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.