DECADES ago, I lived on the banks of the
Kavango River in Namibia’s Caprivi Strip. It was an idyllic place, but the
devil finds work for idle hands even in paradise and one year some friends and
I decided to pay an illicit visit to neighbouring Botswana.
We constructed some rather ramshackle
canoes from corrugated iron roofing sheets, sealed fore and aft with
scaffolding planks cut to size and shape. The canoes weren’t pretty, but they
were stable and didn’t leak much. We paddled down the river, fishing for tiger
and bream, skirting hippos and crocs, and camping on the banks till, after two
days, we crossed into Botswana. The Kavango, which starts off in Angola as the
Cubango, becomes the Okavango once it enters Botswana. It is a wondrous river
whose clean, sweet waters are fast-flowing.
Too fast, anyway, for us to paddle home. So
we offloaded kit, scuttled our picaresque craft somewhere south of Shakawe and
yomped home over the next week. This time we took care to avoid elephant,
buffalo and lion, all of which were in abundance. I’ve always treasured time
spent on and alongside that river. As I headed north from Mboma boat station
within the Moremi Game Reserve to Ngindi Island in late November, my head was
awash with memories. It was the first time I’d been back in 30 years. It was as
beautiful and unspoiled as ever.
The
Okavango is one of the largest inland deltas in the world. The river doesn’t
flow into the sea; instead, its annual inflow – on average around 11 trillion
litres – either evaporates, is absorbed by plants or sinks into underground
aquifers. The delta has a permanent surface area of some 6 000km². This can
increase almost threefold between June and August (ironically Botswana’s driest
time of year) following heavy rains 1 200km away in Angola.
The delta was declared a World Heritage
Site in 2014. The size of the area, abundance of water, paucity of human
habitation and the Botswana government’s “take no prisoners” approach to
poaching means the delta teems with wildlife. Being restricted to the river
means, however, tourist game-viewing is limited to what is at the waters edge.
But when sightings include elephants grazing placidly in the reeds, belly-deep
in shallows just a few metres away, you’re immediately aware this is a very,
very special place. Ngindi is a private island within the delta, home to the
Sun Destinations, operated Xobega Island Camp, an idyllic off-the-grid tented
retreat whose three-star status belies its authenticity, comfort and charm.
Because Botswana takes the environmental
integrity of the Okavango so seriously, anyone wanting to run a camp or lodge
in the area is required to fly sideways through the eye of a regulatory needle.
That means solar power (just enough to power a couple of cellphones but not a
laptop), chemical toilets and woodfireheated water for canvas showers. Not
that, at the height of summer, you really need or want hot water; with
temperatures exceeding 40˚C from late morning, even water drawn straight from
the river feels tepid. And it’s not as if you can take a plunge in the river,
the presence of crocodiles and hippo (the cantankerous latter are responsible
for more human deaths in Africa’s inland waters than “flat dogs”) makes bathing
a no-no.
To compensate, the camp staff keeps a
constant supply of cold drinks – “gin and tonic, anyone?” – coming. The morning
and evening boat sorties bring blissful relief from the heat. Just backing away
from the jetty perks up everyone’s spirits and when the boat lifts its nose and
spray blows back over the occupants, the sultry discomfort of the preceding
night (there is naturally no air-conditioning in the tents) or day is quickly
forgotten.
Okavango sunsets are truly magnificent, the
placid waters and rich, darkening skies providing the perfect backdrop for
(especially) the abundant birdlife. After spending an engrossing hour at a
noisy breeding colony of storks and ibises, we head to the narrow entrance of a
tributary to the swamp where I’m overwhelmed by a sight that will remain with
me forever. A tall tree exploded with life as nearly 70 yellow-billed kites
erupted from the foliage. They swirled around and above us, silhouetted by the
dusk, for some minutes before returning to their roost. As an avid birdwatcher,
I was entranced. I have a slight regret in that I was unable to cast a line and
land a bream for dinner. It’s only the local population that is allowed to fish
Okavango.
Commercial fishing is prohibited. Botswana
took the lead in African wildlife conservation by banning hunting in 2013 …
with the exception of certain birds under specified conditions. This followed
more than a century of intensive killing, particularly of the giant elephant
herds that migrate southwards from Angola and back again each year. The legacy
of this greedy slaughter is evident at Tuskers Bush Camp, a 365 000ha private
concession less than two hours’ drive from Maun which, before being taken over
by Sun Destinations, was a vast hunting ground. Our group visited an elephant
“graveyard”, a midden of bleached bones made all the more poignant by fresh
spoor made by elephants passing by … honouring their ancestors, perhaps?
Tuskers is far from gloomy, though.
Late one night, one of my colleagues and I
were enjoying nightcaps outside our tent when two male lions strolled past
about 20m away. The camp isn’t fenced and the next morning their tracks were
all over the boma where we’d dined the night before. Apart from enjoying the
myriad elephants – including a tiny baby sheltering under its dam – spotted on
game drives with knowledgeable guide Pilot, I was greatly entertained by a
family of dwarf mongooses that had taken an old anthill as their home. A
lantern-lit braai at the base of an ancient baobab while the last “super” moon
of 2016 glowed above was an absolute highlight of the stay. The first leg of
our trip from Tuskers to Xobega was conducted by vehicle via Moremi Game
Reserve.
Moremi is enormous (half a million
hectares), rugged and – at that time of year – very hot and dusty. Like
anywhere else with a surfeit of standing water, it is a wildlife paradise with
all the usual southern African suspects but with the addition of indigenous red
lechwe and the super-shy sitatunga. There are nearly 500 bird species, which
made the two “twitchers” in the vehicle very happy but our enthusiasm was not shared
by the other occupants at the end of the eight-hour excursion.
I
had to contend with a great deal of muttering as I focused on a beautiful
African hawk eagle while we finally neared the boat that took us to Xobega. I
had the last laugh on the river, though, when we spotted a broadbilled roller,
the “leopard” of the Botswana bird world in terms of elusiveness. The iced gins
would just have to wait.
● Get to Tuskers Bush Camp and Xobega
Island Camp by flying into Maun with SA Airlink, from Johannesburg (daily) or
Cape Town (five times a week) airports. Xobega can be accessed by Mack Air
charter from Maun. Safari lodges abound but most of these aim at international
tourists while those run by Sun Destinations take the South African currency
into consideration. Extensive renovations have since taken place at Tuskers and
Xobega. For details, go to www.sundestinations.co.za