Botswana bits and bobs I - Jao Camp

Dear all,

In which Ilana belatedly describes her September little jaunt to Botswana. Er, yes, that’s September. Sorry about that.

Anyway, it was one of those “do you chaps (that would be colleague fabulous graphic designer Ulrike and me) feel like going to Botswana in the next month?” “Okay but there’s Rosh Hashanah and then there’s Yom Kippur and then there’s...” “Okay, how’s this week then?” “Jolly good.”

So off we went – for a brief two days to Jao, two days to Mombo and then one overnight in Maun because we couldn’t get on a flight back to Joeys that day and the next day was Erev RH which allowed for a certain frisson of uncertainty: would Ilana make it back for the High Holies or would she be davening in Maun? I took a machzor just in case....

Anyway I made it back in time for shul, and here are a few bits and bobs of the trip finally. I had trouble putting it down on paper, perhaps because I had done that before, but it really was loverly to be back in the Delta.

So I won’t describe Jao Camp except to say that the rooms are enormous and, well, gorgeous. The main area is on two floors so you eat brunch and take tea upstairs looking out over a floodplain that was still inundated with the famous Okavango Flood. Whenever I looked up from fressing/slurping coffee, there was an elephant or three wading across the floodplain, their legs making a loud shushing noise against the reeds. And there's a troop of banded mongoose who sometimes hang out around the path to the loo so you have to wait for them to finish their sunbathing before going. An occupational hazard at Jao.

Just a note on the Flood with a capital F. I tell you this so that you too can say “Mah rabu maasecha Hashem” - how great are your works, God. Basically in African summer, rains come down in the highlands of Angola. No, I’ve never been there but I know this is true. How? Because the waters then flow down streams and rivulets and tributaries until these become the Kavango River and finally, a thousand kilometres from where they began, they reach the flatlands of northern Botswana, where they spread out, like the fingers on a hand, filling up little dents in the land to become the Okavango, largest inland delta in the world. The thing is, it takes months for the water to get there – so that when the rainy season is over, in about April, the waters start to flood in. Ironically, the dry season in the Delta is waterlogged.

And Jao is one of the most water-filled areas of the Delta. Water, water everywhere, the calming blue glinting liquid mirrored in perfect azure sky, waving of reeds and grasses, the lap-lap sound against everything – all this made Jao my new favourite place.

Truth is, the Jao staff became my favourites too when, as I stepped off the vehicle on our first day, a big man with a wide white smile introduced himself as, “I'm Jost. And you must be Ilana with all the kosher issues.” Yes, I'm sorry, I apologised, but don’t worry I said, hauling out my battered blue cooler box, it’s all in here. Jost took the cooler bag between finger and thumb with all the distaste of a butler being handed a dirty nappy. “Yes, I’ll take it to the kitchen but I don’t think you’ll be needing this.” He then led me away from the large kitchen (a good walk away from the camp in the staff area where you can bump into elephants but more of that later) to the special ‘tea’ kitchen which they have right next to the dining area. I gasped. A special table had been set up covered in a table cloth. On it was a gleaming set of cutlery, sharp knives, cutting board, pots, pans, brand new white plates, a washing up bowl... “all yours and new,” he said. “Oh and we haven’t used this oven here so we’ll make your stuff in it and only start using it afterwards for the guests...”

Damn they’re good!

So for once, just for once, Ilana did NOT eat tuna and provita but instead had all sorts of delicious stuff – grilled bream and veggies, fresh bread, couscous, lentils... and for once, she didn’t eat on a purple plate. While keeping kosher has never stopped me going anywhere as you know, it was wonderful just once to be part of the whole experience that our camps offer – and not have to explain my purple plate. (By the way, the same thing happened at Mombo – so my little cooler bag came back to Joburg unopened and a bit niffy.)

