No Stopping for Lions (7 page)

Every day we pass things that are amusing, or moving. Two oxen pulling a wooden sled in the typical shape of a boat — but this one has taken the image a bit further and has added two masts with old shirts for sails, and a cane fishing trap dragging from behind. Then outside one village
kraal
, sitting neatly on a stump, is a little tin mug containing corn kernels for sale.

We drive along eating Maynards wine gums and Beacon liquorice allsorts. If the road's not too dusty to play CDs we have Meat Loaf at full blast, Alan Jackson to sing along with, or Ladysmith Black Mambazo if we have a hitchhiker in the belief that they'll feel at home. Our differing tastes in music are obvious as we rotate through the collection of discs that I've put together. Neil has been patient with Queen and grits his teeth through the country and western, but finally puts his foot down when
The Best of ABBA
springs to life with monotonous regularity.

Rundu sits on the southern banks of the Okavango River, which now separates Angola and Namibia. The town is jumping though dusty, and the area looks prosperous and productive. There's largescale agriculture with irrigation and mechanisation to a degree that we've not seen to date. I convince Neil to go out on an evening river cruise organised by the camp we've booked in to, but instead of seeing hippos and crocs all we spot are illegal Angolan traders, skulking back home across the shallows after a day in Rundu's bustling market.

The Caprivi Strip is one area that both Neil and I had on our want-to-do list. I wanted to see the large herds of game that had been recently reported passing across it from Angola to the Okavango Delta in Botswana, while Neil was fascinated by its history. The Caprivi is an incongruous narrow corridor of Namibia stretching 450 kilometres eastward to Zimbabwe, wedged between Zambia, Angola and Botswana. It was exchanged with the United Kingdom for Zanzibar in 1890 so that Namibia, then German South-West Africa, had access to the Zambezi River and trade routes to Africa's east coast. Because of its position, Caprivi has always been of strategic importance and up until recently it experienced almost continual military and terrorist incursions. It presented big problems to motorists wanting to drive across, not the least being that the road would become impassable every wet season. However the main challenges came from a different source, with landmines, militia and poachers making the area unsafe to travel through. Now, however, the baddies are gone, the road has been paved, and animals migrate freely between the delta in Botswana, Angola and Zambia.

In the centre of the western Caprivi, Popa Falls is more a cascade over a rocky faultline in the Okavango's course than a true waterfall, but it is still impressive and the surrounding bush is lush and pretty. A little downstream we find a lodge stretched comfortably along the banks of the river, owned by an affable and competent Namibian, Horst. The immediate impression is one of confidence and of things being under control, and our little riverside tent is made classy by good linen and an abundance of extras. Unfortunately what is beyond Horst's control is the reserve of the other guests, two young German families. They both have children of about the same age, and bags full of photographic equipment, but that's apparently not enough in common to get them talking together. On the sundowner cruise they are excruciatingly silent and polite, and after a while Neil, Horst and I carry on as though the others aren't there. Pre-dinner drinks are even worse, with them pointedly ignoring each other. What's going on? Do they know each other and are involved in an interfamily feud? Is it because they were never formally introduced? Or are they just not interested in each other? As dessert is served and the parents have a little alcohol they loosen up and begin to discuss photography. But by breakfast the shutters have come down again and it's back to pretending that we're all strangers in a strange land. They are replaced that day by a party of French people: garrulous, urbane and a breath of fresh air. They try to order martinis from the beer- and wine-only bar, and dress in chignons and silk shawls for dinner. They involve us in their conversation and refrain from stating the obvious when Neil asks them if they have a word in French for ‘cavalier'.

Horst encourages us to visit Mahango Game Reserve, just down the road. We go in the Troopy somewhat reluctantly, not having read or heard anything about this small park, but it turns out to be a jewel. Here is where all those animals from Angola must be congregating before their assault on the delta. Well, in truth, we don't see huge volumes, but there is such a large variety that we can't keep our list up to date. As we drive out we chance on a show, a private screening that is our first taste of the other side of wildlife watching: being privy to the dramas of everyday lives. Two magnificent handsome black sables, long horns like elegant sabres, engage in battle. They position themselves 100 metres apart, turn, then on dancer's legs take off towards each other at a prancing trot. They stretch out, lower their heads and arch those sleek thick necks, and by the time they connect with the sound of a car crash they are galloping at full speed. They do it time and time again, each joust starting from further apart and with more measured determination. There is a politeness to the confrontation; like chivalrous knights they seem to wait until each is ready before launching into the next attack. Then — did we miss something? — one turns and trots away with a shake of his proud head.

