Namibia 2010 II: A lion in my dessert and a porcupine on my foot

After the scared trees and snakes, we left the land of flat-topped hills for the ruler-straight horizons of Etosha National Park, and the not-so-flat Ongava Game Reserve, a private reserve that neighbours Etosha. Once four farms, the owners amalgamated it into one nature reserve and have restocked it with the wildlife of the area (and waterbuck for some bizarre reason – irritated me to see these water-loving animals next to gemsbok, that paragon of desert adaptation, but there you go). Anyway, Wilderness runs four camps here and it was quite a change from the true and semi-deserts we had lived in to get to mopane woodlands – I had a disassociation moment where I thought we were in Letaba in the Kruger instead... but that could have been because it was now late Friday afternoon and we were screaming into Ongava Tented Camp with an hour to go before Shabbat – well, I was doing the screaming in my head – and a bit outside admittedly.

However, as always, after explaining Shabbat and kashrut simultaneously all was sorted. This place definitely had my favourite safety talk – “we will walk you back to your tents at night because the camp is on the ground and we don’t want you to bump into anything... oh and if the lions are at your tent in the morning then please wait for us to come and get you...” As usual I was quite keen to meet a lion on the path, but they actually hung out at the honeymoon tent on the other side of camp instead.

So the rest went off on a game drive on the reserve while I heaved a sigh of relief, lit candles and had a well-deserved whiskey and chatted to all the friendly staff – Gerda, Sylvia, Alphonse, Corne and Alton for starters.

Friday night supper was incredibly energetic. That’s because the lions kept interrupting us. You see, the waterhole in front of camp is exactly where they say it is: RIGHT in front, with a picket sort of fence which is very pretty – but more for decoration really. So when the wildlife arrives for a drink, let’s just say no binoculars are needed.

As we sat down for first course, a lioness arrived at the waterhole. Up we bounded to go to the fence (using the word loosely as explained) and watched in the gentle light shining at the waterhole as she crouched down and lapped rapidly before moving away and disappearing into the darkness, a cat-shaped ghost. Then just before mains, a large male – Grumpy by name and nature apparently – arrived. Same experience, only this time the guides told us to keep the noise down because Grumpy tends to charge at noise.... We stood in silence, holding our breath, as even the sound of his tongue in the water floated over to us. Finally, to go with dessert, six cubs of various ages all arrived and had a party. It amazed me that we had become so blasé, some guests just carried on eating – not me though. How often do you get lion with your Shabbat meal anyway?

However, it should be said that such sights are not everyday occurrences even in Ongava, so if you are lucky enough to go and you don’t get one, please don’t complain to management.

Shabbat was wonderful, the day framed by two lovely walks at its beginning and end, and serious waterhole-watching in between. The first walk, with trainee guide and dassie expert, Alton, is known as a dassie walk, where you clamber (‘walk’ is a bit of a misnomer then) up the hill behind camp to see the dassies. Dassies, in case you don’t know, are rock hyraxes, and are masters of this terrain. They were sunbaking on the rocks in the early sun, before looking up horrified to see us – like old spinsters caught shoplifting – and disappearing into the nearest crevasse. Generally I find dassies to be either morose or snooty, but these seemed to have better self-esteem than most and so they should, since they are a special subspecies – the Kaokoveld rock hyrax – endemic to Namibia.

Alton also discussed a lot of trees with me as well, which of course was just up my alley. The moringa is the Namibian equivalent of the baobab and I met two that exuded excellent personalities, one now and one on my second walk. The latter took place in that golden-flecked afternoon sun, with Paul, the Area Manager, and I strolling up another nearby hill, contemplating more trees, termite mounds and spoor.

The middle bit was spent, coffee in hand, watching the waterhole traffic. Sit long enough (and I did – three hours or so) and you begin to athropomorphise everyone. In fact, after a bit it was just another Shabbat brocha/kiddush, with lots of noisy kids running in and out, adults yakking, bumping into each other and snatching at herring and kichel... a cross-section of society like any other, only these are on four legs.

