Botswana Part 1.
In 2007 a Swiss friend, Peter, who has an old farmhouse near us in Mallorca, suggested that Sandy and I meet him in Johannesburg and drive to Botswana to stay on a private game reserve he has a share in. Our South African friend Ian, also with a property in Mallorca, hearing this said before we left Africa he would join us in Johannesburg and take us to his home in the Drakensberg mountains.
At the time we were living in the two-bedroomed annexe of a new house we were building in Son Bennessar, the rest of the house was just a shell. We had money to finish the house reserved from the sale of Cana Cavea, but our finances were precarious. Skipping off to Africa for a month would be irresponsible, two return tickets to Johannesburg would be expensive. Life is short, we booked the flights.
Late morning on 16 October after an eleven and a half hour flight we landed at Oliver Tambo International. With only an hours time difference, there was no jet-lag. Peter was already there, with another couple from Zurich, to meet us. It was just the five of us as Peter’s wife couldn’t make it on the trip. We spent the afternoon shopping for provisions for ten days in the bush, and after dinner, in our hotel, we got to bed early.
The next morning, at the start of South Africa’s summer, we set off early on the wide, open roads of one of the world’s most beautiful countries. We passed small, towns and villages through green open scenery of rolling hills, valleys and agricultural land. The roads were a blaze of coloured shrubs and trees, predominantly jacarandas in full purple blossom against a cloudless blue sky.
We arrived at the Pont Drift border crossing around 14:00. The officials were friendly, efficient, and there was a distinct absence of firearms. As I walked to the border gate, the South African guard smiled, shook my hand, and I passed into Botswana. On the Botswana side, we were met by David, one of the African staff from Jwala Lodge. David had come down in a long-wheelbase Toyota safari vehicle, with a 2-3-3-3 seating arrangement. Each rear seat, with a low roll bar behind, was successively higher than the one in front. With no roof, windows or doors, the vehicle was completely open. We transferred our gear to the Toyota and negotiated the wide rocky bed of the Limpopo river to the Botswana border post. In the wet season, with the river in full flood, we would have had to use the cable car to reach the far side. After registering at the border post, we set off for Jwala, 22 km away as the crow flies. With no paved roads, we bumped along tracks through African bush interspersed with acacia and baobab trees. Kudu and long tusked wart hogs peered at us unconcerned as we passed by. Crossing another dry river bed, we arrived at Jwala around 16:00. A prominent feature was the long airstrip with an offset hanger for a light aircraft, and a tall, slender, red and white banded radio mast secured with steel cables.
The lodge was on a slight slope down from the airstrip. There was a high thatch-roofed building with a store-room, kitchen, dining area and a lower lounge with sofas books and board games. Stone steps from the lounge led to a garden and on to a thatch covered outside dining area. Beyond this was a briar for outside cooking. Around the briar was a curved stone seat with a low wall for a backrest beyond which was the African bush. Initially, I found cooking meat on an open fire sitting with myback to a black night alive with nocturnal predators, slightly unnerving. At the base of the steps from the lounge, off to the right, was a path leading to two small thatched cottages each with two individual accommodations. Beyond these was a small round African style hut with a conical thatched roof. Peter allocated it to Sandy and me calling it the honeymoon-suite. It had a lovely room with a mosquito net bed and en-suite shower and toilet.
In the rectangular space between the outside eating area and the cottages, there was an extensive lawn. It had a large tree of fiery red blossoms with mischievous, black-faced, silver-haired monkeys that stole anything they got the hands on. At the far end where the lawn met the bush, there was a swimming pool that doubled as an elephant water hole when they muscled in on the place.
Not wanting to waste time we stowed our gear, packed a cool box and set off in the Toyota. We found a beautiful spot, set a fold-up table and chairs, opened up the cool box and settled with drinks. A little after six in the evening, we watched the sun disappear in a red glow behind silhouetted trees on a distant horizon. On our way home, we stopped close to a water hole. We could hear animals coming to drink, but far from civilization it was so dark, we could see nothing. We sat beneath an ebony star-filled sky immersed in the sounds of the African night. It was strange yet thrilling to sit exposed in the blackness, not seeing or knowing what night creatures were prowling around the vehicle. It was then that just one of the many memorable moments of that adventure occurred. Off to my left, away from the waterhole side, I caught a twinkle in my peripheral vision. Straining into the darkness, I saw it again, then another and another until there were hundreds of small sparkling lights. As I watched, they seemed to be moving closer, and as they approached, they multiplied in number. Suddenly we were engulfed by thousands of bright blue-white lights the size of a thumb. A cloud of fireflies passed over, around and through us. Then they were gone, fading into the night, leaving us once more in darkness but for the starry sky. It is something I still look back on in wonder. And so ended our first night at Jwala.
Sandy and I were up before six the following morning, and as instructed banged on the doors of the cottages to get the others up for an early start. We congregated in the kitchen for a quick coffee, loaded the cool boxes for the day and just after sunrise we were out on the track. The plan was to head out to a hide high in a tree that overlooked an animal trail in the hope of seeing passing elephants. It wasn’t yet full summer and everywhere was fresh, green and damp. We arrived and parked up a few metres from the ladder that went up to the hide at about 06:45. Peter was driving the right-hand drive vehicle with Sandy sitting on his left side. The Swiss couple were seated directly behind Peter, and I was sitting by myself at the back. Sandy went to get out to go up the ladder, and as Peter was about to leave on the driver’s side, his friend Kurt put a hand on his shoulder to stop him. Kurt raised his finger and pointed slightly ahead and to the right “What’s that?”.
Peter looked and then slowly brought his leg back into the vehicle. Sandy also got back into her seat. I peered in the direction where Kurt had pointed. At first, I couldn’t see anything then the strangest thing happened. After a delay of about three seconds, the incredibly vivid image of a full-grown lioness was printed onto my visual cortex. My brain had been processing unfamiliar, out of context data it was receiving, and suddenly decided it should pass the result to me with some urgency. It wasn’t what it usually had to process while searching supermarket shelves. My head jerked back, and I involuntarily emitted a soft “Wow”. She was just solid muscle.
Luckily she didn’t have cubs and was content to share her space with us.
I raised my camera, the sound of the shutter filled the confined space, and she looked straight at me. Climbing the ladder to the hide was not an option, so we sat quietly with that beautiful lady for some twenty minutes, possibly the most intense period of my life. Eventually, we slowly reversed and left her in peace. We saw a lot of other animals that day, but nothing compared to the face to face meeting with the serene lioness in the morning. At times when life seems dull, I reflect on that moment when I was privileged to sit close to a queen.