Crossing the Caprivi Strip is a bit of an anti-climax after the build-up we'd given it in our imaginations. Not a landmine or bandit in sight, just a straight, straight road that shows nothing of its past. Although that's been tarred the drive is slow and we get to Bumhill Campsite on the Kwando River, roughly halfway across the corridor, in the late afternoon. After the Spitzkoppe experience of community campsites we approach Bumhill warily, but it's a fine area with a wonderful person in attendance. His shorts are threadbare so Neil gives him a pair to replace them, and he gives Neil a big pile of firewood in return. The campsite, all handcrafted, has an en-suite, and the building and plumbing have been done with thought and care. We have a toilet where the plumbing is encased with hand-woven twine and the toiletroll holder is a branch with faces carved on it, and there's a tree platform for viewing elephants and hippos which wander past on the riverbank below.

However, we're keen to keep moving as we've decided to visit Zimbabwe and catch up with Neil's cousin, Dave, who'll be in Victoria Falls in a couple of days' time. When we tell the camp attendant that we'll be moving on after one night but will still pay him for the two nights booked, he shakes our hands in appreciation. He disappears, then returns shortly afterwards with another bundle of firewood.

Goodbye Namibia! We cross the border into Botswana with a minimum of fuss, apart from having to run the Troopy and our feet through a dark sticky mixture to kill any foot-and-mouth disease we could be carrying about. We plan to stay overnight in Kasane to re-organise and gather supplies before entering Zimbabwe, where we've heard the lack of just about everything is critical.

Kasane is at the extreme eastern tip of the Caprivi Strip and lies on the banks of the Chobe River. Chobe National Park is right next door and Kasane is the main access point for visitors to the park as well as for those heading to the Okavango Delta and Victoria Falls.

We book into a small lodge on the riverbank, a little out of town and away from the hustle and bustle of en masse tourists that we've become unused to. We walk the lodge's ‘nature walk', which mostly follows the banks of the Chobe River, and towards the end we turn a corner and there, right on the path, is a big crocodile, asleep in a patch of late sun. For some pre-historic reason Neil hates crocodiles and he wants to backtrack, and fast. I stay long enough to take a photo, and the resultant shot does nothing for Neil's reputation. In it, the croc is totally ignoring the blur that is Neil running away.

After dinner that night we chat with an American family and the conversation drifts into travellers' talk of places visited and animals sighted. Neil tells them that we've just come from ‘Estonia National Park' in Namibia and they don't bat an eyelid. Afterwards when I rib Neil about his slip-of-the-tongue he gives them the benefit of the doubt and suggests that they were stumped by the accent, but from where I sat I could see that they'd never heard of Namibia, let alone one of the most famous game parks in the world.

The next morning we go into Kasane to get diesel, wash the Troopy, send emails and buy malaria detection kits. The town is very busy with tourists as well as locals, and game-viewing and hunting vehicles are everywhere. A safari vehicle pulls up next to us and I look archly at the women sitting in it: strings of whopping great pearls, designer jeans covered in spangles and high-heeled sandals. Are they trying to make it easy for thieves, or blind the wildlife? They've certainly impressed themselves, but look slightly disoriented as they find themselves perched in the back of an open truck in a dusty frontier town.

One petrol station is out of fuel already and it's organised chaos at the remaining one. Zimbabweans queue patiently, the wait for the next delivery nothing compared to the endless wait back in their own country. We leave town much later than we'd hoped, pleased to get away from this taste of a game park hub approaching the height of the season but a little apprehensive of what we're going to find in Zimbabwe.