The coolest dudes at this brocha are the gemsbok (oryx), with their smart black stripes in straight horizontals on the body and verticals on the face with the ultimate vertical being their horns of course. Very modern art. Subtle tones of beige and white complete the picture; they’re not scared of much as they politely sip a little water and then move regally off, ignoring the riffraff.

Next come the kudu. Magnificent animals with their twisted horns and white curves echoing across their bodies, but they seemed to try too hard, obviously put off by not been seen as the top of the cool list. At one point there were 20 jostling in an “I’m too important for my hooves” sort of way around the water, and then avidly licking the saltlick artfully placed close to the ‘fence’. A true privilege to see so many at one time and so close to me.

The waterbuck are a good-looking bunch but a bit brash, flashing their white target-marked behinds all over the place. They're sort of nouveau riche – after all, they don’t really belong here, don’tcha know. But the worst behaved are the zebra: boors (not boars har har) the lot of them, stamping and snorting, galloping off at the least sound, and generally annoying and frightening everyone else needlessly.

Amongst all this the endemic black-faced impala didn’t really stand a chance; shy and retiring they slipped in and out to drink, not making a scene or a fuss. Like naughty children, warthogs chased in for a quick mud wallow before running away chuckling and snorting. And finally, the side-striped squirrels (another endemic, Namibia is crawling with them) didn’t bother with the waterhole; they hung out at the lunch table snarfing bites of the apples whenever anyone’s back was turned.

So Shabbat went by, surrounded by animals and people, coffee, trees and sunlight – all very nice. As it came out, I met Charlie who deigned to snuffle at my bag and then at my toes. Charlie is the celebrity porcupine of Ongava Tented Camp, who wanders in every now and then in the early evening, unfazed by the flashing cameras around him – although occasionally the paparazzi gets a bit much for him and then up go his spines, but generally, he takes it in his shuffle. First he gets a drink out the pool (no muddy waterhole for this celebrity), then he does a grand tour of the dining and lounge area, sniffs at peoples’ shoes and then disappears – often to chew on a water pipe, so the Ongava staff see him coming with a mixture of happiness and exasperation.

We had to leave early the next morning to drive into Etosha National Park and would not return to this camp but spend our last night at Little Ongava, one of our very larnie camps. Woke up to find that unfortunately Mary-Anne was down with flu, and that “the lions are in camp.” So I left Mary-Anne to sleep it off and grabbed a cuppa next to five lions who were all sitting as if auditioning for the job at Trafalgar Square, watching us watching them etc. The others were RIGHT outside the honeymoon tent. Makes it very hard to leave when the lions are all around you, but Gabriel, Little Ongava’s guide, was ready and waiting, so we dragged ourselves away and probably just as well because around the next corner we met a white rhino and her calf in a standoff with an amorous male. The female kept between the male and the calf, as a would-be lover can hurt the calf, seeing it as an impediment to his amorous intentions. It was quite a sight and not five metres away.

On we went into Etosha National Park. Now of course you’ve all heard of Etosha Pan – an enormous saltpan, remnant of a superlake; the name ‘etosha’ means ‘great white place’ so you get the picture. But around the saltpan is another story – a series of waterholes amidst woodland and other vegetation, where everyone who is anyone comes to drink. There seemed no end to the herds of springbok, impala, gemsbok and zebra, nor to the secretarybirds and kori bustards who strode through the veld with large purposeful steps. I was thrilled to meet the Etosha Pan itself, a blinding white flatness where the sky seems to curve solidly downwards and be pinned down to the bleached earth to stop it flying away. It seemed to me that if I walked far enough I would reach that place and be able to rap my knuckles on it. But not being as stupid as an ostrich – several of these brain surgeons were walking out onto the endless pan as we watched – I didn’t and stayed in the vehicle munching nuts and enjoying the view.

