Pantanal & Caiman Ecological Lodge, Brazil: Number 182 from the 1000 places to see before you die book

I sure was getting my dose of avarians on this trip- from the wetlands of the Okavango Delta ….now to the world’s largest wetlands- the Pantanal in Brazil. Home to species which grow larger here than anywhere in South America- including jaguars, wolves, and armadillos- through to others which have been largely hunted to extinction in other parts of the continent- ajnirus, rheas…and those lovely coatis I pictured at the Iguazu Falls article.

Im a bit of a sucker for looking at either wildlife, plants or the top of a martini glass when Im travelling and this trip was boding well. While the 1000 places to see before you die book had recommended the Caiman Ecological Refuge as the base, it sadly in this season was only rentable as an entire house….and was probably in the book as it was the first eco lodge in Brazil…so better to try some others anyhow. I had been booked instead into the Zagaia Eco Resort in Bonito. 

It was thrilling to watch the landscape change from the huge sprawling metropolis that was Sao Paolo, home to some 11 million people, a concrete high rise jungle drifting kilometre after kilometre before finally giving way to a string of islands and bays and finally the green green grass of the Patanal. The area, aside from being an ecological sanctuary, is also home to Brazilian cowboys known as "pantaneros". I was looking forward to having some churrasco served up by some hairy chested, accented, olive skinned, fit, cowboy hat wearing man who might offer to take me riding later on.  

Unfortunately, stressed and grumpy after a 4am start, I arrived at the resort at 5pm to find it was not what had been featuring in my dreams. More like the place youd book for a team bonding session, a conference, or a middle income bunch of families having holidays together where the boys played golf, the girls had massages, and the kids played in the pool. Eeek. I had one of those T² moments (toy throwing!) with my concierge service (all though bless Quintessentially  - im not sure many of their members have as diverse and bizarre requests as me for so many countries in the world)....and, confident that wheels were turning fast to get me out of a place with piped pool music, I sat back with a caiprinha and read a book.

Next morning was an early start as a driver came to pick me up to transport me 200km further north. Oddly Brazil seemed to have this whole network of people who drove people incredibly long distances. Quintessentially had given me a choice of a $6000 private charter to fly 2 hours to one fazenda (working farm....read...cowboys!!)  in the Pantanal....or about $200 to drive to another fazenda 2 hours up the track. I took the car option as I was intrigued as to what the second ride would be like. On the first trip my driver had spent all three and a half hours looking at his phone or reading a bill while flicking up and down through South American music channels playing music I couldnt understand,all the while driving at 160km/hour. My portugese is non existent- as was his English......so I spent most of the ride gritting my teeth and praying.  My second one was a treat- sticking to what seemed a more reasonable speed of 110 km/hr he cracked his knuckles constantly while listening to 'break your heart type' songs the whole way. Now if Id been in the car with a girlfriend we perhaps could have had a blast singing our hearts out and having competitions as to who sang the songs ( choruses of some of them included "making love out of nothing at all," "2 out of 3 aint bad," "please dont go, Im begging you to stay" ).

As it was, after enjoying a solo breakfast at the resort on a table seated for 5, being in a country where I was struggling to communicate (I had studied spanish once for 6 months but that was 25 years ago and it didnt really make understanding portugese any easier), trying to sort out a couple of tickets to europe and asia as well as some work issues, all it did was made me feel more alone on the road.

That was all to change when I checked into the fabulous Pousada Aguape in the western Pantanal . In Joao’s family for 160 years, the fazenda, or ranch, was a sprawling 3 million hectares which until 50 years ago had no electricity. It was exactly the experience that I needed. After a lovely lunch of chicken and beans (beans were to be on every meal I later discovered) I saddled up my horse. Now johnies and i get on very well, and Johny Walker, my horse, was to prove no different. Outfitted with a pantanero hat kindly provided by Joao I set out with Erasmo for a three hour ride in the pantanal.

Now the pantanal, according to Lonely Planet, has the greatest concentration of fauna in the New World. Some 230,000 square kilometres- thats about half the size of France- which lies largely uninhabited and is a protected ecological area. I was here in the wet season when the waters had reached their high mark of some 3m. As a result of all the water- its a large alluvial basin in essence- farming was limited to cattle of which there are some 200 million in Brazil. Aguape had about 2000 zebu cattle from India (80% of cows in Brazil are this breed), 70 horses, 20 pantaneros and...no guests!! The odds were looking good!!

