Ellies galore!

Days 37 – 39    24^th – 26^th October

From Vic Falls we flew south-east to Hwange National Park, landing at Hwange National Park Airfield which is 10,000ft long and was extended as the emergency landing strip for the space shuttle! Luckily we were able to land and stop before the end of it! We then had a 2 ½ hour drive on what was left of a tarmac road built in the 1950’s, winding through endless bare brown mopani-covered flat terrain with a sighting of just one giraffe sitting under a tree….we began to wonder what we had set ourselves up for!

And then we reached the Camp Hwange concession – green-leaved trees suddenly started appearing and our spirits rose.  Just around a corner, and there was a beautiful Sable Antelope – another first for us – stunning beast!

The camp itself is simple but tasteful, small, personal and comfortable, and the food was delicious.  Nothing was too much trouble and there were no set meal times, so never any rush to get back from a game drive when something interesting was going on.

In front of the lodge is a large waterhole, and we were greeted by a family of elephants drinking as we arrived.  Hwange was hot and dry and most of the waterholes had dried up.  This one and a couple of others are kept wet using a solar pump/ generator, pumping 6000 litres per hour 24/7, but even that is not enough to serve the volume of traffic and we watched the water reduce over the 3 days we spent there, the elephants really not helping themselves or the other thirsty animals by destroying the solar panels on one pump, the pipe connection to the hole in front of the lodge (on days 2 and 3) and the electrics on another pump system!

A constant stream of elephants came all through the afternoon and the majority of our evening game drive was spent simply watching them splashing, playing, and sucking up great trunkfuls of water. Several herds actually ran to the water rather than strolling along, showing just how thirsty they were.

Next they were joined by a lioness, who lapped and lapped to quench her thirst, then settled down to watch the action as a huge herd of buffalo appeared through the dust, along with roan antelope, zebra, impala, warthogs, grey-crowned cranes, and hundreds of doves and water birds.

It was the most amazing spectacle – we had never seen ellies in these numbers before – and the noise!! Rumbling, trumpeting, squealing, sploshing mud about, screaming – we were quite speechless.  We should add that those noises continued constantly throughout the night – just 100 metres from our cabin!

That evening at dinner we were visited by one buffalo followed by a large elephant, who decided that the water in the bird bath next to the dining area had better-tasting water and proceeded to suck it dry!

During the next couple of days the sheer quantity of animals dwindled slightly, but the waterhole was never without visitors, including groups of 4 – 6 Roan and Sable Antelopes. 

The other waterholes also had large herds of both elephant and buffalo and a wonderful variety of game – even the hippos had terrapins sitting on their backs!  Sunsets were spectacular.

At breakfast one morning we watched as four very grumpy old buffalo took exception to a pair of young male lions sitting by the waterhole and proceeded to chase them off into the bush.

The parks in Zimbabwe are known for offering Walking Safaris and we had a couple of great bush walks (temp approx. 43 degrees!), tracking animals and learning about the plants and the habitat from the incredibly knowledgeable Guides.  On one occasion we stopped to study a year-old skeleton of an elephant, learning all about how the skull is formed, etc.

On our final day, we were lucky enough to view 5 different cats.  On our morning drive a leopard ran out in front of us, then we watched lions sleeping under a bush.  In the evening, we suddenly realised that a cheetah was drinking at the waterhole.  As we followed her a little way into the bush, we first saw an African Wild Cat (from whom all cats are descended) and then a beautiful Serval, who was incredibly calm in our presence and actually made use of our spotlight to feed on the crickets that were attracted to it!  Unbelievable! As we headed back to camp we also saw little bushbabies in the trees.

Our three days there seemed to disappear in the blink of an eye, and we headed back to the airstrip wondering how on earth we would be able to write this blog and convey the wonder of this remarkable place.

So… on to the October dry season in Mana Pools National Park with both of us a little concerned as to how we will cope in 40+ degrees of heat!

Water, water everywhere....

Days 33 – 36        21^st – 24^th October

Sanctuary Chilwero is a fairly large lodge with a lovely view over the Chobe River, which is born in Angola and eventually flows into the great Zambezi at the confluence of 4 countries – Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Chobe National Park is renowned for its large population of elephants who come to the river in large numbers during the dry season, to drink and to bathe, as it is the only water available to them.

The river is wide here, with lush islands in the middle, offering grazing to herds of buffalo, impala and red lechwe.  There is also an abundance of crocs, hippos and water birds.

We had two lovely boat trips and a couple of game drives where we saw lion, leopard with cubs and – a first for us – a Roan Antelope.

On the 24^th, we said goodbye to beautiful Botswana and made the short flight to Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe.  Having cleared customs and immigration at Vic Falls Intl Airport (which was less painful than we expected) we made a short hop to a private airstrip owned by the operators of Bayete Lodge, where we were to stay the night.  We put the plane to bed with ‘hyena boxes’ over the wheels (hyenas like eating rubber!), kindly provided by Mike Johnson, who has been an absolute legend in helping us sort paperwork for Zim, filing flight plans and giving us loads of useful information.