Tired and satisfied we returned to Little Ongava for lunch and siesta in our ‘room’ – I use the word loosely as this is one of those camps where you can get lost in your room because it’s the size of a small house. Each room has four separate rooms, with three decks, a sala... Decadence, thy name is Little Ongava. You enter via the large lounge complete with fireplace and two sets of chairs if you don’t mind, one facing the fireplace and one facing the deck with the view. An enormous bedroom that overlooks the infinity pool (I did mention this was decadent didn’t I?) which was well utilised by bulbuls, weavers and Monteiro’s hornbills as their private bath. Behind the bedroom is the walk-in closet which is the size of a... you guessed it – a room and then the glass-surrounded bathroom, with a bath with a view and then of course the outdoor shower. A boardwalk leads to the idyllic spot in which to lounge and write all this: the sala with its comfy mattress and pillows. All this is set on top of a rocky hill with a view of the reserve, mopane trees stretching to the horizon. The silence is thus one of space, of being high above the busyness of life as it plods on below; the air moves breezily around me as I take in the view like an eagle, of dassies bouncing over rocks and squirrels clambering and dancing on the tops of the trees.

I’m going to have trouble getting up for game drive, because there’s a dassie hanging out on a rock about two metres away. He’s staring at me but in a friendly sort of way (she thinks, athropomorphising again). In the pool, the bulbuls and starlings are having a shrill fight, while a squirrel is swearing at them all from its perch on a branch just to my right. A slender mongoose is winding its sinuous way like a snake down the hill below me.

So today I had coffee with lions and tea with dassies. Quite a thing. Since it doesn’t get much better – and indeed, aside from a lovely game drive, excellent dinner with some rhino coming to the waterhole and then that long long flight back to the Big Smoke, there’s not much more to tell - so somewhat abruptly I’ll end here.

Namibia 2010: Dunes, Damalarand and Dassies

Dear all,

In which Ilana visits the land of sand dunes and dassies, towering mountains and elephants, gemsbok and springbok, lions lyin’ on the path to your tent and porcupines who nibble your trousers.

Almost five years to the day, I returned to Namibia. I did rant and rave a lot when I was last here so I won’t reinvent the pen as it were, and will confine myself to new rants. Mary-Anne (our other graphic designer, who has been at WS a mere seven months) and I flew to Windhoek, ran to a short meeting Windhoek – a very pretty little town – then ran to the other airport and flew south to the famed Sossusvlei dunes.

Here, the desert is almost complete; no semi-desert this, rather, it is prehistoric, with sand in layers everywhere, bare rock peeping out between tufts of grass and a few hardy (or foolhardy) bushes, and shadows stretching away ink-black as the sun sinks. “Lunar” is a clichéd description of the place but it is the correct term. From high in our little plane the landscape looks like a rumpled brown duvet, all hills and crevasses in varying shades, then we’re over the plateau and the colour changes to rust, valleys widen and the mountains rise higher to meet us. Where I've once wondered why there aren’t more names for shades of green, here I pondered over the lack of suitable descriptive terms for all the browns around us – red-brown, beige, dark brown, tan, blonde... nope, not enough.

The requisite sand airstrip, a warm Wilderness welcome and a bouncy drive in the golden light, past the odd gemsbok and springbok and even bat-eared fox (YES! One of my favourites, with their antenna ears and teddy bear faces) through the gravel plains of our private Kulala Wilderness Reserve (a barren yet stunning setting if there ever was one) to Kulala Desert Lodge, to arrive just as the sun was setting behind the black dune hills in front of the lodge. We settled into our ‘kulala’ (means ‘to sleep’ in Oshiwambo) and then I ascended the rickety ladder to the roof where you can sleep under the stars – or daven a late mincha in my case. The arching heavens turned blue-black, an inkiness that the stars punctured through one by one. The hot desert breeze turned cool. But suddenly, some 15 minutes after sunset, the sky in the west blazed pink – an encore if you like from the main performer out here; it is the sun after all that cuts and carves, colours and shapes much of this landscape, and with few trees, there is no escaping it.

