Surprisingly we are both still alive!!

Not necessarily because the lions were a real threat to our safety, as they were very well behaved, more likely the biggest danger to our health was the enormous meal we have just consumed at this Hotel. A smorgasbord as big as any I’ve seen at home was too tempting for a couple of guys who had been out camping (for only two days, & well fed there as well!) so we made a bit of a pig of ourselves & deserve all the pain we’re in.

Especially when you don’t have to go very far in this part of the world to find people facing the very real daily threat of starvation.

Botswana is one of the more politically stable & democratic countries in Africa at the moment, with an economy based on diamonds, tourism & farming. As such, the people are noticeably more affluent & the shops far more appealing with a wide array of most produce available to buy. They could probably do with a little more road & pavement maintenance as some of that is quite ordinary, although with the country being the size it is & under a two million population means the dollars have to stretch a long way.

Kasane is not very big, maybe 5 or 10 thousand , and relies heavily on tourism thanks to its close proximity to the northern national parks, particularly the 11,000 square Klm Chobe Reserve right on its doorstep, & the Okavango Delta about six hours away.

Our foray into the “Chobe” began with a river cruise along the Chobe River itself starting at one the hotels right on the bank of the huge watercourse. Actually the same one as we are at now that tried to kill us with good hospitality tonight! I started to get a feeling that ‘shifty Rex’ the salesman (this is really a discount!) may have pulled a swifty on us, as we were the only ones on board & it was the smallest tour boat on the river. Anyway, we arranged our deck chairs near the middle, cracked a cold one (not provided) and ate our crusty salad roll (which was provided!) and away we went. People kept telling us before we went that we would see plenty of animals in this park (actually I think that was Rex!) & we certainly did indeed. Not only that, but they seem to take hardly any notice of the dozens of tour vehicles driving all around the many roads along the Chobe River, & inland as well. Our tour consisted of the first evening boat ride, then a bus or road tour till after dark, then another road tour at daylight both of the next two mornings & another boat trip the second evening as well.

As I was saying, we didn’t have to wait long on that boat as straight away elephants came into view, closely followed by buffalo, then plenty of crocs sunning themselves on the banks, & also Kudu and then about sixty hippopotamus, who were just coming out of the water to graze on a big flat island, and our guide could coast his little vessel to within metres of them.. “Surreal” is a word that sprung to mind several times over the next two days, as it was hard to believe that there could be so many animals, of such variety and that we could be so close to them all, including the big cats such as lion & leopard. There was also mongoose, vultures, fish eagles, jackal, hyena, impala & about a hundred other things that I can’t remember. Some things we will remember better than others, such as sleeping in a tent with lions roaring in the distance (not enough distance!) & also having lions and elephants take a menacing step or two towards our open sided tour bus on a couple of occasions. Especially one lion with fresh blood & muck all over his face who walked right up to the side underneath Peca who almost dropped his camera trying to quietly (“You must be quiet” we were strongly told) turn himself inside out retreating from the edge… We had another six people join us on our tour before this happened & I’d say it went through Pecs head that he could throw one of the smaller members out ahead of him if worse came to worse…

Afterwards the guide told us that they view the vehicle as ‘one entity’ and don’t perceive it as a threat to them, so don’t become aggressive. That may be right, but when a 200 kg cat that can probably jump 20 feet from a standing start, is only about five feet away (absolutely stinking from a rotten carcass) than it can be quite hard to relax….or even remember to breathe!

A couple of things really blew me away about our visit out there, besides the sheer volume of diversity & close proximity to the animals, were first of all the numbers of everything and in particular the elephants, and secondly the condition of the park itself with its massive overgrazing. It seems there is no easy answer to this issue as it is not just a numbers game, with pressure from grazing highest of course right along the banks of the river where the “tourists” can get a good look at them. A forced reduction, by shooting etc, is not a government option at the moment and politically unsavory due to the reliance on the tourism dollar, but eventually the result of doing nothing means far worse. Disease & starvation will run their course, causing far more overall animal stress & anguish, and the long term environmental costs to this landscape will mean more desertification & reduced capability in the next breed up. How to introduce rotation / migration, along with number control would be very difficult but necessary & may involve the introduction of far more predator species, both natural & man made into the equation, at the cost of a simplistic tourism system that relies on ease of access & huge numbers.

I’ve just read that estimated numbers of elephants alone in 1930 for southern Africa were around 5 – 10 million, and in 1990 there was only 600,000. So maybe numbers aren’t the biggest problem now either. Loss of habitat since 1930 would be big, but not representing a 90% decrease as the elephant numbers would suggest. Maybe fragmentation of habitat & restriction of movement play a large role….as Allan Savory would agree I would think. It will be interesting for us to get a chance to discuss it with him in a couple of days when we get back out there.

Whole areas (actually almost all we saw) were completely denuded of all ground cover, with every square inch covered in tracks, and all but the most unpalatable and big enough trees or shrubs having their leaves stripped bare. Of lot of the animals are going to be hoping the ‘wet season’ does not start too late, as the middle of November will be a long way away, and I had difficulty trying to imagine there being enough forage left for six to eight weeks.

Maybe they will push further a field than the parks boundaries, or swim the croc & hippo infested river into Namibia which is community owned land so there will be a threat from hunting. To see animals such as these huge elephants in large numbers is great, and the thought of them being shot is not necessarily very appealing (as roo shooting is to many people I guess!) but the reality is something has definitely got to be done & there are many clients quite willing to pay $30,000 US for the chance of a ‘trophy’, that’s just for one elephant. Another possible 30 – 50 million dollars into these local communities, some to fix roads!), not to mention hospitals, schools and meat supplied to those that are hungry etc in a perfectly sustainable way must seem an appealing idea.

The next couple of days will see us head by bus back towards Vic Falls and maybe some ‘white water rafting’ and ‘bungee jumping’ if I’m game enough after surviving lions, elephants and over indulgence…

Then I’ll really have to start thinking about this farming thing I’m supposed to be interested in! Actually, all this seemingly peripheral stuff we are being exposed to has changed my perception a little regarding farming, and given me a few ideas, or direction, for my report so it’s ‘all’ good. Better go as I’m hoping for a long sound and ‘lion roar free’ night’s sleep tonight.