So, water. The area is what we call ‘inundated’ with the stuff. Which meant that when we needed to get anywhere – like visit the other camps in the area, we generally went by boat. Or if we were in a vehicle, said vehicle did a lot of underwater action, the whole front bonnet submerged. And often, all around us were the vast herds of lechwe feeding and shlushing through the water, which glinted so brightly in the afternoon sun, all we could see were their black outlines and diamond droplets flying through the air as they moved.

Boating instead of driving is definitely the way to go. Instead of sand roads through bush, thin ribbons of channels snake through a veritable jungle of reeds, so that the boat slides through dim green corridors made by ten-foot green stalks on either side that often lean towards each other to become a roof. Sitting at the front of the boat I look at the still-unbroken surface that mirrors the green reeds and blue sky so perfectly I feel like I’m flying through infinite space on a thin convex line that divides air and water, reality and illusion. Such stillness creates mirror images – trees, reeds and a fish eagle seemingly far below are in fact a non-real world, a world turned upside down.

The seeming tranquillity has its own challenges: reed and waterlily roots snagging the propeller requiring halts to unsnag it, hippos having temper tantrums (these two incidents hopefully not within the same space and time)... But it’s a game drive with squacco herons, jacanas and great white egrets standing in for impala and lechwe, exploding out of the plants and taking off as we chug past them. That living explosion of colour, the tiny malachite kingfisher takes the place of those insane emerald-spotted doves that fly manically in front of the vehicle for miles (I always find myself saying "get off the road and you can relax, idiot!" to them); here the malachites do the same with the boat, zooming ahead of it, flitting and flicking this way and that so fast, you can almost hear them laugh out loud at the sheer joy of flying.

You can relax, that’s the rave for today.

“Mind the elephant”
So now, about that elephant. I wrote this up as a blog but in case you missed it, here it is again.

So I was touring the back-of-house at Jao with Chris. That’s Jao manager Chris, not boss Chris or Kiwi Chris. (“Back of house” as you know is what it says it is – it’s the kitchen, the laundry, the generator, the staff village etc – and guests can visit and see exactly how they end up eating cuisine in the middle of nowhere.) Anyway, Chris is talking away explaining stuff as we walk along a wide sand road past the guides’ tents, when he suddenly veers off the road, saying, “let’s get off the road now shall we?” “Oh, okay,” I say (you should always listen to your guide no matter how odd it sounds) and follow him obediently a little way off the road onto the slope of a termite mound. “Why?” I ask. “Cos of the elephant,” he says.

Oh. Okay then.

I turned and looked and just across the road was an extremely tall pachyderm. I say ‘tall’ as I was about ten metres away but still had to look up at his head. He was chilled, munching away on a bush before wandering off to feed off the roofs of the guides’ tents (clearly one of the lesser spotted gardener elephants, this) – but discretion is the better part of valour when you’re a puny human.

We watched him for a while and I revelled in the freedom of watching one of the best creatures on Earth with only a modicum of respect between us – okay, a lot. And it just goes to show – even a big grey animal is hard to spot sometimes.

Jost a minute
I need to tell you about Jost Kabozu. In addition to being my personal kosher saviour, the perfect host and the smiling guide who boated us through the waterways wherever we wanted to go, I learned a little more about him. It’s a quintessential African story.

Jost was telling me how his kids had been to Jao and had enjoyed it very much. “How many do you have?” I asked. 14, he tells me. 14! “No, well, actually only eight are mine and my wife’s. My older brother died and I didn’t want his four children to be orphans, so we adopted them. Then my other brother died so we adopted his two as well.” What about the mothers? Well, he explained, the mothers would go on to marry other men and then possibly die so that the children are left with a step-family that often doesn’t want them – it was better this way, he says. And the mothers agreed. He then went on to say proudly that thanks to Wilderness (and to Patrick Swayze who was a guest once at Jao and connected with him, they kept in touch until he died) he has managed to send all ‘his’ children to school and even university and now has a son who’s a doctor and a daughter who’s a chemist!

