A Not So Silent Night in Savute

We are about mid-way through a seven-night safari with a family of 15 of a Furman alumnus when I hear footsteps outside my tent. It’s about 1:30 AM. Something is in camp. I listen to see if I can identify the steps. Not as “bouncy” as a honey badger gait (one was spotted earlier in the night near the supply vehicle). Whatever it is seems to be scoping out camp. Walking around…sniffing at things. It doubles back to Paul’s side of the tent and makes this low guttural stomach-y growl loudly right next to Paul’s head.

 

Paul peacefully snores. “Paul”, I whisper. Useless, of course, because if he didn’t hear the nocturnal animal that just shouted in his hear, he certainly isn’t going to hear me whisper. I try a little louder, “Paul!” Snorrrreeee…

 

Finally, I haul half of my body across the abyss between our single stretchers positioned on either side of the tent and pull on his blankets. “What? What?!”, he responds a bit too loudly. I say, “Don’t move! We’ve got something in camp.”

 

Whatever it is continues to walk behind the half circle of our nine tents. It makes the low guttural stomach-y growl again. “Leopard?”, I ask. It’s not the typical sawing wood sound of a leopard but it is our best guess. It goes behind the tents and seems to walk off into the Kalahari apple leaf trees. We exhale and get up to pee in our pit latrine in the “ensuite” enclosure at the back of our tent. When I say “enclosure” imagine an open-air outdoor bathroom with a three-sided canvas “wall” fastened to the back of our tent. There are great views of the Milky Way across the Southern sky when one needs a “bush break” in the middle of the night. There’s also plenty of room to crawl under the “wall” which is not attached to the flooring.

 

Only minutes after we’ve safely returned to our tent we hear it again. “Damn…it’s back”, I whisper to Paul.  Whatever its motives (in the morning the camp staff speculate it was a mom leopard with cubs or mating leopards, given the unusual utterances) it is staying with us for the night.

 

I listen for zippers hoping none of the inquisitive young boys on the trip decide they want to get a closer look. The camp is completely silent, except for the growling leopard. I learn in the morning that some have slept through it and others were just holding their breath…for hours!

 

As dawn approaches, I fear that our clients might unknowingly wake up to start to get ready for our morning game drive and go outside their tent before they can see better than the leopard can. Leopards have great night vision. Humans do not!

 

I urge Paul to get up before them and tell everyone to stay in their tents a bit longer as we’ve got an uninvited visitor in camp. The camp comes alive as the adults, who have heard the noises ALL NIGHT LONG urge their children to stay in their tents!

 

Someone sarcastically wishes one of the clients a happy birthday reminding her that she said she wanted to see a male lion but instead got a leopard! Nervous laughter erupts. It is certainly a birthday she will NEVER forget!

 

The impetus for this trip is a Zoom information meeting in August 2023 about a Furman Alumni safari to be offered in June 2024. One of the participants remarks that it looks like that trip was likely to fill and asks if I would consider offering another one just for his family of 15? I need to check campsite availability and dates before I can commit but soon we are off and planning for a second safari in June 2024.

 

The group arrives via bush plane and after we get them off loaded and their bags into the trailer we head off. One client asks what we didn’t see on our prior alumni safari and I say, “Wild dogs. I haven’t seen wild dogs in a while.” Within a matter of minutes, we drive up to a pack of wild dogs resting in the high grass before they begin to hunt at dusk.

 

The safari goes this way. They mention lions. We find lions.

 

How about some cheetahs? “Lets”, one of our guides, spots a pair sleeping up under a bush as we transit from Moremi to Savuti along the marsh road. How he saw them is beyond me!

 

Next, “We’d really like to see a leopard.” And we find one tucked up under a bush eating a recently killed impala (sorry didn't get a good picture of this one).

 

Looking for Leopard on Impala Kill

Impala

We have many beautiful sightings including some elephants crossing the Chobe River to get to the grassy plains on the Namibian side (everything on the Botswana side has been eaten). But this sighting comes only after momentarily getting stuck on some rocks just after the boat guide informs us that this particular area of the river, where birds nest to have their young, is “teeming with crocodiles.” No, I’m not kidding. The river is especially low because of the poor rains during the rainy season and we get “beached” on rocks. Our boat guide is trying his best and failing to get us off the rocks.