As always, Namibia hits me in all the senses, overwhelming me with what is not there. Again, I felt like someone had given my eyeballs a good scrubbing as everything is so clear, springbok seem so much closer than they really are in this clear, heady air. The silence (broken only by the rasping noise of a barking gecko) of the night is complete, making the ears wonder if they’ve gone deaf – except there’s that roaring sound you get in your head which only occurs in such utter silence. Is it the blood rushing around my brain? The Earth’s subterranean fiery engines pounding? The sound of the universe expanding? As I sit here, it seems to me that the intervening years between my last sitting in the silence of Namibia and this one has been filled with clutter and noise, both in the head and out. And now, once more I can sit content and rest my ears.

A pleasant evening and the prerequisite calming of the panic-stricken staff about kosher (who then come up trumps with a delicious meal), and we sleep the sleep of the dead – or deaf in this case – and are up before the sun. Then, standing looking out at what we thought were hills yesterday, we saw them change. As the sun rose behind us, the black knolls in front of camp slowly and ever so shyly flushed rosy pink and then reddened; their colours were hidden last night because the sun had set behind them. Now filled with (coffee and) anticipation, we alighted our vehicle with Angula (first name Abisai but he prefers his surname), our guide and champion dune climber, but we didn’t know that then.

Off we whizzed through the private gate that Wilderness has into the Namib Naukluft Reserve (where the dunes live see), stopping only to watch the sun finally lift itself up from behind the desolate rocky mountains in the east. As it does, you turn around to gaze up in wonder at something you didn’t notice before: Dune 1 – an enormous hill of sand that had been black then grey, before gaining colour to finally flush that triumphant, bold, African orange-red.

I’ve seen the photos, hell, I’ve written the text, and nothing prepares you for the actual grandeur of the spectacle. All the more so because it is not pure sand, but almost impossibly, life: grass tufts grow determinedly up the steep slopes. Serendipitously, just before I came I read a thought by Rabbi Kelman of Toronto who describes being humbled as being faced with an awesome thing of nature and realising everything there is, and thus everything I am, comes from God. That is exactly the response here: to be in a place where one could not survive without all the trappings of civilisation and compare this to the size of dunes and their grandeur – enormous, stretching into the blue sky up to 300 metres, they seem to proclaim God’s glory – this presses one into a human shape. I feel my mortality and frailty press down on me. I feel much lower than the angels, in fact, while I may be larger than the grains of sand, yet I am so much smaller than the dune they have built.

It’s not just the size, but the sweep of time. For 40 million years, each grain moved infinitely slowly, starting as silt coming down the Orange River many miles to the south, then washed out to sea and pushed first north by the Benguela Current and then back onto land and right up the old river mouth and bed for kilometres, unhurriedly, to where they began to build up and up and up, moved by wind this way and that to become a huge, towering dune – and from the air, a sand sea made of red waves. Each grain played its part to shape one of the great spectacles on this planet – an enduring work of art by the prime Artist.

In between the dunes lie flat, hard once-pans, long ago filled with water (and in the rainy season some of them still are) they are now stranded as blinding white calcrete vleis – hence the name “Sossusvlei” – the place filled with water – or Dead Vlei, evocatively filled with the twisted shapes of trunks and branches, the remains of long-dead trees.

Sossusvlei though is a public park so you meet the public here. We therefore turned up our noses at Dune 45 'cos there were too many people climbing that one and drove on to Big Daddy, a monster of a ‘star dune’ – i.e., it has a number of arms in all directions as opposed to a linear dune, which has only one main dune ridge (see how much there is to learn just about sand?). The wind however had picked up so Angula suggested we only climb one of Big Daddy’s arms, which was only about half the height of the centre point of the dune. Halfway up, puffing and blowing, we were blessing his sagacity. You have to walk on the crest of the dune, the sand flowing steeply down on either side in an acute triangle, and if possible in someone else’s footprints as that’s easier. The wind was howling and sand particles were flying like mad across our shoes – interestingly and luckily not much higher – to flip over the crest and pour with verve down the other side; “dune on the fly” is how I thought of it. If the wind kept up, the dune would shift slowly over Dead Vlei which was on our right, but apparently it regularly blows back the other way, so that the dune pretty much stays put. Finally, heaving and panting, we reached the top of the arm – and ran straight down the steep side to the bottom, yelling a bit on the way, naturally. You can’t fall 'cos your legs sink into the sand almost to your knees at each step so that you are held up and supported by the sand that kept you back when climbing. Wobbly-legged I keeled over and lay flat on my back on the blessed hard floor of Dead Vlei and admired the 800-year-old gnarled trunks of dead trees that persist and insist on standing on this moonlike surface. Yet it’s not like the moon; even here we saw toktokkie, fog-basking and long-legged beetles scurrying about and a shovel-snouted lizard diving head first into the sand.

