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| Lunch with a bachelor herd of ellies |
It’s late May in Chobe National
Park, Africa’s third largest wildlife preserve, and creatures great and small
are fat and sassy. Tall golden grasses are plentiful. They are the favorite of
the many herds of massive elephants and a host of antelope along with Cape
buffalo, zebra, and more. The sable with its handsome striped face, the kudu
with its elegant curled horns, and the seemingly thousands of impala all glow
with good health. They look at us in our open-air, tiered safari vehicle with
curious eyes as we trundle along sand tracks.
Giraffes
stare with soft, round, chocolate eyes sheltered in three-inch lashes posing
nicely, and then turn to splash through the waters of the Chobe River in a gangly
display of limbs and towering necks as they gallop away.
A saddle-backed crane
with his striking red beak pokes through the reeds along with gray crowned
crane and spindly avocet.
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| Saddle-backed crane-Tom Schwab photo |
The animals show off their young this time of
year. Month-old elephants hide beneath mother’s belly while the big-eared
offspring of the baboon ride on their mother’s back. The proud father of young
impala herds his harem away from us as they kick their heels high in the air
practicing getaways from predators. A parade of gray giants cross our path to
reach the clear waters of Chobe where they linger in the green grasses. After a
night’s hunt, a husky, black-colored male leads a pride of fourteen lions to
shade where they will sprawl for the day.
It is winter and the temperatures
are mild with a warming sun shining brightly in cerulean blue skies. Bush
willow glows golden and the mopane trees are still dressed in fall colors of
yellow and orange. This perfect safari day began with a chill that crept into
my luxurious tent home in the wee hours. I awoke to a herd of water buffalo just
outside my door tramping through the camp and sounding like an army on the
march. The drumming of our escort guide at 5:30 AM signaled time to rise.
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| Dawn on the Chobe River |
It
was hard to leave my comfy bed set upon teak wood floors and sheltered under a pitched
thatched roof, but it was time to join the rest of the guests for breakfast by
a warming fire in the boma.
Like all four of the bush camps on
the journey with Overseas Adventure Travel in Botswana, Zimbabwe, and Zambia,
communal meals are enjoyed buffet style in the main lodge.
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| Main Lodge Baobab Camp |
Each lodge has its
unique flavor and rests in a different ecosystem to be explored. The Baobab Lodge
opens to a valley where animals come to drink at a watering hole. It is a ring
side seat for searing African sunsets reflected in the Chobe River.
Meals in the camps are a healthful
mix of fresh vegetable salads prepared in creative ways. Fare included fish in
a tasty curry sauce with rice, tender beef stew with roasted potatoes, and lemon
chicken with fresh fruit and cheeses for dessert. We are offered tea on our
drives, cool wash cloths upon our return, and a welcome from the staff who do
all they can to ensure we are treated like royalty.
A short flight took us to the Okavango
Delta, a 6,000-square mile mosaic of open savannah, flowing rivers, floodplains,
and lagoons. The Banoka camp overlooks a champagne colored meadow where all
manner of wildlife from elephants to hippos, to the endangered wattle crane busy
spearing frogs, to vultures riding high on thermals enjoy their freedom.
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| Me and Cowboy |
Here we fish-tailed through deep
sand in our safari vehicle with eyes peeled for game.
Our guides, Cowboy and
Wise Guy, stopped the land rover to read the tracks in the road. A big cat had
been active in the night. We were off on the hunt! Cowboy charged through
thickets and deep gullies, crying “hold on!” when he hit brush that cracked and
snapped against the bottom of the jeep as we powered on. Unlike Chobe, a
national park where you may not leave the roads, our lodge in the delta rested
in the private reserve leased from the Kwai villagers leaving us free to wander.
We followed the tracks bouncing like we were riding a bucking bronco for about
45 minutes. Finally our guides circled around a pride of five lions resting
after a night of hunting.
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| Sisters taking a snooze |
The stately fawn-colored male with a dark brown mane stared
at us with disdain. His mate and their two adolescent daughters remained in
quiet repose as we snapped our cameras like paparazzi.
We left the cats to their naps and
set out to explore more of nature’s most splendid creatures. We spotted
waterbuck with their distinctive toilet seat markings, and red lechwe antelope
with sweet brown eyes. A cruise through the flood plain cut through by a
meandering river garnered sightings of two lethargic crocodile sunning on the
shore and a monitor lizard slipping into the drink. A couple of secretary birds
strolled by and an elegant grey crowned crane poked in the grasses. The
ubiquitous hornbill birds lifted at our approach.
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| Hornbill-Tom Schwab photo |
As I rode shotgun next to
Cowboy, the sun warmed my legs while a cooling breeze carried the scent of sage,
and shimmering grasses of the savannah tickled my nose. I felt every bit the
bush bunny. My heart swelled with joy as we rolled along on the warren of dirt
roads then bounced off-road to take a closer look at a critter or bird of
interest.
Independent from Britain since 1966,
democratic and prosperous Botswana has a population of some two million people
who reside mainly in the northern sections of the country that is not
encroached upon by the Kalahari Desert sprawling over 80 percent of the land.
Good leadership in this land-locked republic provides universal education and
medicine for the people and conservation measures for the last remaining wild
herds of elephants, buffalo, zebras and more, along with 400 species of birds.
The flag of Botswana has black and white lines in the middle of tender blue—the
color of the pollution-free skies. It speaks of the good relations between
races.
The zebra with its bold markings is their symbol of unique pride and
unity. Botswana stands as a model for other African countries trying to
re-establish themselves after declaring independence from colonial powers in
the 1960s.
Note:
This is a first in a series of articles
detailing the Ultimate Safari experience with
Overseas Adventure Travel, aka
OATS, in the countries of Botswana, Zimbabwe, and Zambia. There is simply too
much ground to cover in one article. First published in National Association of Baby Boomer Women.
