Big Safari Game in the Okavango Swamp, Kalahari Desert Travel August 30, 2008
Posted by dodo in : Africa, Botswana, Cape Town, Europe, Rail Pass, Sightseeing, South Africa, Tanzania, Tickets, Tour, Trails, Travel Clinic, Travelling Bag, Trip, Vaccinations , trackbackWe slid through the swamps while animals criss-crossed our path before and aft; kudu, zebra, buffalo, impala, and a herd of fifteen giraffe, splashing through the water with feet big as plates. Matata poled gracefully; he could have been punting down the Cam as his pole pushed blue and white water lilies aside. His ears were sharp as a jackal’s and he could spot the tracks of a hippo from an extraordinary distance. The lilypad sized footprints, at least one foot across, sank deep into the mud — heavy, purposeful tracks.
We camped on an island of palm trees. Matata built a fire over which we cooked a supper of beans and rice while he caught a fish with a piece of string and what seemed very little else. The night air amplified the snort and splash of animals and I was very grateful for the orange glow of the fire through the canvas walls of the tent. Matata slept outside and promised to keep the fire burning; I hoped he was a light sleeper.
When I awoke it was very dark and the fire had gone out. I lay very still, the hair rising on the back of my neck as something nudged me through the canvas. There was a snuffle, a grunt, followed by the sound of chewing. It started to rain. The animal pushed against the floor of the tent. The German girl killed by a lion had been sleeping in a tent like ours. I screamed.
`Matata!’
My friend, slumbering fitfully by my side, awoke with a yell. Matata’s voice said in my ear, let me in, please. Quickly. It’s raining.’
For an hour the three of us crouched inside the leaking tent. When the rain eventually stopped Matata crawled outside to relight the fire. I closed my eyes but seconds later there was a scream and the sound of crashing undergrowth; Matata had found a snake curled up in the warm ash of the fire. There was only one thing to do; light another fire to drive the snake away. We spent the rest of the night collecting wood, examining each piece by torchlight before touching it.
We soon learned to give animals the right of way in the swamps, sitting for hours at a time in the dugout, watching elephants plod by. Our unwound watches lay in our rucksacks and when they stopped we followed the pattern of night and day instead. Eating supper early, we were asleep by eight, before waking at five for the dawn.
In spite of Matata’s shock-horror tactics, he was the most wonderful guide, in tune with the swamps by some atavistic sixth sense. After we woke, he would take us on to the bigger islands, known as the ‘Big Bush’. Here he tracked animals, and we followed, wading waist-deep through swamp water, crawling on our stomachs to be as close as possible.
The brooding atmosphere of the swamps accentuated our smallness and vulnerability. Even sounds at night dominated us, as the firelight picked out bright eyes, blinking through the darkness. I was comforted when Matata showed me a Boer war rifle wrapped in rags in the bottom of the canoe. I doubt whether it could have found its target but the very shape of it in my hands was reassuring. A very small pocket Penknife (with hoof-pick and corkscrew) hadn’t been lending me much courage.
We told Matata we wanted to go further north still, into the Chobe and Moremi game parks. He missed a beat with his pole and muttered the word ‘Caprivi’, shaking his head. He told us his cousin was a game scout in Moremi, employed in order to prevent poaching. He was the only man for hundreds of miles, without radio or vehicle. He saw no more than four people a year, and was given three bullets a month with which to catch his food. Matata shook his head again, as if we were fools.
After a week in the swamps he left us in a camp at the north end of the Okavango. We drank from the crocodile-infested river, and lions visited the camp every night. I missed Matata’s sixth sense and the Boer war rifle. I missed the wet, swampy jungle and the snort of the hippos. I found my penknife and kept it close as the shadow of a vulture wheeled over the tent. I remembered the old man in the military coat and knew I would have felt safer with a handful of dry knucklebones in my pocket.
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