Other Jao bits
So we did the sundowner thing, hanging out on a boat floating on the pink-satin water while the sun turned into a yellow ball and disappeared. (We were with a couple who insisted on us floating close to a pod of hippo to try ‘make them yawn.’ Not the most relaxing of activities you may agree.) And we did the mokoro thing, sliding through reed-frog-clasped reeds and lilac waterlilies one clear morning, with yet another biblically named poler – Isaac this time. Isaac ended it off by making us a waterlily necklace which looked quite avant garde until it dried up and sent out a bit of a whiff... still, a nice idea. We saw fish eagles in every second tree – I kid you not – and we watched Wattled Cranes (a very endangered species) dancing in the grass, a delicate and balletic courtship, long spindly legs bending in and out and wattles wobbling in time to music only they could hear.

We saw African skimmers, which always make any Wilderness person get all misty-eyed as our logo comes to life (all together now: “aaawww”). With their heavy bright red beaks, the lower mandible larger than the upper, they always look like they’re in the ‘special’ class when it comes to survival of the fittest – and sad to say, it’s true. They are a bit too picky about nesting as we found out – they need dried sandbanks but the flood had been so high this year that the banks were still covered with water when they needed to nest, so two pairs tried to use the side of the road for sandbanks while we were there. Guides carefully drove around the ‘nests’ – I use the word loosely as they were mere impressions in the sand with two eggs in each – but their care was to no avail; something came and killed the parents as they sat patiently on their unborn progeny.

So our stay at Jao was much, much too short. Like about six weeks too short. But what can you do, we had to leave. Our departure was made a little less sad however by the fact that we helicoptered out to Mombo.

You know you have arrived when you use the word ‘helicopter’ as a verb instead of a noun. It’s all rather upper class nose in the air to say “Well, dahling, we helicoptered from Jao to Mombo, dontcha know?” Lordie lordie what a way to go. The ground drops down with the suddenness of a lift and spreads rapidly out to become blue-green squiggles of water and island. Yet you’re still low and slow enough to see the details – reeds waving in the wind or the sitatunga (YES!) grazing, hidden and unaware, in the middle of them.

I love my job.

More on Mombo next time. PS, you can see some more pics on my facebook album here:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=313519&id=782775306

Pafuri Walking Trail – Another walk in the Park

Dear all,

In which Ilana takes another walk in the park – i.e. the Kruger Park. Only this time it’s a proper one, in a real trails camp with honest-to-goodness chemical loos and actual bucket showers and for three nights and four days. And the combination of walking in one of the most beautiful places on Earth with a fabulous bunch of progressively increasingly insane people (myself not excepted) made it seem like a slice of paradise with a spot of mad humour thrown in.

How did this come about, you ask? I’m glad you ask, cos all kudos must go to Rabbi Gabi Bookatz or Rav Gav as he is known. He asked me months ago to book a trail for August and said he’d find another 6 people to come with. And so he did, the honoured members being – in no particular order – Barbara and Barry Schoub, Hugh Raichlin, Terence Ossin, Doryn Myers and Dan Chaitowitz.

Now, an introduction to the Trail. So you’ve all heard me rhapsodise wildly and, well, rhapsodically about Pafuri, in the extreme north of Kruger and one of the most beautiful places on earth in my humble opinion. No, make that the most beautiful. I have never found one more stunning and thank God I’ve been around a little. In addition to Pafuri Camp, Wilderness introduced a three-day Trail as well, where you stay at a real Trails Camp and you walk out every day, following the animal paths seemingly aimlessly through the bush. But being Pafuri, it’s not just bush. It’s everything from riverine forest (great ana trees towering over soft river sand) to acacia bush and mopane woodland, to rocky hills and gorgeous gorges (sorry sorry) to that magnificent and surreal yellow fever tree forest. And all the while, wherever you are, there is either the great Limpopo or the always flowing Luvuvhu somewhere close by, a brief shining glimpse of blue or silver to light your way between the various shades of green.