The first afternoon's ride was great- a lot of birds including jabirus,the world's largest storks and familiar to me from north Australia and a family of capybaras, the world's largest rodent weighing up to 70kg,  eating on the banks. Coming back some 8 large bright blue hyacinth macaws, over a metre in length and the....you guessed it....largest macaw in the world, were having a squabble match in the horse supplements trough while underneath my feet an armidillo blindly wandered.

   Dawn hadn't yet broken the next morning when I jumped eagerly on Johny at 5am. Of course, that was in my dream- the reality was a sleep deprived me- caffeine laden, gingerly walking like I had a butternut squash up my doo daa, groaned my way a couple of metres in the air to the top of Indiana Jones -my nag for the day- while bitterly swearing to a bunch of cowboys who couldnt understand a word but got the gist!  At least this time they had outfitted me on an amazing pantanero saddle (think English saddle with half a merino sheep put over it to help with butt soreness).

One of the beautiful things about staying on a fazenda, as opposed to joining a tour, is that they put on all the "normal" activities of a tour (horseriding, piranha fishing, boat trip, night safari, day safari)..................but allow you to do a few different things- spending a day with the pantaneros mustering the cattle, driving a horse driven carriage into town to buy groceries and lying around in a hammock by the pool. Bliss- and in that vein I cant recommend where I stayed enough.

It was a nice slow 3 hour amble to go out to where the cattle were that needed moving. The pantaneros were every girl's dream- faded denims, leather chaps and white rolled up shirts showing off their olive skins, jaunty straw hats on their heads sporting a fancy feather, the older generation an advert for the Marlboro Man smoking away under their moustaches which grew largely untamed on their leathered faces, every now and again one reaching behind their back where, tucked tightly in place by a brightly coloured sash, lay a razor sharp knife which they hacked overhanging palms with.

  

    

Cattle rounded up and briefly penned we dismounted for brunch. Chopping off a leaf they gestured I was to shovel up the cassava flour and put a bitesize chunk of cooked beef in my mouth. Hmmm. I stuck with the beef. Then a communal cow horn mug filled with tea leaves, splashed with cold water was produced along with a silver straw. Chi on the range!! It wasnt anything like iced tea but the straw did a good job of straining it. Several refills later, food and hunger satiated, we remounted the horses to drive the cattle home. I was getting the hang of mustering, along with, in parts, galloping ankle deep- thats my ankle- the horse was up to its chest in water, to stop errant cattle.  There was something deeply relaxing, walking behind these bulls, creamy sacks of skin falling down their throats to their knees like an old woman's turkey jowls, a large hump of muscle on their necks resembling a walrus’s nose and foot long pendulous balls banging mercilessly on their haunches as they meandered through the grass.

It was even more exhilarating when diving into one patch to move a bull back into the herd I flushed out an anteater. Now I always thought these things were small...but the pantanal has giant anteaters (of course!) and it was a good 2 metres long, beautiful long snout with this huge bushy black tail feathering parallel behind it.

 

Arriving back at camp at midday I scoffed down some food (fell  in love with their bean casserole) before drifting into an afternoon nap while the sun continued to scorch the earth.  The afternoon agenda was to catch some piranha for sashimi and piranha soup. Id been looking forward to trying my luck at this since I came so we scrapped the boat trip up river for another day and headed out in a dinghy to kill the suckers. Caymans drifted closer to observe us, their snouts barely rising above the surface of the water as they lazily circled us and then...tug tug tug. Teal tipped damsel flies were rudely thrown off my rod as I hurled in my first of what was to be 9 piranhas later. Piranhas my host gleefully told me "are the Viagra for the pantaneros".  Hmmm!!!

The next few days followed a similar vein- I swapped bush walking safari and horse carriage for a few more days out with the pantaneros mustering, great food and chat every night and a very relaxed me that left 4 days later to head to Salvador to tick a few more of the 1000 places to see before you die book.

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Iguazu Falls, Argentina: Number 181 of the 1000 Places to See Before You Die

Growing up as a child I always had the desire to visit each of the 7 natural wonders of the world, the 7 ancient wonders of the world and the 7 industrial wonders of the world. And so it was rather exciting to be visiting what is widely billed as a given inclusion in the forthcoming new 7 wonders of nature. ... albeit a review of the finalists for this had some inclusions Id never heard of as being "must see's""...the Bay of Fundy? Je Ju Island? Cliffs of Moher?