Zimbabwean border control is about as bad as expected, the carryon regarding the Troopy and taxes, fuel and taxes, and road taxes taking time and patience. But eventually we're through, and a few hundred metres down the road we stop for a herd of elephants crossing it. This is an encouraging sign, as I'd been expecting to see poachers rather than animals.

Victoria Falls Safari Lodge is looking spick and spruce and in a condition that belies its age and the state of the country it finds itself in. We're treated like royalty, which we kind of are, Neil's cousin Dave being the owner. The Safari Lodge hugs a ridge on the eastern side of the unfenced Zambezi National Park and overlooks the broad brown Zambezi Valley, which at first glance looks flat and dry. Only after you sit on the deck and watch the goings-on beyond the waterhole below the lodge do you realise that there are dips and rises in the landscape which hide game paths and grassy, shady, resting places for families of animals, perhaps nestling in close to the protective shadow of the lodge in a park rife with poachers.

Dave meets us in the bar and we catch up on family news over dinner in The Boma. This restaurant famously serves farmed game meat of all persuasions, as well as local delicacies such as deepfried
kapenta
, the little lake fish so loved by Africans, and
mopane
worms in peanut butter. I decide to try the mopane worms mainly because Dave says I'll get a certificate if I can manage to keep one down. As the smiling girl serving the worms is spooning a couple onto my plate I ask her where exactly they come from. I know the good-looking mopane tree, with its soft double leaves that look like dainty butterfly (
mopane
) wings, and I don't like to think that its shady branches could be visited by anything other than harmless creatures. ‘From the freezer' comes the cheery reply.

Robert, an old school friend of Neil, flies in from Harare and we spend the next 24 hours with him, he and Neil reminiscing, pulling each other's legs and generally giving each other a hard time. They've seen the famous falls many times when their school train stopped at Victoria Falls, so the normal tourist sights are abandoned for more personal ones. We visit picnic sites eleven and fifteen on the banks of the Zambezi, both places of great peace and beauty, and the final resting homes of Dave's brother-in law and his father, Neil's uncle. Sitting under the shade of a big wild fig, with the Zambezi wide and ancient at their feet, Neil asks his mate why he stays in Zimbabwe. Why hasn't he called it quits and gone to Australia or Canada or the United Kingdom? Robert replies that maybe he's scared or maybe he's lazy, but mainly, he can't find the heart to leave because Africa has got under his skin.

On Wednesday evening there is to be a cocktail party at the Safari Lodge to farewell Andy, another relative who has worked at the lodge ever since it opened. Dave has very kindly invited us along. I'm a little reluctant and slightly nervous of being the odd people out in a group of workmates but, anyway, we go. Out on the lawn is a huge buffet and waitresses all dressed up in crisp white traditional dresses. Our initial thoughts are that we've gate-crashed a wedding but, no, Andy appears and quickly organises drinks. During the day we'd heard that the hotel had just lost eighteen employees to staff poaching, so this evening we are waited on by the seamstress, the gift shop lady and quite a few from middle management. They all have great fun in their new roles and we do too, particularly when the seamstress responds to a request for one gin and tonic and a double scotch with ‘All in one glass?' Two simply dressed guests arrive and for a minute stand awkwardly until someone notices them. In my anxiety to make them feel comfortable I blurt out, ‘And where in the hotel do you work?' Well nowhere actually, they are the well-qualified, official representation from the powerful town council, people that Andy has had to deal with over the past years. They are modest and polite, and it must be 50 times harder for them to socialise with all these strangers than it has been for us to wander in.

After the speeches and gift-giving, the hotel's choir sings a couple of
a cappella
songs and then asks Andy to stand with them. With their hands on their hearts they sing ‘
Nkosi Sikelel
'
iAfrika
', ‘God Bless Africa', the unofficial anthem of hope for all Africa, and there isn't a dry eye on the lawn.

The main road from Vic Falls to Main Camp in Hwange National Park passes through many villages that would have been neat and prosperous in better days. An article in yesterday's Zambian paper cites 3000 deaths a week from AIDS in Zimbabwe, but it is the neglect and poverty caused by President Mugabe that we're witnessing. The only things looking new and maintained as we drive along are the electric fences of the hunting concessions. We've read that government officials have sold off far too many hunting licences, well over the quota — more licences for lions than there are lions in fact. Corrupt officials might be the cause, but hunters and hunting concessions are complicit. I've even seen in a recent hunting magazine a photo of, among many other incongruous animals, an American bison killed on a hunting lodge north of Harare. How did that get there? I'm torn between outrage and acceptance that these concessions must do what they can to survive in a country gone topsy-turvy.

