As you will have gathered, our attempt to send off our last E-mail from a nearby lodge failed. Actually we got through a number of times but were cut off by Internet Africa. This has happened a number of times in various places and we are getting rather peed off with them. That and the fact that the average time they take to verify our password is 90 seconds – a long time when the phone lines are dickey.
Anyway we spent our two nights and days in the bush at Mamili, came back to Ngepi last night, and now we’re on our way to Rundu to (hopefully) send off our messages.
Lyadura Campsite
Mamili is fantastic – it makes everything else seem quite tame. We will definitely be going back for another few days before we leave the area. The place is not signposted. It’s about 100/110 k from the main road (about 2 and a half hours driving. The latter part being track. It’s possible in a bakkie, but 4 x 4 would be advisable. We found our way in on Saturday afternoon and went to the Ranger’s office ?? to get a permit. No Ranger – he had gone to town for a couple of days – or so we were told by his wives – just sign yourself in, help yourself to a map, and off you go. One problem … the map stated in big letters “Not to Scale”, it did not show any mileages, and it did not cover the area that we were currently in. Not a big problem really because as you have all been told a number of times, Sean is a trained navigator (etc etc etc) and …… Jean knows how to work the GPS.
Next thing we found out was that a dry swamp – which is what Mamili is in the dry season – is a very dusty place. A very, very, very dusty place, with thick black dust that literally runs off the windscreen and completely blots out the visibility if you are daft enough to stop and let it catch up with you. Not a problem, we are Pioneers, and what’s a spot of dust when there are cold beverages in the cold box. Of course, now was the time that the air-conditioner gave up the ghost. The park itself is dry grassland, where the water lies when it’s wet, and “islands” of trees and bush. It is triangular and two of the sides are defined by the Chobe and Kunene rivers (or whatever they are called, we have found different names on each map we’ve looked at).
Eventually we came across a big tree-filled island right on the banks of river “x” (the one that runs West to East). There were signs of previous campfires, and we set up on a slight rise about 5 metres from a pool in the river. Camp position 18 26 S 23 43 E Alt 943 m. The river itself is not wide – about the width of a normal country road – but it’s fairly deep. Within minutes the first of our Hippo buddies checked us out, and eventually we provided entertaining viewing for a pod of 11. (We think there were only 11 but trying to count Hippo in a pool can be very frustrating).
The Hippos heard that the kettle was on.
The other side of the river is Botswana, and one slight irritation was that there was a game lodge nearby, that ran one of those double-decker game viewing boats once a day and passed about 10 metres from us. (They also had the occasional game drive but kept further away from us). They were pretty good about slowing down and not disturbing us, and we were actually quite chuffed sitting there, drinking our beers at R 1.75 each and trying to work out exactly how many US Dollars or Deutschmark they had spent to be where they were when it cost us nothing at all. It would really have burnt their backsides had they known. There was also the odd military boat doing border patrol.
Lodge boat
Saturday night was uneventful, barring our noisy Hippo neighbours and lion and hyena in the distance. On Sunday morning we woke to find a herd of Letchwe feeding nearby. We then watched Elephant, various buck, and all sorts of other wildlife from our camp chairs. At about 9 am the wind got up, and the dust began to blow. At one time our visibility was down to 100 metres. We were relatively comfortable though, and although a nuisance, it didn’t really bother us amongst the trees. We rigged our black bag shower and made good use of it. In fact, Jean took some photos of Sean which we intended to send you. Unfortunately, Jean’s contract with “Stud” magazine holds full copyright, so you’ll have to wait until they’re published.
Yesterday morning was fantastic. It started off with a couple of randy bachelors trying to get matey with a couple of very willing young lasses from our Letchwe neighbours. Boss Letchwe was having none of it (with a harem of 20, one would have thought he would have been glad to get rid of a couple), and we watched as the marauders crept closer, then one of the females would make a dash in their direction only to be headed off by B.L. with much snorting and pronking. (pronking Mike, pronking!!).
Vultures and Marabou Stork
On the other side of the river were about 30 vultures and Marabou Stork, a Giraffe, some elephant – at a distance – and a herd of young Impala rams who, with much growling (they sound very fierce) and clashing of horns, were having a mock battle. Suddenly they became watchful, and along the bank romped 2 lionesses and a cub, followed at a sedate pace by a male. The cub was playing with something, we couldn’t clearly make it out, but it looked like a black wig (Alas, maybe Ntombe didn’t make the Saturday dance after all). They knew we were there, but, apart from the odd cool stare from Pop Lion, it didn’t bother them. In complete euphoria over that sighting we looked back behind our island to see how the randy Letchwe were doing. They too were watchful and all looking in one direction. A leopard was strolling along trying to look disinterested, but the buck obviously knew better. One interesting observation though, in his stroll he passed close to a pair of warthogs, who were quite unperturbed by his presence, in fact they then followed him for some time afterwards. Looking for some action perhaps?
Game on the Botswana side of the river.
We broke camp very reluctantly and are now counting the days to our return. Probably next week.