The before party:
So, in between preparing for Marice’s wedding (a joyously great affair may I say) and sheva brachot (another great meal if we say so ourselves) my mission should I choose to accept it was to get the whole kosher bit up and running and with everyone’s help this was accomplished, complete with lunches, snacks, and soothing advice to all participants.

Six of us decided to stay at Pafuri on the Sunday night. The Trail began on Monday afternoon at 2:00, so why not take the opportunity of staying at my beloved Pafuri Camp for one night? While the rest went on a game drive that evening I did fun stuff like kasher cutlery and ponder what on earth we’d used that particular dish for last time.

Everyone fell in love with the place, as I prophesied – walking those long boardwalks all the way to no. 18 (20 is the furthest and I always ask for the furthest) while looking at the truly unbelievable numbers of nyala that hang out grazing between each tent. As usual there was the optional extra elephant on a sandbank just in front of the tent. Between that and sitting on the main deck before dinner sipping a whiskey and listening to the guests tell of their latest sighting while the campfire crackles nearby and something hidden splashes in the Luvuvhu just below...sigh. It was good to be home.

Next morning we went off on our morning drive and I convinced Godfrey that he wanted to show us a Pel’s fishing-owl. Just to refresh your memories, a Pel’s is one of THOSE sightings of the bird world. Kind of like seeing a leopard, no make that a cheetah or a wild dog – but in feathers, see? Grinning that wide smile of his, he took us to the beginning of the fever tree forest where we got off the vehicle (a precursor to our next few days) and walked quietly through thick bush (well around thick bushes actually) to where a group of large jackalberry and nyala trees were standing. There at the top of one of them a large light brown shape took off quickly, enormous wingspan flapping just a few times before she disappeared into another canopy yonder. But Godfrey knew a thing or two and continued looking upwards (a physiotherapist’s dream this, all of us craning our necks to peer upwards into the teasing, waving leaves of the tree), and then bounded to the next tree and the next until he found it – a large ungainly chick who flapped heavily about on the very top of the canopy. What a sight – not just a Pel’s but one with a chick! Can’t get much better than that.

The rest of the drive was lovely but I didn’t care if we saw nothing as my brain had turned to mush over those few short glimpses.

Anyway, I had to share that with you – now, onward ho. We returned for brunch and beer before gathering around in the ‘second lounge’ and listened to our guide Walter explain where we were camping (there are a number of camp sites used by the Trail and we were staying at Premier Site, near the Luvuvhu River before it flows into a system of gorges – where Lanner Gorge is eventually) and how it would all work. Then we jumped into the vehicle all intrepid and explorer-like – and we were off!

Day 1:
The campsite is an amazing blend of luxury and roughing it. How many places do you know that have chemical loos yet linen tablecloths and napkins? Or a bucket shower but soap and towels all on hand? Six dome tents in a slight semicircle lie under the shade of enormous ana trees. In front of each tent is a canvas basin filled with water every day for you to wash in, a safari chair draped in a red blanket. Three tables – the preparation table, dining table and washing up table – create the other half of the circle; in the middle of course is the campfire. It’s river sand underfoot and almost always, at any given time, there are impala or nyala in the distance moving amongst the tree trunks. Two showers are set up behind the camp complete with bucket shower heads which are a novelty as well as teaching you just how much water you actually use. The loos also are a study in simplicity: simple canvas wrapped in a square around a chemical loo or a long drop (we were in luck, we had chemis) and a simple canvas basin on a stand. At night, if you dare to switch off your headlight you can look up at the stars – so clear and bright! – from this position.... (Mind you the wind picked up on the last day and we watched as one of the showers keeled over – good thing no one was in it at the time.)

Once we had all settled in we took a short walk down to the river where we saw innumerable tracks in the damp river sand and added to them. The Luvuvhu River has carved through the rock to form cliffs and gorges; near our camp the river’s geological path has created steep cliff faces on either side, framing well against the grey clouds. (It was a cloudy day, which has its own evocative atmosphere.) Then we took a scramble up a hill to look out over the wide floodplain that strewn with debris still from the 2000 floods, the ‘gateway’ baobabs (two enormous ones with a road made between them) and many ana trees.

