To the Okavango and Beyond
Savuti and Moremi
I'm up before daybreak, but KB already has the campfire going and his kitchen open. He produces tea, coffee, a light breakfast and plenty of fruit. He'll have more food for us at our first stop of the day. Soon it's time to pack up. Sam finishes his own tent quickly and helps me with mine as Rex and KB load the trailer. We set off, but perhaps fifty metres down the road, Rex pulls to the side. There are lion footprints in the sand. Just as well I didn't know that when I answered a call of nature in the night.
We're heading for Savuti, a wilderness only accessible by 4X4. It will take several hours to get there. The roads have no drainage, so every dip is a mud bath approached with low-ratio gears and hope. We meet other safari vehicles, and stop while the drivers exchange information on the state of the roads and the whereabouts of the game. From time to time, we pause to look at elephants or antelope. Once, we have to wait for a family of newly-hatched wild ducklings to swim across the road in convoy with their proud parents.
We reach our campsite around lunchtime. It's a pretty place, with a view over the calm waters of the Savuti Channel, and beyond it a wooded, rocky outcrop. The Savuti Channel is an overflow of the Okavango water system, flowing from the Delta to feed the Savuti marshes and their rich variety of wildlife. The channel is erratic. It has a history of drying up for many years, starving the marshes, then mysteriously flowing again. It last dried up in the early 1980s, and began flowing in 2008, although the water only reached the marshes in 2010. Perhaps minor earth tremors cause a slight shift in the lie of the land, enabling and disabling the flow.
Rex rigs up a hot shower for us: a bucket with a watering can attachment fixed to it, hung from a convenient tree and surrounded by a canvas screen. We have lunch to the accompaniment of the grunting and chortling of a pod of hippos downstream. Then we set off to explore the area. It consists of swamps, grassy plains and wooded rocky outcrops. We laughingly order Rex to find my cheetah and Lene's leopard. Instead, he's heard that painted dogs have been seen in a certain place. We go there, but see no sign of them. We're in marshy ground now, with stretches of mud and shallow channels of water interspersed with coarse grass. A wild and lonely place, epitomised by a lone, massive bull elephant making his stately way across the horizon.
We drive to higher ground, heading for rocky hills where we have more chance of finding Lene's leaopard. We come to a small stream flowing across the road, surrounded by stunted trees. And there are the wild dogs. Perhaps ten of them, lounging in the shade, for all the world like a pack of village dogs lazing through the heat of the day. But these are beautiful, with their dark, orange-patched coats and alert, rounded ears. They're an endangered species, and conservationists are obviously tracking this pack, as one wears a VHF collar, enabling GPS tracking data to be downloaded regularly.
Like all the animals in this area, they have no fear of humans. Some watch us curiously; others snooze. Now and again one gets up and drinks from the stream. At last we move on and continue our fruitless search for the leopard.
It's getting late, and Rex can lose his guide's licence if we're away from camp later than 7PM. Moving around after dark is dangerous, as army anti-poaching units could mistake us for the bad guys. We hurry. Ahead of us is another vehicle, also cutting the timing fine. A couple in elegant Out of Africa clothes sip G&Ts in the back. Both vehicles pause to allow elephants to cross the road. Now we really are running late. We embark on a Ferrari Safari in convoy. I hang on for dear life as I'm bounced around over the bumpy road, and wonder how the G&Ts are faring. They branch off to their camp.
We're now only a few hundred metres from ours, and it's almost dark. A streak of movement in the headlights, and there is Lene's leopard. At a crouching run, it takes cover in the bushes, and stays watching us with baleful predator's eyes. It's a magical moment. We hardly dare breathe for fear of frightening it away. It watches us, wary but not afraid, a silent creature of the night. Then cautiously it emerges. For one long moment it stands perfectly still, as if posed for a photograph, giving us the chance to admire the suberbly-muscled feline form. It stands proud, a loner, trusting no-one, then turns and makes off into the darkness.
It doesn't go far. In the morning, KB says he heard a leopard moving outside the tents, and we find its footprints all around our camp.
Next day we load up and head through the marshes to Moremi, game viewing along the way. In one place, KB gets out to walk in front, braving a possible crocodile to make sure the going isn't too soft for the Land Cruiser. Rains have been heavy and when we reach camp, the road is several feet under water. Lene, Erik and I are extremely dubious about driving into what looks like a small lake, but Rex knows exactly where the ground is solid beneath. Above the top of the wheels in water, towing a heavy trailer, it seems impossible that we'll make the fifty metres to higher ground. But Rex and the Land Cruiser don't let us down, and soon we're grinding slowly up the opposite bank. Rex explains that provided the water doesn't go above the air inlet to the engine, the Land Cruiser will go almost anywhere. If we had a snorkel attached, it could successfully go underwater. And if the water does go above the air inlet? That's every tour guide's nightmare, because the diesel engine will need an overhaul.
We're now in the Delta area. Our campsite, beneath tall riverine trees, overlooks the shallow water of the marshes. We set up camp quickly - Erik's now almost as efficient as Rex and KB - and then set off for a game drive. Rex points out a herd of red lechwe, animals exclusive to marshy areas. They're well adapted to the wet conditions, and can run at high speed through the water. From a distance they look like impala, but the general shape and the horns are different. Rex can't find my cheetah.
Towards evening we have our second encounter with painted dogs. A family of zebras are grazing close to a clearing. In the centre of the clearing a zebra stallion is surrounded by the dogs, perhaps twenty metres away from him. From time to time a few of the dogs creep closer. The stallion watches them, head held high. When they are almost on him, he picks one and chases it round and round the clearing, no longer a placid donkey with stripes, but a magnificent, snorting, kicking charger. The dogs back off, and the zebra snatches a few mouthfuls of grass. Then the dogs close in again, and the process is repeated. The stallion makes sure the dogs don't get anywhere near his wife and kids, who calmly eat grass, secure in the knowledge that Dad has things under control. Rex says the dogs won't get him; they're no match for a full-grown zebra. This may not be the stallion's first encounter with predators. Half his tail is missing, a memento of a long-ago battle. The zebra is still fending them off when we have to leave to reach camp before dark.
Rex's trust in the stallion is not misplaced. When we pass on our way out in the morning, the zebra family are peacefully having breakfast. They're easy to recognise because of Dad's missing tail.There's no sign of the wild dogs.
Today's trip is short, so we make our way slowly, watching zebra, antelope, elephants and birds.