 

Hippos on the Chobe River

I’m starting to get a little nervous. While we’ve been “stuck” many times in Botswana it is usually in sand or mud but never in a river “teeming” with crocodiles. The thought of having to swim for the shore dodging crocodiles (and maybe hippos) makes my heart race!  (according to my Fitbit my resting pulse went up 2 points that day!). Fortunately, we have an expert boater among the clients and he jumps up to assist. “Gun the engine! No! MORE! MORE!” and our vessel is freed from its high ground. We carry on with our Chobe River Cruise ignoring the danger we were in. “Yes, thank you. I will have a gin and tonic.”

 

Throughout this family safari, I wonder to myself how much this family safari is worth to Worth (the patriarch sponsoring the trip)? There’s plenty of time on long transit days for the eight cousins ranging in age from 14 to 22 to reconnect. The families are scattered around the country (Florida, California, Washington State) and only see each other occasionally. They debate issues from a variety of political positions with respect and curiosity. Downtime in camp inspires card games and deep conversations. Worth jokes about spending their inheritance but what a gift to bring this family together for an adventure they’ll never forget.

 

Worth with Grandkids at Victoria Falls

It makes me remember celebrating my sister’s 50^th (10 years ago) by bringing her and my nieces on safari for two weeks. In my opinion, totally “worth” it!

 

FU All the Time! In the Bush

Curious Baboon

We are driving as fast as we can to Mowana Lodge in Kasane, Botswana. It is barely 8 AM on Sunday morning and we’re trying to reach the van from our day trip to Victoria Falls on Saturday to catch it before it heads back to Zimbabwe for another trip. We need to search the backseat for a missing passport of a client who is supposed to fly back to the States in a matter of hours. 

Oh crap! There’s a police roadblock ahead. I dig for Paul’s driver’s license and PRDP (the licensing needed to drive a safari vehicle, even if it’s empty). While the cop is fine with these documents, he asks for the “Road Worthy” documentation and since we are in Audi Camp’s vehicle, we have no idea where it is. All I find in the glove box is either a giant bag of cocaine or washing powder (admittedly the chase scene intrigue of this all may have been getting to me). 

“Pull over to the side”, he says and I almost burst into tears. I quickly explain that one of our clients has misplaced his passport and if we don’t catch the van before it leaves, it will go to Zimbabwe and our client will miss his international flights. I must look desperate enough because he tells us to carry on. 

As we’re pulling into Mowana Lodge on two wheels, an African Odyssey van passes us. That was the name of the company we did our day trip with and we are like two ships passing in the night (ie. two passing ships if they are speedboats). Hoping there’s another van waiting for us, we ask the workers milling around outside the lodge where African Odyssey parks their vans. They reply, “Marina Lodge.” This is a different lodge farther into town and, if that is the case, we are in trouble. 

We call Lesedi, the office manager at African Odyssey, and ask, “Marina Lodge?” She says, “No, Mowana Lodge!” (which is where we are) and we realize it was the vehicle that just passed us. We quickly reverse and careen out of the parking lot like a scene from a bad 1980s movie with a high-speed chase. 

Damn…we’ve got to go back through the roadblock in the opposite direction but we haven’t found out where the “Road Worthy” paperwork is. Fortunately, the cop who originally flagged us down is giving someone else a hard time and his colleague just waves us through. 

We arrive at the Botswana side of the border but there’s no African Odyssey van on our side. We must have missed them. We call Lesedi again. Each time we speak to her we get slightly more information from her. It’s like she’s feeding it to us in dribs and drabs. “No, no,” she says, “They are not transporting people to the Botswana side of the border from Mowana. They are picking up people from the Zimbabwe side of the border.” (It took about six interchanges and as many phone calls to get this clarification.). 

We can’t drive across the “no man’s land” between the two borders without checking out of Botswana and paying a fee to enter Zimbabwe, so we move to the return side of the Botswana border and start accosting drivers of African Odyssey vehicles. “We need to check the back seat of your van for a passport!” we shout to confused looks. Again, images of a B-rated film fill my mind where they are trying to confuse pursuers by having several identical vehicles swirling around. 