We returned to camp and everyone got to work. (I don’t think our guides had ever seen this before – guests usually take it easy, but this was the kosher bunch – some made sarmies for tomorrow, tinfoil rustling and whirring madly away, others helped prepare supper and afterwards a bunch washed up.) Supper was hugely convivial with conversation that ranged from whacky and even toilet humour (probably nervousness at the prospect of stepping out into the dark African night to go to the loo in the middle of the night) to the nature of the universe. Whiskey and beer probably helped this all along.

That night as I lay in my tent, snug in my sleeping bag, I heard the tummy rumble of an elephant just the other side of the canvas. Then another tummy brummbled in reply. A crack of a twig and some branches being rustled and then... silence. This was one of my best moments – to lie in one’s tent, just a canvas hair’s breath away from these large grey animals and to know that they would go about their business and I could continue mine, both creatures in harmony under the stars, was a ‘mechaye’ – I felt safe and alive – tremendously alive. (Terence thought it was a lion growling so he didn’t feel quite as safe but there you go then.) As I looked out of my netting/window I hoped to see a dark shape move past, outlined against the dim grey light shed by the myriad stars of the Milky Way but there was nothing to be seen, and I soon contentedly fell asleep to the snoring in the next tent.

Day 2:
Day two dawned cloudy again but this was perfect for our walk, not too hot. It also started with the sound of high pitched giggling and a raucous comedy turn by Hugh and Doryn. Definitely beats an alarm clock. Eventually everyone stopped howling with laughter and the camp became quiet. The nyala watched as, some wearing large white shawls and black boxes, we faced north, minds turned to the Creator and Israel. The noise level went up again as breakfast broke out soon after – and yes, even that excellent Wilderness freshly plunged coffee is served... mmm.

The walk today went to the base of the Hutwini Mountains – not huge mountains by any means but large enough to form a wall of rock that sets the floodplain against its scenic colours. As we walked from camp we took a brief detour to find a giant eagle owl (now a Verreaux’s owl or something equally unspellable) which unsportingly stayed hidden in the tree canopy before flapping ponderously away.

The thing about walking in the bush is that in general most game is seen further off and moving away from you. That’s because we crash our way through the bush, not knowing how to move quietly like our intrepid guide Walter “Google” Jubber (so called because he knew everything and more than anything we asked) and his rifle backup, silent St Claire Finnaughty. However, every now and then we were lucky enough (and the wind was in our favour) to see a few antelope graze unaware of our presence.

We approached the multi-hued walls of the Hutwini – well, rocky outcrops somewhere between large mountains and small hills I guess – and walked along its base a little. The bush became a little thicker and the alert air of Walter and St Claire became even more er... alert. We were about to step onto the elephant highway. A narrow corridor has burrowed down through the rocky walls over the millennia, huge boulders on each side, but wide enough for let’s say four elephants to walk abreast. If they did that sort of thing, of course. And walk it they do (although more like single file) ... anyway the point is that it is an ancient pathway, worn smooth by generations of pachyderms moving between Zimbabwe and South Africa. It is a beautiful corridor to walk through; the pathway is covered by a veritable carpet of dung underfoot – not fresh, sillies, but dried grassy stuff that is soft and springy. Large rocks wrapped in the obsessive embrace of rock fig roots bulge out on either side while up ahead three klipspringers posed for a portrait on a large boulder. It was quiet and still here but perhaps the fact that we could come across elephants going the other way at any point added a frisson of awareness to the stillness. The cloudiness of the day helped add to the silence and general frissonness. But it seems the ellies were not using the highway today, so after a while we rested in the shade and ate some snacks before scrambling up to the top of the mountain where years ago Makuleke goatherds would sit up amongst the boulders and play marabaraba – the bowls of the game still carved into the rocks.