I had endured a rather tortuous 17 hours of flying from South Africa before I finally landed at midnight at the small airport servicing the falls in Brazil. Having heard from other travellers that it was cheaper and better to stay on the Argentinian side and see the falls from there (as an aside two-thirds of the falls are on the Argentinian side), I clambered into a taxi, crossed another border, got another country in my passport and headed for the hotel. I was staying at the rather lovely Panoramic Hotel- which- according to the website had an amazing pool overlooking the falls. Reality- it did overlook the Iguazu river that the falls were situated on but it was spring cleaning time for the pool so that was shut. 


Nonetheless the breakfast was a real treat- aside from the usual items youd expect in a 5*, there were some- I presume Argentinian usuals- dulce de leche for your toast, ricotta torte, chocolate brownies, pear tarte, fruit bread, almond croissants. Yummy!! Sadly Id been wiped by plane flu, was desperately hoping I wasnt going to wake up sweating as then Id need a malaria test from my trip to Botswana, and hadnt been exercising for two weeks so it was fruit salad for me.


snookum bears aka brazilian aardvarks



Having entered the national park containing the falls I decided first stop would be to have a look at somewildlife. I meandered down a jungle path, skipping alongside fluttering butterflies, jumping over some amazingly ferocious large ants, watching some rather odd tree climbing raccoony looking animals (found out later they were coatis- a brazilian aardvark but I prefer their slang name of snookum bears), whistling a care free tune, rounded a bend and came face to face with......well, hard to describe it really given that I was in the middle of a tropical jungle.

 Picture some rather exotic animals on mass, white luminescent skins, tribal markings on some bodies, chattering away quite excitedly next to a boat....and wearing bikinis for the female species and Bonds underpants for the male species. Homo sapiens Australis.
 

homo sapiens australis




Before.....

 I had inadvertently stumbled on the departure jetty for the boat ride to the falls...being Australian however I felt no fear joining this motley group of naked tourists and clambered on myself- fully clothed of course. Im half English!! What followed was 45 minutes of laughter as we roared along in a hovercraft up to the falls- first stop...Devil's Throat- the most impressive of the waterfalls- 82 metres high, 150 metres wide and 700 metres long. The grinning captain floored the hovercraft right underneath them.......ah...now I understood the various stages of naked undress in the boat!! Thoroughly soaked he then whipped us backwards and.................repeated the exercise again as if the first time was not enough!

After!!

By now, thankful that I was at the very back of the boat as I was definately winning the wet t-shirt competition, we then roared around the other side to another set of waterfalls. Again the insane captain repeated his madness....and just in case we hadnt been fully finished off then did it again.

Bedraggled, cold, and with fully wet clothes I clamboured back on dry land to find a sunny spot to dry off. Sadly it was raining so there was only one thing to do....hike along to the one hotel in the park- the Sheraton- and treat myself to the hand dryer in their toilets, before dripping up to the bar to order a caipirinha and a toasted sandwich. Excellent!!

The next day I decided to brave the park again and do the choooochoooo train tour and a jungle adventure tour. The latter was not really that adventurous- a stick shift truck roaring along a well cut path in the jungle while the tour guide pointed out various trees such as wild papaya and palms...oh and a few toucans lazily flying overhead.

The chooochooo train however was great fun...meandering through the jungle between food stops and the kilometre long walkway right to the top of Devil's throat. Given that you could see the power of the water rushing underneath the grills of the walkway as you traversed to the edge of the largest waterfall in the system, it was a rather slow and nervous crossing. 

 

On one side, slowly rusting in the water, you could see an earlier walkway that had been condemmed. This new one however went right out to the edge of the waterfall...crossing several smaller waterfalls on the way. The roar of the water was deafening- some 1800 cubic metres of water go over it per second.....and in peak floods its been recorded up to some 12,800 cubic metres a second. Perching on the edge of this waterfall you can see why no Harry Houdini has ever tried to go over in a barrel!!. While Victoria Falls in Zambia/Zimbabwe has the largest amount of water, Iguazu is wider but hampered on taking the water volume prize as it is split into about 270 separate waterfalls. Taller and twice the width of Niagara Falls, it is reported that the United States' First Lady Eleanor Roosevelt said "Poor Niagara!" when she first saw it.

The waterfalls were first discovered (at least by Europeans that is!!) by a Spanish Conquistador Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca in 1541 but were not rediscovered until the end of the nineteenth century by the explorer Boselli. Hard to believe that a 3km width of waterfalls at that height, creating that amount of noise, could be swallowed by the jungle for so long.

