some point in the night for a call of nature of a different sort.

The next day we move to one of the cabins. It's nothing fancy — four beds in a row, dormitory style, with a basic bathroom out the back — but we have a ball. Like many in our family, Viv likes to light fires so while I get dinner organised and Neil polishes the Troopy she sets off to collect firewood and very soon we're sitting around a half-decent campfire. The sun has gone down and we've just topped up our glasses when there's a rumble, then a thundering: the sounds of a big herd galloping our way. I sit contentedly with my glass of red, waiting for some action, but Viv is up and into the cabin in a flash, balancing her glass of wine like the runner-up in an egg-and-spoon race. The herd is now very close to us, just in the bushes beyond the fire, and we're surrounded by their frightened snorts and squeals. The commotion passes us by — just a lion chasing a herd of zebras — but it's an eerie experience, as we can see nothing in the dark of a new moon.

During the night we wake to the sounds of two lions calling to each other across the camp. At times they sound close, but not too close, so we drift off to sleep again. Then I wake again when a person moves around the outside of the cabin and seems to settle down just the other side of the sticks-and-reeds wall at our heads. I'm not too worried, thinking it's probably the guard moving in for shelter from the lions. Next morning when we compare stories it becomes apparent that my man wasn't a guard at all but a big rat that had a nest in the wall just above Viv's bed. She got less sleep than us.

Next stop is Pom Pom Camp in the Okavango Delta and we fly into it in a small six-seater plane. Seen from above, the sprawl of Maun gives way to scattered villages, which change to grassland, then swamp, and in no time we're over large expanses of flooded plains. The pilot points out herds of buck and small families of elephants moving around on the only dry land left, and we can see flocks of large birds sweeping and soaring over the water. As we get deeper into the delta, pockets of high ground form isolated islands and it's hard to see how there's enough room anywhere to accommodate a camp, let alone land a plane.

We have a grand old time at Pom Pom, partly because the other guests are fun but also because the staff is too. The kitchen serves good food, which is just as well because there are Italians and Swiss amongst us. The Italians, two young couples, become great friends with us and we overcome the language problem by drinking wine and laughing. One of the Swiss, a lady who declares that she hates flying and hates jelly, sings us grace one dinnertime so Viv and I reciprocate on her last day by singing ‘I Like Aeroplane Jelly' as she drives off for the flight back to Maun. Viv takes over responsibility for the campfire and she can be found in the early evenings fussing with wood and stoking the flames until they blaze like a Cracker Night bonfire.

Each day we are taken on a new adventure. Early one morning we set out in
mokoros
, those slender, slightly unstable dugout canoes that are poled like gondolas through the swamp. We glide without a sound except for the splash-splash of the pole and the huffing and puffing of Neil and me trying to blow life into our frozen hands. Another time we're taken by boat along hippo highways through tall papyrus to a vast waterbird rookery where thousands of herons, pelicans, marabou and yellow-billed storks nest together in noisy alliance.

On our last morning at Pom Pom Neil, Viv and I choose to go out on the water, fishing, while the Italians hold out for finding the leopard that has eluded us all on our previous game drives. In the sparkling, crisp, early morning we've just thrown out the anchor and cast the first line when there's a crackle on the walkietalkie. The others have found the leopard and if we're quick they'll meet us on land and take us to her. With no consideration for park speed limits or snoozing hippos our boat speeds across the water to the pick-up point, where we pile on top of everyone else in the back of the game-viewing vehicle. The orderly game drive is forgotten as we career through the bush, everyone being thrown on top of the person next to them, and passing branches scratch our hands and foreheads. Someone's beanie flies out the back, forgotten, and cameras are a jumble of lenses and straps bouncing on the metal floor. We're almost on top of the leopard before we see her, so well camouflaged is she in the patchy light. Green eyes, pink nose and beautifully marked coat, she's young and pretty, and preening for us like a catwalk model. No one moves except to press their finger for photos, and there is no sound except for the clicks. Even after the gorgeous girl stretches, sits on a log for a final photo opportunity then pads off into the bushes, we remain dumbstruck by her presence and the honour of her allowing us an audience.

There's a night to be spent in Maun before driving into Moremi Game Reserve. On the outskirts of town, Discovery B&B is a neat compound of colourful rondavels inside a high, secure and private wall. We arrive to find the dinner table set and ready for us in the middle of an open courtyard alongside a well-stoked fire. The manageress apologises for the lack of a local singing and dancing group to entertain us, but with so few guests she thought the troupe would be better off elsewhere. The only other staff members are the cook, an old lady in a brightly coloured sarong called a
kanga
, and a serious young man who waits on us with the studied mannerisms of a trainee. While we're lapping up pre-dinner drinks these two amble over to a couple of rickety stools, hitch up their
kanga
and trousers, put a drum between their knees and beat out a catchy rhythm. To make up for the missing entertainers.

The Moremi Game Reserve might occupy just 20 per cent of the Okavango Delta but it has just about everything you might want to explore. Permanent lagoons, seasonal swamps, dry savannah and dense
mopane
woodlands. It has a reputation for exceptional game viewing and, depending on the time of year, can be explored on land or by boat. The Department of Wildlife and National Parks manages a number of public camping grounds and it is in two of these, Third Bridge and Xakanaxa, that we've booked sites for the next few days.