Up here in the silence with just a lizard buzzard calling, the place is heavy with a sense of history for me: on the wind are echoes of the shrieks and laughter of the young boys, the baaing of the goats, the shuffling and rumbling of elephants; the goatherds jumping up from their game to watch as the herd passes quickly and uneasily through the narrow gap to get to the steady waters of the Luvuvhu – promise of liquid pulling them southwards through the passage. And centuries before the Makuleke traders would walk this path in their turn, bringing Chinese porcelain and Arab beads to the civilisation that lived here and built the ancient walled royal city of Thulamela just a little to the south.

Scrambling down the mountain the scene changed again, this time to mopane woodland. Suddenly Walter stopped and crouched, motioning us to do the same (my knees creaking a bit thanks to yesterday’s scramble). About 100 metres ahead and peering through the mopane leaves was a herd of buffalo. Then the wind changed and they smelt us. All we could see through the thick bush was a cloud of dust and heard the thunder of hundreds of hooves. Then they were gone.

Over rock and along purple pebble-strewn paths we scrambled to look out back over the Luvuvhu and the Pafuri ranger’s house and ended this particular part with an undignified slide on the bum back down to the base of the Hutwini again. We stopped for lunch just underneath a couple of trees that had a troop of baboons in them. (Yes slightly dangerous as you never know what they might decide to ... drop but they seemed quite as disinterested in us as we in them – lunch seemed to be the focus for both primate species.) Cheese sarmies never tasted so good and we lay back on the dusty ground and snoozed and joked.

What a group – we really all gelled. It’s always interesting when you have a bunch of people who do not necessarily know one another and are forced into intimate company – it can be uncomfortable or it can be incredibly good fun with unexpected joy. We were lucky enough to have the second, making this a golden bubble of memories.

After a 20-minute snooze we continued back to camp. We were tired now and, like horses sensing the stable, we increased our pace regardless of very sore feet, through the ana trees and disregarding the impala, nyala and baboons who moved off warily as we approached. “Home” looked so inviting.

Here’s the thing with being uncivilised. You need to learn patience and appreciation. You get back hot and sweaty from your 10km walk and you want a shower. No problem, but Walter and St Clair must fill the large drum with water, and get a fire going to warm it up – a good half hour’s work. We were quite happy to have cold showers... but the buckets still must be filled up. Water is not an endless supply pouring magically out of a tap. It is brought in from elsewhere in drums and must be schlepped from one place to another to be used. Therefore it is used with care and thought – and would that we would all do this back at home!

Now, how to use a bucket shower (if you’re not going to use the Luvuvhu River that is – which most of the blokes did – which apparently was a lot of fun. But there was no girls’ hour unfortunately so I had to make do with a bucket): first you know you have a limited amount of water so this won’t be long, luxurious or relaxing. The bucket is hoisted up above you on a rope and has a showerhead underneath. Just turn the tap of the showerhead – and gravity does the rest! Excellent shower – if somewhat short and sandy – but look up as you wash your hair, and you can see the vultures flying overhead...

The schedule called for a walk that afternoon, but we were tired, so Walter said he’d try get us to Crooks’ Corner for sundowners. Was quite a way but we gulped down some coffee and hauled ourselves with sighs of relief onto the vehicle.

As we drove out of camp and onto the ‘main road’ though, Rav Gav saw some impala looking alertly in the other direction and lo and behold, there were two lionesses and two cubs – the cubs were lying up on a mound and mom and auntie were walking away towards the impala.

Hmm, says Walt, we may have walked straight by them today.

Hmm indeed. I had a vivid image of us walking along in our arrogant bipedal way, all laughing at something – be it Doryn taking close up pics of bark, or Dan in a happy hiking dream or Hugh looking for a tree to go behind... and they probably watched us with unblinking golden eyes in silence. (And probably thinking: there goes the neighbourhood...)