Ending the fantastic two day visit, I wondered into the information centre and was told that tribal legend says that a big snake called "Boi" lived in the river. To calm its rage, aborigines sacrificed a woman every year as an offering. However one year a brave aborigine kidnapped the woman and saved her from death by escaping through the river. Boi burst in anger, curled its body and split the river forming the cataracts to separate the man and the woman. Lovely!

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Sun City, Johannesburg: Number 180 of the 1000 Places to See Before You Die

It was a slightly refreshed body that clambered into my friend's car to head out to Sun City for the weekend, keen to discover another of the 1000 Places. The gutteral tones of the Afrikaans accent filled the car as we headed out of town and I got an update of the improvements in Johannesburg as a result of the FIFA World Cup- largely roads and stadiums!! Still, even after all these improvements, being Joburg, the estimates of the time it would take to get to Sun City varied from 1 to 2.5 hours.

As it was, we had the misfortune to choose a highway congested with cars, three traffic accidents as well as workers installing the new toll gates - all with a rather complicated charging system depending on the time of day, whether the car has an electronic number plate and the number of times you use that road. Roughly translating at about £5 for the short...and very common drive of Sandton to Pretoria...it would create hell when up and running as people duck and wove to use side roads as their entrance points into town.
Joburg already had a non-existent public transport system, too many people living on the edges who came in to the city to work and therefore needed to have a car, a poor road design system that even with the addition of more offshoot roads and the widening of the highway would still result in pretty much permanent gridlock and now... a road tax.

Anyhow, up we trundled to the North West Province to tick another one in the 1000 Places book. From all I'd heard about Sun City over the years I have to admit that this was one place I was not looking forward to seeing. The words garish sprung to mind as soon as I thought of the place.

Sun City was the brainchild of Sol Kerzner- a South African who is now perhaps more globally famous for being the owner of the One & Only resorts and being the developer of the Atlantis Resort in Dubai, a $1.5 billion, 1,500-room, water-themed resort which opened in late 2008 on The Palm Jumeirah.

However in an apartheid South Africa in 1979 when gambling was illegal he devised the concept of Sun City and over a period of ten years built the most ambitious resort project seen to date in South Africa- four hotels, a man-made lake, two Gary Player golf courses and an entertainment center with an indoor 6,000-seat multi-purpose arena which hosted concerts and was the venue of many World Title fights. A little slice of Disney fantasy world in the middle of one of the richest mining belts in the world.

Anyhow, we arrived......

Now, it could have been the plethora of plebs (im unsure what you call a group of plebians but that sounds good!) jumping on the dinky toy train to take them back down to the car park while we had travelled in the opposite direction- all sunburnt, bare feet, slightly inebriated, carrying towels with strong Afrikaans accents jostling over each other after a raucous day in the complex that made me just not want to go inside.

It might have been that with the traffic we didnt get there until 5pm, despite leaving at 1pm, and were starving and that the restaurants had stopped serving food at 4pm so the only choices was fast food- Indian Halal, Hot Dogs or Steers Burgers (we went for Steers).

It could have been that we had to eat while sitting in some gigantically ghastly setting, replete with faux baobab tree and a painted jungle complete with every species including flamingos sitting near lion's heads (see below) while watching desperate gamblers light up in the Smoking Casino and sink pennies into slot machines.

It might have been on the mad dash to the Valley of the Waves to take some photos we had to jostle pass hundreds of grumpy parents and tired children all heading in the opposite direction, while a cacophony of noise blasted our eardrums as all these side alley horrors like shooting ducks, grabbing stuffed toys with steel pincers, throwing darts and disco dancing lined up every side and at times in the middle of the route into the Valley. Each run by young teenagers who just had that whiff of desperation that one hour till closing time on the key ride in their section will bring.

Or perhaps it was on finally entering the "Bridge of Time" (presumably time backwards as the Valley of Waves was set in some faux Inca style) replete with its many elephants, passing through the Monkey Spring Plaza (a multitude of crouching monkeys sitting on top of a fountain) and rounding the bend to gaze upon...Macchu Picchu fully cleared? Babylon? Some place in Africa that has been lost to a jungle?