Even though the company has reassured us that they checked in the van this morning and the passport was not there, we don’t totally believe them (they don’t have as much at stake as our client does in this). We want to check for ourselves. 

On the umpteenth call to Lesedi, we learn the driver of the African Odyssey vehicle we are looking for is named Moses (will Moses deliver us to the promised land??). We start walking into “no man’s land” between the two border posts hoping to find Moses and search his van for the missing passport. 

We see a man walking towards us. He asks, “Are you looking for a passport?” We explain the entire situation to him at length. He listens patiently. Nodding. “Eh-hhh-ing” in classic Motswana style. And then he says, “Do you mean this passport?” whipping it out from his pocket. I practically knock him over by hugging him! We are saved!!

Me and Moses at the Border with the Passport

This is how our first Furman alumni safari ends and it is really the only glitch in an otherwise successful safari. Our group of fourteen includes Furman alumni and family, and we adventure to some of Botswana’s most famous locations including Moremi Game Reserve, Savuti, and Chobe National Park. During our seven-night safari we even managed to squeeze in a day trip to Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe and a Chobe River Sunset Cruise.

Crocodile on Chobe Sunset Cruise

Marabou Storks

Ellies on the Chobe River

Cape Buffalo on the Chobe River

Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe

Visit to a Croc Farm (see the baby croc in my hands)

Our five nights camping in the bush were some of our client's first camping experiences EVER! Upgrading from our typical student safaris, we offered “ensuite” tents each with their own pit latrine and shower (no sharing toilets/shower tents like our student safaris). Our camp staff took good care of us offering both housekeeping services (e.g. they made our beds and swept out our tents while we were on game drives) and delicious meals cooked over the fire.

Ensuite Tents 

Bush Flight

After landing in Maun, the group is whisked off on a bush flight over the Okavango Delta, one of the largest inland deltas in the world. As a Furman alumni safari, this is more than just a typical safari, in that it has an educational component and Paul orients them with maps, entertains them with tales of the Southern skies and regales them with stories from his 50+ years living in Botswana. I share my 18 years of experience in Botswana and a decade of directing Furman’s Southern Africa Study Away program (2009-2019) and do my best to share my knowledge of the bush (I am not a safari guide but I play one in the bush!).

Paul Orients with Maps

Paul Explains an Elephant's Skull

We are super lucky and see lions just about every day with some unique sightings at that (e.g. a young female uncomfortably perched on top of a termite mound). At one point, our open safari vehicles are completely surrounded by a pride of lions on an elephant kill (one of the worst but most memorable smells you will ever smell). I caution them to stay silent and not move as the lions come within less than a foot of us (I probably should have reminded them to breathe once the large male walked past as nothing makes you feel more alive (vulnerable?) than being within an arm’s reach of scratching a lion on the head!).

Our Safari Vehicle Right Next to a Male Lion

And speaking of smells, one of our tents was “christened” by a striped polecat (think skunk) and its occupants were real troopers declining our offer to switch tents with them (neither Paul nor I have very good noses) and instead “freshening up the place” with sage brush branches and dryer sheets from a traveling companion (note to self: pack dryer sheets! They are small, lightweight and can really make a stinky tent (or bush clothes) smell better!). 

Finally, even though overall the safari was a great success, we did have our own Botswana-style adventure when the safari vehicle pulling the trailer with all our bags in it got stuck in some deep sand…in the dark…just after observing a pride of lions. We evacuated the vehicle, dug out the sand in front of/behind the tires, gathered limbs and branches to put under the tires for traction, kept an eye out for eyes in the darkness, and pusssshhhheed! All’s well that ends well and we arrived in camp feeling victorious. 

In the end, I think the first Furman alumni safari was a great success and I hope there will be more in the future. It was so wonderful to have the opportunity to share my love for Botswana with Furman folks again (COVID killed the Southern Africa Study Away program) and I think we all made some new Furman friends. 

As we bid farewell to our guides as they dropped us off for our last two nights at the lodge, our group chanted in unison, “FU one time. FU two times. FU three times. FU all the time!”