And I thought – you see, animals aren’t always waiting to jump out and attack us at any given moment despite what some of those Animal Planet movies would have you believe. So there.

Be that as it may, we were able to see the most amazing interaction – we went offroad (which we are only allowed to do up to 300m) to see if we could find the mother, and there she was calling to her cubs. They jumped up and ran to her, fawning against her and rubbing affectionately along her long lean range. The three trotted off at high speed ignoring the snorting, alarmed antelope and then to our amazement began to climb up the steep slopes of Hutwini. Apparently they were going to find a place to hide while mom went shopping.

Bemused by that sighting, we were now too late to go to Crooks so we just wandered down the road oohing and aaing at nyala and found a small herd of buffalo drinking at the Luvuvhu and decided to join them in a beer. We were in turn joined by the Bob Marley Birds – the crested guineafowl, which only occur here in all of Kruger so we were thrilled to have seen them a few times on this trip.

Back home we found our little trails camp lit merrily by lanterns casting a magic glow over the scene. Terence braaied the meat and others made sarmies for tomorrow and others washed up. Exhausted we dropped off quickly and heard nothing the whole night. Pity.

Day 3:
Magical day. We drove to a small pan called Reedbuck Pan to walk from there through the fever tree forest to Crooks' Corner. There were many high points of this trip, but I believe this was one of them. Crossing the now dry pan which is all lumpy with dried mud, and covered with a thin green layer of plant life, we watched two eland watching us before they heaved (hove?) their great bulk away and disappeared. We entered the forest, and walked between the green-yellow-barked trees. The bird calls echoed through the trees, which went all Salvador Dali on us, their green-yellow trunks shining in the bright sunlight and going very well with the blue of the sky – decor put in place especially for us. Our eyes shining we drank it all in, wending our way between the trunks in what felt like an ancient dance between humans who left the safety of the trees to walk upright on the grassy ground, changing their viewpoint from looking down to the ground to peering up to the skies.... Odd rant but applicable for the place.

We crossed a road and carried on towards the river. Where the adventures began to happen. Walter motioned us down and we crept towards the bank which was quite high, dipping down quite a steep slope to the actual water. There across the river an elephant stood feeding and further along another silhouetted perfectly in the still water as it reached its trunk down the steep bank to sip. In absolute silence we watched this vignette, the great beasts unaware of our presence. Again, I was reminded of the fact that – like the Uncertainty Principle – our impact is so great that even when humans just observe they change that which they observe. When in a vehicle in the park, just that noisy fact means the animals know we’re there. On foot it’s worse as they’re not used to legged humans and one generally sees just the up and down bums flying off into the safety of the bush, the odd spectacular leap of an impala, the wide-eyed almost panic look as they all face you to find out what sort of a threat you present. Here, we were peering into the elephant’s world without reference to ourselves – the observed did not change because of us. Walking unseen is the lightest of footprints, the lightest of touches on the world that we constantly destroy, manage and exploit, where just our eyes can rest on the event without changing it.

But you have to be very quiet. Something our group wasn’t so good at all the time but when St Clair put his stern face on we all listened. We sat and rested a bit further on looking out over Croc Pool – so called cos of the truly awesome number of crocs all draped on sand banks – about 30 or so.

We turned to walk back into the forest and I’m sure some smart remark or chortle of laughter was being delivered at the time, but I don’t remember because at that moment we almost bumped into an elephant. There in the gloom of the trees (at this point nyala and jackalberry trees with deep, heavy shade) a large black elephant-shape moved with a shake of its ears as we scuttled backwards behind the relative safety of an enormous jackal berry (where we stood in single file; an absurd thought popped into my head: it felt like I should be school uniform). Walter reassured the bull with his voice that it was okay, and then we saw a few more elephant-shapes walking to our right. We stood still hardly breathing as the elephants moved past us, barely 20 metres away then we beat a hasty retreat back to the river bank. Walter remained to see what they’d do and when they moved to the river we walked in a bit of an arc around them. Whew! Guess that wasn’t as untouched as the last interaction then....

