MUDDY HYENA: 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!