Saying Goodbye to Our Guides

PS: I’ll be sure to explain to the guides before our next trip that this is a traditional rally cry shouted at football games on Furman University’s campus!

PPS: We even caught a glimpse of a leopard and enjoyed some beautiful African sunsets!

Spotted a Leopard

Sunset at Dombo Hippo Pools

No more monkeys jumping on the bed! Human-Wildlife Interactions

I’m innocently washing dishing in the bush after supper. We’re keeping an eye on two honey badgers not too far off in the distance who are trotting around the staff village at South Gate of Moremi Game Reserve searching for some dinner. All of a sudden, BAM! A bug flies straight into my left ear. It is flapping seemingly on a mission to reach my cerebral cortex. It sounds like it is the size of a pterodactyl! “Help, Paul! Help!”

 

He tries shining a light near my ear to woo it out but it keeps flapping and going deeper. I’m starting to lose it! I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy! I’m surprised it is not used as a torture tactic like waterboarding to get prisoners to give up secrets! I would say anything to make it stop. Unable to entice it out, Paul suggest pouring vegetable oil in my ear to smother it (how can this be my best option?). I shout and cry, “DO SOMETHING!”

 

We scurry to the front seat of the Land Cruiser with oil and drown the damn thing! Finally…relief. No more flapping. But now what? I’ve got an ear full of vegetable oil and a dead bug in my head. We move to the tent…headlamp, toothpick, tweezers in hand. “GET IT OUT!”, I cry. The thought of a dead bug in my ear is FREAKING ME OUT!  (I’ll be honest, this was not my proudest moment in the bush!). Paul thinks he sees a leg and starts to pick and poke until he hits something and I cry out in pain (we learn later it was my ear drum and he accidently perforated it!). We then try flushing it out. More oil. More water. But no carcass is produced.

 

When we emerge from the tent, we see destruction – washing basins over turned, forks in the dirt, dishes everywhere, Paul says, “You must have done this when you were flailing around trying to get the bug out of your ear.”  Then we remember the honey badgers…they must have raided camp while we were distracted! Cheeky bastards!! They even licked the dirty bowls clean. Gross!

 

We have come to Moremi to “cut” some roads for DWNP (Department of Wildlife and National Parks) and the HATAB (Hotel and Tourism Association of Botswana) mobile operators. Paul has managed to get DWNP to agree to let the connector roads be “cut” and HATAB has raised the funds. Paul is adding his GIS expertise and advice for free. While we originally thought this was a two to three-day job with a chainsaw (which was highly delusional thinking), a giant front-end loader has been “hired” to bull-doze through the thick mophane forest like a scene out of Avatar…for a week!

Me, Ishmael, Paul

You might wonder…How does one “cut” a road? It is quite arduous and potentially risky as Paul with his GPS in one hand and a rifle in the other sets out into the bush followed by Ishmael and a fist full of red and white tape strips to tie on branches leading the way for the giant front-end loader. They walk and tie ribbons and the front-end loader followers with its path of destruction. Pearl, the park manager, myself, and Thomas, a DWNP employee, follow in the back up vehicles.

 

It sounds simple but it is not. Sometimes they have the good fortune of following an elephant trail, but the days I walk with them and carry the ribbon roll, I’m quickly reminded how thick elephant skin is and how much more easily they can withstand the whacking of branches against their bodies. Branches whip back smacking us in the face, arms, legs…I feel like I’ve been beaten by they time we return to the vehicle. And if there’s no elephant trail, you have to force your way through thick mophane groves. There is often barely enough room to even squeeze a full-size adult’s body through.

 

Pearl and I

We also learn quickly that those clear areas we saw on google earth we thought would make a nice route for a road are actually populated with Kalahari Apple Leaf trees and with those trees come deep sand. A potential hazard for future supply trucks, mobile operators and tourists alike. So, we must pick our way through from point A to point B being battered by branches all the way.