 

The designers had certainly gone to town at the Valley of the Waves with their foam blocks and concrete on this one (ah yes- that week long concrete decorating class I did in Phoenix Arizona finally paid off and I now know how Disneyland and other theme parks have been built). From the Temple of Courage one could do an 17m water slide. There was a Lazy River to float around with an Adventure Mountain in the middle. The wave pool (okay I photographed it when it had closed!) was flanked by a sandy beach complete with Royal Baths and the Mamba and Viper tube slides.

Even now, having had to wait 24 hours before I wrote this blog on Sun City as I can still feel the distaste bubbling in me, I can just picture the entire Valley of Waves heaving with squealing all-the-colours-of-the-rainbow children, bloated mothers eating ice-creams on the side while dads reclaimed their lost youth catching simulated waves, hotdogs and tomato sauce smeared all over the loungers, pop music blaring over the speakers, the rush of bodies slipping down the water slides, the slap of rubber as tubes collided.

Closing time I have decided is the only time one should go to the Valley of Waves.

Back to the non welcoming Welcome Centre where we decided, just for the sake of the 1000 places to see before you die book as it promised to do my head utterly in, we would stay overnight in the complex and drive back in the morning. Realising, from the pleb plethora we had encountered on their way out, that the casino- the entire reason why this complex was built in the first place- was going to be more like Hooters Casino in Vegas than the Bellagio, we felt perfectly comfortable settling in for a night of blackjack while wearing shorts and flip flops.

Alas, perhaps the final straw was when they couldnt book us a room in one of the 4 hotels in the complex but could only give us a central reservations number....which answered with a recorded message "We close at 4pm. Thank you for your call" before disconnecting me.

Or perhaps it might have been when I enquired to the man behind the welcome counter as to the possibility of seeing the Palace of the Lost City Hotel (had to see who in their right mind would pay US$300 a night to overlook the ghastly Valley of Waves), I was told that access was only on one of the 5 tours, all of which had.....you guessed it....finished.

Or perhaps the camel's back was broken when I politely enquired as to what suggestions he could give me to do at 6pm in Sun City and he suggested a walk in the garden. It was raining.

Anyhow, click here if you want to see pictures of the Palace of the Lost City Hotel and are seriously mad enough to contemplate even driving to this little slice of hell in the sticks. This place does not deserve a spot in the 1000 Places book...and sadly no locals could think of a replacement Joburg entry.

I meanwhile, having reclaimed my weekend, am off to Sandton for some shopping and massage before heading off to Brazil for Carnevale. Far better use of my time!!

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Part 2 Abu's Camp, Okavango Delta: Number 179 of the 1000 Places to See Before You Die

It was bad enough being led to the single prop Cessna 206 plane- quite another seeing it was the smallest plane on the runway...and another to realise that I'd be bouncing along it in on the way to the remote Abu's Camp on the western part of the Delta. The floods from the Angolan Highlands were expected in a week and so in the interim only the seasonal rains had cast patchy dark green water pans over the scrub of the Delta basin. 40 minutes later we touched down and I was greeted by a cocktail and Jacko who was to be my guide for my stay. He joyfully advised me as we headed into camp that his first task had been to arrive ten minutes before our arrival and clear the runway of game - this boded well for the next three day safari.

Off to Abu's camp

Up there as one of the first and therefore most famous camps in Botswana (the other contender being Jack's Camp in the Kalahari and perhaps Mombo on Chief's Island in the Delta), Abu's Camp was the brainchild of Randall Moore who had a vision of rehabilitating trained African elephants back into the wild and eventually chose a spot in the Western Delta as his base for both a luxury lodge, a research centre, and an elephant riding school. A few km away the sister lodge, Seba had been built, catering more at the family end- or as they say in the Delta- a "classic" camp meaning full capacity was 20 people rather than Abu's at 12 guests.


Now Abu's is not a cheap place to stay. It may not even at certain times of the year be deemed the best based on game viewings standard (Abu/Seba only has the Big 4 and is missing the rhino which only exists at Chief's Island in the middle of the Delta after it was reintroduced there recently) . It probably, on any scale, wont rank as best value, not that that is necessarily a sound measure anyhow. But as Mastercard promises..............some things are priceless!!

Now I've done quite a few safaris in my time.....you, a landrover, following another landrover, following another ten landrovers etc..but nothing compares to the Botswanian safari for starters. Huge private concessions (the Abu/Seba camps are on a 500,000 hectares concession) targeting the high value low volume tourists. And, to make it unique amongst the other camps- Abu's was the first and remains the only Botswanian place to provide all safaris on elephant back. Every day, twice a day, you clamber on board an elephant with a mahout and ride out into the Delta! Abu's herd- consisting currently of 4 elephants that guests can ride, a further 2 being trained up and a young baby, have 18 full time people dedicated to their care. Now elephants cant travel very far quickly, so Ab u's camp isaided in their game drives by the guides at Seba who radio in positions of wildlife as they go about the game drives with their guests.