After all that exercise we journeyed on to the actual vlei that is called Sossusvlei, just next to Big Mama dune, and parked under an enormous camelthorn tree for coffee and bikkies. There’s something very restful about sitting in the shade sipping coffee and watching other people climb laboriously up that steep dune.... All around us were beetles and birds busily doing their thing, flitting in and out of the dusty green leaves – and the words “ma rabu maasecha” reverberated through my head at every turn where I could see life and its superb adaptations to an unforgiving environment.

Well, after all that colour and light, we took a drive back to the gravel plains and mountains and visited Sesriem Canyon (an unexpected crack in the Earth 30 metres deep that holds remnants of water in the dry season), then after lunch took a drive across the reserve to see the other Wilderness camps, finishing off with a lovely dinner and well-deserved sleep – unfortunately not under the bright swathe of stars that stretched out across the skies, mainly 'cos they come with a heavy dew.

We were meant to go hot air ballooning which I was so excited about I could hardly sleep. Unfortunately the wind had other ideas and so on our final morning we stayed on good ol’ Mother Earth and used flat feet and gravity to walk along the dry riverbed in front of camp, enjoying crunching over river sand and seeing signs of animals, and even a glimpse of a jackal in the distance.

But the best was having a chat to Angula who is the chairman of the Kulala Environmental Club. (No ordinary club this, it’s one of those “that’s why I love Wilderness” moments, so indulge me here, okay?) A few months ago, four staff members from Kulala Desert Lodge - not managers or anything, just your average person working at the lodge as a guide, waiter or cleaner - decided that they too wanted to make a difference. So they started the KEC with just a simple premise: to clean up and teach others to clean up. They deal with litter – not around the camp because there isn’t any there, but in the Sossusvlei area which of course is a public area and thus has human beings who can’t seem to resist dropping their stuff everywhere they go. So every week, someone goes along and picks up litter. The club has grown so there are now more volunteers and more hands. Not content with this, the Club has now expanded its activities to the nearby village of Maltahöhe, where they take the day off to spend time with the kids and run a village-wide cleanup programme.

See? Not complicated. Just a simple aim – but what a difference you can make.

A short trip to the airstrip and we hopped on the plane for what’s known as the scenic flight to Swakopmund. And indeed it is, with the red dunes seeming to flow like water beneath us, for mile after mile until we reached the Atlantic and took a sharp right. Flying north, we watched the famous fog rolling in importantly to work. As you may know, the fog of Namibia is one of the miraculous everyday events that ensures that some moisture gets to this arid land, and many animals and plants are well adapted to harvest the precious liquid that occurs on most mornings. What I didn’t realise was quite how solid and well, present, this fog is. No mere wispy cloud this, but a solid bank of white that hangs just above the sea, moving determinedly eastwards. It seems to have a large flamboyant personality of its own, which changes to a gentler, persuasive one when it reaches the shore. Here, it transforms into tendrils and fingers that curl this way and that. It tiptoes delicately across the blond dunes (to be oxidised red as they move inland in their turn), leaving droplets of moisture and the possibility of life as it passes by, finally disappearing over the horizon.

II. Damaraland once more
After landing in Swakopmund we continued flying a lot more till we reached Damaraland – and still one of my favourite places on Earth. (Yes, I know there are a lot of them. Since God took the time to make them all, I assume some appreciation would be in order, no?)