Even before we get to the park gate we see giraffe, zebra and impala and we feel a pinch of excitement at the prospect that all we've been hearing about Hwange is true.

Apart from a visiting soccer team, Main Camp is quite empty. It is as neat as a pin and the staff spick and span, but there are no tourists. Due to a misunderstanding we've allowed half the time it will actually take to drive in to Ngweshla picnic site where we're to be collected, and the young ranger at the park gate is keen to chat, discuss the lions, even exchange email addresses. Neil patiently ah-ah-ahs and asks about his family, then once we're through and into the park (speed limit 40 kilometres per hour) and out of sight, the Troopy picks up speed and we hurtle past waterholes of buck and
vleis
of wildebeest. I'm certain I see a large cheetah sitting on top of an anthill quite close to the road, but Neil shouts, ‘No stopping, it's just a log!' and tears past. We cover the stretch in one hour instead of two and a half and have to apologise to the only other tourists we see for forcing them off the road.

Little Makalolo is an exclusive bush camp of just five tents, very well managed by a young white couple from Harare. One of them, Sasha, is also a guide of some repute and his enthusiasm for the bush and its flora and insects infects everyone. After just a few minutes' game driving with him we forget to look for animals and find ourselves debating the difference between a marula and a mangosteen tree.

The next four days fall into a safari camp's routine of early morning wake-up call and a light breakfast, followed by a morning game drive, brunch, sleep, afternoon tea, afternoon game drive with sundowners, and return drive with spotlighting, drinks, dinner and bed. The nights are particularly cold and we have hotwater bottles and two doonas to keep warm. One morning we wake up to find that the temperature plummeted to -4°C during the night, and everyone emerges with beanies and scarves wrapped around their heads, breath steaming in the cold and hands tucked under armpits. The birdbaths are frozen over, staff are out chipping at the pathway with shovels instead of sweeping it, and Obit, the senior guide and a veteran of many years in the park, insists that his eyelashes have frozen to his head.

Every mealtime Obit entertains us with lectures on life and tall tales. I promise him that I'll record some of his stories as he says that he cannot write. So far I have in my diary:

That's already enough for a bestseller, but I'm told that the best story is yet to come — how to keep warm on a cold night when you have three wives. That one is X-rated.

Godfrey is our guide for most of our stay. The first evening drive is through a deep woodland area, past a grand, dying marula tree ring-barked by elephants. We come upon a waterhole just in time to see a small family of elephants having a mudbath. One adolescent in particular can't get enough of it and he chuckles and swings his trunk about as he slides and splashes. He just can't leave it, even when his mother is clearly trying to move him on and there is another herd in the holding bay waiting to come on down. He tries to walk away; he nearly makes it then turns back with a skip for one more roll.

Godfrey takes us to a place special to him for sundowners. Mbiza Pan is a big wide lovely peaceful spot with palm trees and zebras, and the colours streaking the sky are magical. Godfrey gazes out over the lagoon as though it's the first time he's seen it and his smooth black face glows with pride. He and Neil chat about this beautiful and once bountiful country and to our surprise Godfrey is not critical of its demise; he is a Mugabe supporter. But his arguments are weak and his voice fades as he recites the party rhetoric, and you can only feel sadness for this man who deep down must know that his Utopia is as dead as the great marula tree.

Dinner is served and we've no sooner started on the leek and potato soup than a driver rushes in wide-eyed and babbles that there's a big male leopard crossing the road in front of camp. We all abandon the dinner table and pile into vehicles to go in pursuit. But no luck. We return to the dining tent to find the old waiter solitary at the head of the table, patiently waiting to reserve the soup. We've just sat back down to resume eating when we freeze at a close-by growl from the leopard, as irritated as us by the constant and monotonous alarm call of a jackal.