Shortly after our arrival, we met up with our friends Judith and Ann for lunch and a catch up on their adventures since we last saw them in Windhoek- of which there were plenty!  Then Jeremy and I went to ‘do’ Vic Falls on the Zim side, walking along the lush forest pathway, sprayed by the mist from the ‘Smoke that Thunders’ and oohing and aahing at the majestic sight before us.  We walked along till we were opposite the Devil’s Pool where we were a couple of weeks ago, hoping to wave at other nutters, but could only see one couple and the lady chickened out at the last minute!!

In the evening we met up with Judith and Ann for a drink at the Victoria Fall Hotel, looking out at the Bridge across the chasm.  Ann used to play in the gardens of the hotel as a child and shared her memories with us of romantic days of old, with ladies in gorgeous ball gowns and long white gloves, and gents in white tuxedos dancing till dawn and watching the sun rise on the magnificent veranda.  Afterwards we headed back to the Lodge for supper and more stories and laughter – last to leave as usual!!!

Meerkats, Salt Pans and San Bushmen – Jack’s Camp

Days 29 – 32   17^th – 20^th October

Jack’s Camp is in the middle of nowhere, in the semi-arid desert of the Makgadikgadi Pans in the Kalahari Desert.  The website describes it perfectly as ‘The savage beauty of a forgotten Africa’ and ‘One of the only places in the world where the silence is so complete you can hear the blood circulating through your ears.’  It is situated on the edge of a salt pan that just goes on and on as far as the eye can see, and further still. 

The camp is unique, with large tents lined with deep coloured draperies, antiques galore and lit only by paraffin lamps – no wifi or phone signal here!  The dining area and library tent is actually one of Botswana’s acknowledged museums with wonderful old paintings, skulls and memorabilia of a bygone age. 

The beds are high four-posters with steps to assist you to get one them and the floors are covered in Persian rugs.  Thankfully though, the tents do have a wonderful ‘throne room’ as opposed to a china chamberpot below the bed!

It was extremely hot during the day – in the 40’s – but thankfully cooled off at night.  The atmosphere is dry,dry and the moisture is sucked out of one’s body – I don’t think we have ever drunk so much water and delicious homemade lemonade!   And there – in the middle of the desert – is one of the coldest swimming pools I have ever been in!  Talk about being able to chill to the very core!  Jeremy just about managed feet, ankles and wrists, but Sherry took the plunge several times…

We have had 3 wonderful nights in this amazing place, straight out of ‘Arabian Nights’.  We chose it originally because it offered an opportunity to fulfil an important item on Sherry’s bucket list – to intermingle with wild meerkats – and it did not disappoint, but it was so much more.

Game drives provided enchanting sights of large herds of wildebeest and zebra drinking at the waterhole in a landscape that was stark and powerful and quite overwhelming.  We saw a couple of huge bull elephants, two lionesses with a cub, sweet little steenboks and we had two fabulous viewings of brown hyena, which we had never seen before – stunning animal!

We spent a morning and an afternoon with the wild meerkats – what a truly wonderful experience, just sitting watching them and their dear little 3-week-old babies running around, digging up insects and occasionally climbing up onto our shoulders and heads, being the highest point close to hand and therefore a useful lookout!

On our second evening we walked into the bush to meet with the San bushpeople.  If any of you have seen the movie ‘The Gods must be crazy’, you will know who the San are.  These were not actors set up as a tourist attraction, they were genuine San.  With the aid of one of their tribe who spoke some English, they described the way they lived before hunting was banned in Botswana, showing us their bows and arrows, including the poisoned ones and telling how they hunted, and how the skins make the clothes they wear.

They dug up a bulbous root or tuber and showed how they shaved the flesh and then squeezed it, allowing the juice to flow down their thumb and into their mouth.  Then they demonstrated they way to make a fire with a stick and they sat in a circle and played a game amidst much hilarity (and completely oblivious of us) which seemed to be similar to ‘rock, paper, scissors’.

Then an old man called Cobra, a San from a different tribe and much taller, dug up a scorpion to show us, holding it in his hand with its sting firmly clasped, and then putting it in his mouth and sucking it to clean its eyes so we could see them!

It was a brief but truly memorable glimpse into the lives of these simple, friendly people sadly now being disrupted by the noise and chaos we call civilization.

Nights were silent apart from the rustle of palms around our tent (and one very noisy porcupine) and as there was no light pollution, the stars were incredible.  We had views of both Large and Small Magellanic clouds – the Large Magellanic Cloud is a satellite galaxy of the Milky Way at a distance of 163,000 light years, whilst the Small Magellanic Cloud is a dwarf galaxy near the Milky Way, 7000 light years away and contains several hundred million stars with a total mass of approximately 7 billion times the mass of the Sun.

On our final evening we wrapped kikois around our heads in Arab fashion and drove quad bikes across the endless salt pan until the orange ball of a sun dipped below the horizon, and we arrived at a table in the middle of nowhere for sundowners followed by a delicious bush dinner.  We were totally unaware of any of this, just expecting a fun quad ride, and the big secret that followed blew our minds.  Alone in the vastness under a canopy of stars the size of light bulbs in total silence was an extraordinary, mystical, unforgettable experience.

Next – the Chobe River