I won’t speak much about Damaraland as I will just refer you to my previous experience in 2006. But it’s still one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen, bareness and desolation in an almost Mordor/ Lord of the Rings sort of way. The land lies brooding, the morning and afternoon's dark shadows in the valleys contrast with the flat-topped mountains and hills that rear up into the infinite blue sky. It is majestic and breathtaking – literally everywhere I look I take in a breath sharply at the stupendour (that’s stupendous splendour, see?). We enjoyed ourselves thoroughly at the camp with managers Ilze and Ivan and took a drive in the dry Huab riverbed to see the ellies. During this season they hang out here as one of the few water sources there are so you’re pretty sure to see them. The riverbed seems dry as bone but every now and then a little surface water sparkles out and there’s always something drinking there – kudu, steenbok and even Egyptian geese. And when a honey badger raced across our path, and we saw the endemic Rosy-faced Lovebirds and Rüppell’s Parrots, well, my water bottle runnethed over. We also saw one lone bat hanging upside down in a tree – was he sulking? Or perhaps a penchant for hermitage?

One of the verses from Tehillim went through my mind constantly here: "Poteach et yadecha," we say to God, You open Your hand and sustain all living things with what they need. This is so clear here once more: despite the dryness and seeming inability to live here, everything that does, does so successfully. Every plant and animal is perfectly adapted to survive – and thrive – lives here in Hashem’s ratzon, His favour.

Just one more story and then I’ll leave you alone. We went to visit the Petrified Forest. This is a very impressive hilltop covered with very scared bits of wood (sorry sorry) that are in fact 280-million-year-old conifers that were carried here during an Ice Age and lay buried for aeons, until erosion uncovered them and German palaeontologists discovered them. It was all very primeval of course, what with ancient rock-solid tree trunks lying around, not one but TWO snakes (a western barred spitting cobra had been attacking a sand snake when we interrupted it; it saw us and then with that fluid ripple of power so evocative of snakes disappeared into a crack in the nearby rocks, while the other one just hung dead still on a branch, its tail was bitten, poor thing), and to end off things nicely, our guide’s name was Bacchus (the Greek god of wine), so all in all there was a lovely mix of the primordial and prehistoric, Garden of Eden snakes, and Greek mythology. A lovely drive back to D-Camp yielded bat-eared foxes again and great raptors, before we took to the skies ourselves northwards once more - to Etosha.

But that’s another story....

Botswana Bits and Bobs II - Mombo

So, with a roar and a noun-made-verb, we left the lush tranquillity of Jao and headed for Mombo – which means ‘place of plenty’. And so it was.

First of course we settled into our little shack (heh heh snigger), with not enough time to do more than check that the outside shower worked perfectly with its requisite elephant that walked right up close before turning aside, and to have the chef whose name I’ve forgotten inform me that he had it all sorted. And he had kosher puff pastry so he was making me something delicious the name of which I can’t remember either with it. That will teach me to wait so long before writing.

I do need to say that the guide we had at Mombo (whose name I do remember but I won’t say) was a little too enthusiastic about cats and not enough about other stuff. In case you hadn't noticed, I prefer to enjoy nature in all its microscopic stunning detail – and we all know full well that without the small stuff the cats wouldn’t be there either. Be that as it may, we raced across to an area known as “the 18th hole” thanks to its new, bright-green short grass, clearly delicious as the herds of impala, zebra, wildebeest attested to while warthog scampered between the herds like naughty children at an afternoon tea party. Then we stopped briefly at a pride of sleeping lion (watching lion sleeping is like watching paint dry except that the one lioness was one of Mombo’s famous maned lionesses – a genetic glitch that seems to pop up a very male-looking lioness every now and then). We then bounced off to see a tree which had had a leopard in before, but before we could go further, the radio crackled: “We found her!”

“Her” was Legadema, one of Mombo’s famous leopard characters, seen by many guests over the years, and now the star of a National Geographic movie called “Eye of the Leopard” (you should see it, it’s pretty cool). She had last been seen, heavily pregnant, before disappearing from view a few days previously. The guides had surmised that she was ready to give birth and wondered if they’d find her and her cubs. It seems someone had spotted the legendary cat and her cubs in a tree not far from Mombo back the other way, so back we bounced, on the way stopping to see a herd of 300 buffalo or so (you tend to get blasé about these things here) and then the curious sight of a lone young elephant. I’m talking really young here; the guides had been seeing him by himself for a week now. Considering that male elephants usually stay with their natal herds until their teens and this one couldn’t have been more than two or three years old, it is very unusual to see such a thing – and in fact we found it rather traumatic – nature out of balance, an orphan drinking alone at a small pool. We saw him a couple of times and he seemed able to take care of himself but his temporal glands were flowing – a sign of stress in ellies – so clearly he’s going to have a lot to talk to a therapist about – if he survives to tell the tale. (We never did find out what happened to him, ag shaaayme.)