It's to be a noisy night. We go to bed but are woken some time later by the munching and rumblings of elephants. They are so close that you can hear their stomachs ruminating through the tent's canvas but they move off, almost soundlessly, when the leopard once again disturbs the stillness with a pussycat call.

In late afternoon light on the last day we drive to a waterhole and down many sundowners while watching elephants lark about on the banks. Then Godfrey draws our attention to a shadowy figure motionless behind tall acacias on the treeline. A huge bull in musth, he lurks still and ominous for at least 45 minutes, his stare fixed on the females. Like a gold-chained barfly propping up the counter and nursing a double scotch, he's checking out the action, biding his time. Finally he makes his move at a slow trot, gold chain swinging. When he reaches the waterhole it's a bit of an anti-climax because try as he might he can't find one female in oestrus. As the sun sets, we watch as he slowly skulks off down the
vlei
, head down, gold chain tucked away.

Mandavu Dam campsite is one of the public campsites in Hwange that is exclusively yours once you've booked it. Visitors can come in during the day to picnic or to sit and observe the animal activity but once the gate is closed in the evening you have it to yourself. The campsite itself is a large landscaped area perched on the edge of a substantial expanse of water with hippos and antelope on the opposite bank and dassies claiming every available rock surface on the shore in front.

Neil has set up a table in the shade of a covered viewing platform so that I can sit at the laptop and catch up on diary entries. As I write I feel a soft nudge at my elbow and look down to find a little dassie sitting there calmly. Next thing, he's up on the ledge and gently moving onto the table, brushing his coat like velvet along my arm and rubbing his nose into my fingers. With a few steps he's moved onto the keyboard. He nestles down, gets comfortable — he intends to settle there for a while. I flatten my hand and he moves onto it, so soft and warm and as light as a leaf. I lift him off the keyboard and back onto the table but he's loath to move, content on the warmth of my hand. Such a gentle companion, not yet learnt to fear the malice of humans.

This camp attendant's name is Richard. He's not been paid for three months and relies on the generosity of others for food. Despite the lack of funds, he keeps the site spotless and manages to always have hot water ready for our showers and a fire blazing for our evening meal. His rifle is with him at all times, even when he goes out in his beaten old canoe to fish. He has one eye and a calmness that belies his troubled and sometimes dangerous life. In the mornings he accepts one cup of coffee and sits with Neil and me and talks. Like the dassies around us, we find patches of sunlight and move from one to another, warming up as the sun strengthens.

Richard tells us of losing his eye when he was a youngster — ‘It was nothing, I don't miss it' — and his days as a soldier in the Rhodesian army when he felt invincible, a cowboy shooting at baddies from the exhilaration of helicopters. Then more sinister times, when as a park ranger in the early ‘80s he experienced firsthand the brutality of Mugabe's Fifth Brigade, as they crushed any resistance to the regime with mass murder and mutilations. Sad, frightening stories of violence and lost friends. It's not surprising that he's unafraid of the dangers that wild animals might present.

Early one morning we decide to drive to Sinamatella camp, just 8 kilometres away but a good hour's drive through gamerich bush on the rough track we intend taking. We ask Richard if he'd like to come along to visit his wife and daughter, staying in quarters there. Rifle by his side, he sits in the backseat of the Troopy, showing the way and pointing out places of interest. As we cruise over a ridge we all suddenly realise that we've driven into a sort of ambush. Four adolescent lions are moving low and cautiously beside the road, completely focused on a warthog making its way across a dry riverbed. Even as the Troopy skids, stops and reverses they don't so much as flick an ear in our direction, so intent are these lions on their prey. We sit for minutes waiting for action, but it becomes apparent that these youngsters aren't the most experienced of hunters. Neil, getting restless, happens to look down at the road beside the Troopy and can't believe at first what he's seeing: a long lean body, looking like a log nestled in the grass against the Troopy's wheels. Totally motionless, here is the mother supervising her offspring. We'd nearly run over her. Richard is very pleased and says that he is proud that his park has given us such a gift. When we drop him off at camp, he thanks us for the morning and for the privilege of riding in ‘the Envy of all Africa'.