Adrenalin still pumping, we walked intrepidly on through the “yellow fever tree graveyard” (avoiding another pachyderm on the way – another one of those moments where one moment you’re strolling along about to address the person behind you with some pertinent remark or otherwise, when suddenly Walter’s hand goes up, there’s a hiss down the line and a glare from St Clair to say “shuddup you fools” and you all crouch down in obedience to Walter’s hand movements. There you crouch (knees and quads creaking ominously from the unaccustomed amount of scrambling) waiting while Walt goes and talks to the hefalump tells him he’s a ‘good boy’ and then when he (the elephant not Walt) moves grudgingly off, you all can get up with a sigh of relief.

Where was I? Oh yes, so we walked on through the yellow fever tree graveyard, a section of the forest where the trees are sadly bent out of shape. Pushed over by said elephants to strip the bark of nutrients, their carcasses lie forlorn strewn over the ground and only a few lucky survivors give meagre shade in the hot afternoon.

A brief stop for snacks elicited another exciting encounter: as Dan went to go behind a tree, he found a python who had had a similar idea - or at least wanted to occupy the same space. We had a wonderful view of the snake before he decided that he'd had enough of the paparazzi and moved sinously and muscularly into the undergrowth. We all checked a little more carefully when using the 'facilities' after that.

Finally we reached the great Limpopo. I thought: How many people can nonchalantly say “so I was taking a midday stroll along the Limpopo you know...” Not many. And I was struck by the awesome privilege that I have been granted here. To be able to do things not everyone gets to do – and perhaps more importantly – to be a person who has always wanted to do it. To stroll along a dusty road with the Limpopo peeking shiningly through the trees on my left (there’s not much in as it’s the dry season, but still, there’s a glint of blue as a few brave rivulets make it to Crooks’ Corner) and high grass on my right (in which we heard a BIG rustle at one point and we all had to do the ‘stay stock still and wait for Walt to check it out’ thing again – we never did find out what it was cos whateveritwas didn’t charge us) was awe-inspiring in its everydayness.

At length we got to Crooks' – meeting point of three countries and of the Limpopo and the Luvuvhu, which sadly had no hippo in the Luvuvhu but lots of water. It was getting later and hotter and time to head back, so after a brief round of everyone snapping pics of each other at this historic spot, off we went back down the road admiring the Limpopo on our right, then through the graveyard – where we stopped to check out some amazing raptor action happening high in the sky above our heads – then back to Reedbuck Pan where once again we collapsed on the ground, ignoring the thorns and stones, as we dug into our cheese sarmies and some discussed the meaning of life and some snoozed.

Back home and time for a shower kindly put together by Walter. The guys went off to the Luvuvhu to bathe in it and then it was back out again, this time for the rocky ride to Lanner Gorge which is as gorgeous as always sorry sorry again. Man, were we tired that night. So after a quick supper and Walt describing various stars and constellations to us – well, they’re so bright and what with there being no moon and all, it seemed silly not to do so – and one more intrepid trip to the bathroom which seems very far away when you have to walk down a dark dusty path with just a headlight on for company we collapsed into bed. I have no idea if the lions roared or anything else that night as I was much too tired to hear anything.

Day 4:
Final morning dawned clear and bright with everyone being all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed goodness knows why cos we were leaving today. Then the wind came up and seemed to want to sweep us on our way – nearly pushing over tents in the process. We said goodbye to our little home to walk the two hours back to Pafuri Main Camp.

On the way out, it seemed that all the impala, nyala and some baboons in the area had come to see us off, as they gathered a few hundred metres from us and then proceeded to move slowly away, giving us a good view of them for a little while. The dust swirled around them (and us) making for a surreal sight almost as if on our way back to our reality, this reality was already becoming less real, the impala less clear and solid.

Fanciful perhaps but spending three days amongst the Creator’s best selection of beauty can do that to you, I thought.