Anyway, eventually we made it to the tree where Legadima was ensconced. Of course, the location had to be approached very carefully so as not to disturb mom and cubs – and so as not to give it away to any predators prowling around who would as soon take these furballs out as look at them. Each vehicle was given a few minutes that afternoon to drive into the sighting and we were the last. There was only one spot for the vehicle to park from which we could peer, binos glued to our eyes, into the hollow of the tree to get a glimpse: every now and then we would see them as they moved in and out of our range of vision between the large branches. There were two cubs, their rosettes showing vaguely through that beige downy fur of the very young kitten. They clambered all over Legadema, occasionally suckling from her, and the larger one clearly has a yen for exploring as he (we’re betting he’s a male) wobbled his way time and again to the edge of the ‘nest’ only to be pulled back by his worried mother.

It was quite a privilege to see such young cubs, but I was uncomfortable – as were the guides it turns out – as they ‘closed’ the sighting after we’d been there – meaning no one could go there again to see them until they were older.

Unfortunately, a couple of weeks later we learned that we were in fact the last to see these little ones. At some point Legadima lost both of them – how we’ll never know, as she was subsequently seen hunting close to camp, but not lactating and not returning to any spot where she might have been hiding the cubs. And that’s yet another reason not to get too bunny hugger with wild animals, subject as they are to the arbitrary vagaries of Fate – or ecology.

Anyway. A delicious supper that night followed, where Ulrike and I had the privilege of sitting with ‘Poster’ Mpho Malongwa. If ever there’s a movie star of conservation, it’s Poster. He’s six foot something and one of those clichéd gentle giants, an unassuming man who is also proud of what he does – and so now I need to tell you about him.

Basically Poster is the “rhino man” of Botswana – again, there’s a Nat Geo movie on him called 'Return of the Rhino' and again it’s highly recommended viewing. He started off in the 80s working with the four rhino left alive in Botswana, heavily protected in Kapama Game Reserve. Then when Wilderness got involved with moving these and another seven rhino from South Africa into the Okavango, they saw that Poster was a veritable “rhino whisperer” and so they brought him on board. He is now responsible for all the xxx rhino we have in Botswana (I can’t tell you the numbers cos then I’d have to kill you but it’s more than the original 11 and less than say... 60.) and every day he goes out to check on them. Not coincidently then, all the rhino here are known as “Poster’s rhino.” Despite their best efforts at charging him sometimes, he says, they’re his friends. With friends like that...

Unfortunately, that day his vehicle had broken down so completely he couldn’t get back without someone going out to find him so our plan to go out with him the following day went out the window and instead we went on a cat-finding game drive (we saw a few other things – a half-blind suicidal giraffe who nearly stepped on a crouching lioness and a lone wild dog, the only one in the area which again is very unusual as they usually hang out in packs, but she seems to be coping by adopting some obliging jackals as her family), had a lovely picnic lunch out on the floodplain, an elephant-less back of house tour and high tea where I got kosher samoosas just for me! (Funny I remembered that meal…) We then decided to relax by the pool and watch the waterbirds and a herd of elephants that waded between the waterlilies in the floodplain that stretched out all around us, the light of the setting sun bathing everything in romantic pearly-pink hues.

Good news that night from Poster – we could go out with him, Kago Tlhalerwa, our fabulous dreadlocked camp manager, and technical chap Roy Ridge, for the morning and see what we could see.