 

Paul, Thomas, Pearl and Ishmael 

And the branches aren’t the biggest risk, as traveling on foot in the bush away from the safety of the vehicle has its own set of risks. Paul recounts stories of coming across an agitated bull elephant that caused them to “back up quickly”.  “Did you have to run?”, I ask. To which he replies, “We backed up very quickly because he was not happy to see us.” I suspect this is what they describe in Southern Africa as “not feeding them the whole chicken” (or not telling the whole truth). I try not to think about it, day after day as the love of my life walks miles in the bush to “cut” a road with all types of potentially lethal encounters awaiting him. Another late afternoon as evening is approaching (most of these days were 10-hour work days), the follow up vehicles spot a lone buffalo not far off in the bush. Known to be a serious risk, this one really catches my attention. “He will be fine. He will be fine.” I repeat to myself in a not so reassuring mantra.

 

The red and white ribbons for marking the trail

And let’s not forget the lions stealthily sitting behind the bush that we didn’t see as we jumped out of the vehicle to tie ribbons for the front-end loader to follow as we moved from one road site to the next. Ishmael was ahead speaking to some tourist asking if we’ve seen anything when we spot them. I shout, “TAU!” (which means lion in Setswana) and Ishmael hurries back to the vehicle. The tourist we came upon felt lucky to see them (a small pride of one healthy looking female and two scrawny males), but my heart was racing given we didn’t notice them until after we jumped back into the vehicle. We are the ones who were lucky! Yikes!

 

Stealthy Lion

Over the week, the crew manages to cut about 26 KM (~16 miles) of road in the Game Reserve. The routes are designed to avoid rising flood waters and bridges in need of repair so that mobile safari operators and self-drive tourists can continue to use the park. Paul suspects that these roads are the most significant changes made to Moremi in the last 25 years and they will save hours of driving as they connect previously unconnected areas of the park.

 

Paul at the end of the new road

Setting up our camp on the edge of the staff village really made me think about human-wildlife interactions. A leaky water system creates a makeshift “watering hole” nestled between the staff housing that brings in elephants, impala, zebra and basically any living creature in need of a drink during this incredibly dry time. Each morning we are awoken by a crescendo of lion calls. There is a pride of four that hang around near the camp and their calls to each other get louder and louder as they approach and quieter as they move away. The loudest one sounds absolutely HUGE and every time he calls for his mates, somewhere deep in my brain a survival instinct makes the hair on the back of my neck stand up. All night long we hear the crack snap of elephants finding things to eat. Things are so dry the crack snap is followed by a loud THUD as what sounds like a very large tree is pushed down as the food supply dwindles.

 

Elephant coming to water in the staff village

Uninvited visitors to camp are not only coming for water, they are coming for whatever they can steal to eat. There is a large troop of marauding baboons who have figured out how to open doors (staff must lock their houses when they leave or the baboons will come in and eat everything) and zippers. After the second long day of road cutting, we come back to find a pile of ripped up items in front of our tent. As we get closer, I realize it looks like the contents of my first aid kit…rehydration salt packs, punctured Neosporin tube, and torn up MiraLAX packets. The baboons not only unzipped our tent to get in, but they unzipped my bag to get to the first aid kit and then bit their way into the kit and several items. The good news is…the childproof cap on Pepto Bismal is also “baboon proof”. They also did not poop or pee in our bed! I’m relieved but I feel violated! I always felt that inside our zipped tent was a safe haven when in the bush, but not anymore! Given the MiraLAX packets consumed, I hope they had a really crappy night! On the following days after the “tent-invasion” we secure the zippers together with a piece of wire and tie the tent flaps off with rope. Fortunately, we had “no more monkeys jumping on the bed!”

 

PS: Bug in my ear update – I lived with a bug in my ear for an additional day and a half so Paul could finish the road mapping (for anyone who has benefitted by traveling on these connector roads in Moremi, you are welcome!). When we get back to Maun we go to the clinic. They take a look in my ear and see no bug but lots of redness, inflammation, and a perforation of the ear drum (PS: never put anything sharp in your ear!). I assure them that it did not come out, so it has to be in there. They flush, and flush, and flush. Wax and blood and yuck, but not bug. They keep flushing and finally catch a glimpse of something WAY in there! They flush more and it gushes out (see picture below). Three days of antibiotics, anti-inflammatories, and ear drops every two hours and I’m mostly better (except for the perforation which could take weeks to months to heal itself!)

 

The bug that was in my ear