So the next morning we went a-hunting rhino. And how do you hunt rhino you ask? Well, firstly there’s none of this old-fashioned tracking – well a bit, but not when you need to keep track of dot dot erm numbers of animals spread out over kilometres of thick, unfenced bush. And when these animals are more precious than diamonds – unfortunately to would-be poachers too – you have to up the ante. So today you go rhino hunting with an antenna that catches a signal that is being emitted from a transmitter that has been placed in the rhino’s horn when the animal was moved here. It’s a convenient place to put it as the rhino horn is made of hair so it doesn’t hurt them to drill into it, place the transmitter in and cover it over. And if God forbid the poachers do get the rhino, they can be tracked to their doorstep – as apparently happened once: the man’s jaw dropped when Poster and the anti-poaching unit guys arrived at his door and politely asked if they could dig in his backyard, left corner….

So high-tech tracking it is. Piece of cake I thought – you just put up that antenna and find the big animal. Not so. First we drove about 10km south of Mombo, away from the madding crowds of lion, impala, warthog, giraffe etc etc, into the area where the rhino hang out. Every now and then Poster unfolded his long body, stood up and put up his antenna (being extra tall is a definite prerequisite for this job as the higher you get the antenna the easer it is to pick up the signal, see) and pointed it in different directions. Nothing but static to be heard.

Finally, we heard a faint click. “There it is – it’s Serondela,” said Poster, and started directing Kago who was driving: left, right, straight, while the click became a loud beep. Okay I thought, bull’s eye – he will pop up in front of us. I was wrong. Just because there’s a beep doesn’t mean there’s a rhino on tap. You still have to work for it. (Hmm, there’s an existential metaphor there, no?) Turning off the ‘beaten path’ (aka the bumpy sand road) we bounced our way merrily over thornbushes and around aardvark holes following a sound and on a prayer. The bush got thicker, more trees had to be negotiated and Kago had to do some brilliant manoeuvres to keep the vehicle alive and well. It crossed my mind that technology helps, but you really have to WANT the rhino.

Suddenly, a great grey domed bum appeared just behind a bush. The rhino – 25-year-old Serondela – was on the move and clearly on a mission. Nose to ground he was moving surprisingly fast for a prehistoric tank, negotiating bushes with balletic ease while we plodded ungainly along after him in the vehicle. Poster directed Kago around to a road he knew of where we could intercept him. We screeched to a halt as we heard him crashing through the bush on our left. Here he came, thundering towards us. It was truly a breathtaking sight this, three or four tons, not to mention one sharp implement, on four relatively small legs advancing on us. I fully expected the ground to shake but those wide footpads seemed to muffle the thuds, so that I had to remind myself that I wasn’t in a silent movie (in grey and green) watching as the round body loomed larger and larger filling the screen.

Poster told Kago to stop (counterintuitive I know, I know) which he did. The rhino man then spoke in a loud voice, telling us (loudly) that like all rhino Serondela doesn’t have good eyesight and so needed to hear us so he could avoid crashing into us – unless he wanted to of course. (Free choice in the animal world...) What with all that thumping and looming, it looked quite likely to be the latter, but a few feet away he turned aside and moved around us, head down and sniffing earnestly at the ground. You could almost believe he was muttering to himself, “Now where did I put that...?”

It was just a few startling seconds of hugeness and greyness and adrenalin – and the absolute sheer joy of seeing an animal that so many people have worked so hard to save from almost certain ugly death – that’s all it was before he had crashed through into the dense bush on the other side of the road and disappeared.

Sighs of satisfaction all round.

We could have continued to follow him but Poster was worried about the way he was acting and decided to give him his space until the afternoon when he would come back to see if all was well. We on the other hand had to return to camp and leave the chaps to follow up on the story (turns out to be an exciting one as Poster realised Serondela was on the track of a female in oestrus and ended up seeing him mating, quite a sight – you can read about it on our website if you want).


So after a brief stop for coffee with these amazing men and their flying rhino sorry sorry and then an excellent brunch, Ulrike and I had to say goodbye once more to our elephants (the ones hanging around outside our tents had become almost like family, talk about the elephant in the room), and reluctantly fly back to Joburg. A jolly nice way to end the Jewish year, I'd say.