Nothing can describe that moment when I met Cathy , the matriach of Abu's herd who I would ride on my first day. At a whopping 3.8 tonnes, she stood 2.4 metres from her front five toenails to the top of the neck. Add a rounded back, and a saddle, and I sat a good 3 metres off the ground. My mahout demonstrated the "stretch down" command and brought this 51 year old elephant to a gentle kneeling down position whereupon, aided by a junior mahout's knees, I clambered aboard my own little maharini saddle, swung my legs down both sides, and gripped the tops hard as she lumboured back to her feet.

On Cathy

The first ride- a short introduction- was quite a contest between looking at my wonderful elephant (who would have known they had hairs on their trunks and ears and the world's longest eyelashes), the 2 babies following her who couldnt resist rolling around in the water, diving with just their trunks showing and generally getting in the way most of the time, or spend my time looking for wild life. Thankfully my mahout, firmly wedged behind Cathy's ears, took care of the latter leaving me time to watch the interaction between these amazing mammals and marvel at how close we could get to the wildlife without any signs of agitation on either side.

At this juncture, I probably should fess up two things. The first is that I couldn't actually stay at Abu's as they had razed most it to the ground for a complete rebuild and it wont open until April 2011......so I was staying at the sister lodge Seba a few kilometres away. However in a lovely twist - they allowed us to use the Abu's elephants as if we were Abu's guests. Normally Seba guests only have access to talks by the elephant research people (there are normally about 5 on site doing various projects on the 7 elephants that have been released back into the wild as well as the surrounding wild elephants), and perhaps go and see Abu's herd once.

Now when both resorts are open again shortly, Seba will average about $1200 a day with Abu at US$2500 per day. Which one to pick? I'd have to say Abu's Camp- even though it's actually still in construction but the luxuriousness of a resort that is built in 2011 can not be underestimated. However the obvious reason why I'd pick Abu's is the elephants and the unlimited interaction with them from just hanging out in the boma with them to the twice daily game drives.I was treated by the Seba camp manager to a tour of Abu's in the making so to speak. It looks "luxury" already - sweeping decks, amazing tents all with outdoor baths overlooking the Delta, chesterfields in a library stacked full of books, original artwork to admire, nooks and crannies to tuck into, large pool, gym, wifi etc. The honeymoon tent (view from the deck pictured below) was mind blowing with heated floors, outdoor bath, private plunge pool and a stunning deck overlooking a water hole replete with resident hippos and thousands of white water lillies ( I wouldnt have left that tent so its comforting to know that dinners on your deck can be provided) . 
The Stargazer villa- rentable by the night- was a 2 storey feat of wooden engineering right next door to the elephant enclosure replete with bathrooms and outdoor shower on the ground floor and a massive top storey deck with no walls and one gigantic mosquito net suspended over the deck. It was a pity it was still in construction as sleeping here, with nothing between yourself and the stars, the sounds of the elephants moving around in the night, the grunts of the hippos in the surrounding water interspersed with the call of the hyenas and if you are lucky the roar of a lion would be I imagine one of the most magical experiences possible in the whole of Africa.

Honeymoon Suite in the Making, Abu's Camp

Star Gazing Deck in the making - Abu's Camp

The second thing I should explain is that the price, at either camp, includes charter plane to the camp, all food and drinks, and 2-3 game safaris a day and the most fabulous private tent. Now" tent" Ive decided is a bit of a misnomer in the Delta. My Seba tent was actually an extremely generous 2 bedroom london size apartments- built on stilts with a wooden base and canvas walls. A massive king size bed, armchairs, built in wardrobes, tiles in the bathroom, private wooden deck (mine with a plunge pool), each individually decorated in the style of a Batswanan tribe....are you getting the idea? Tents on the ground these are not!

My "tent", Seba's camp

Plunge pool on my deck, Seba's camp




Reading tent, Seba's camp


But back to the activities......After the first afternoon elephant drive we had aperitives around a camp fire before sitting down to one big dining table- a safari tradition Im told. Dinner was stuffed mushrooms followed by roast lamb and creme caramel. After a few post dinner digestives, I was walked to my lodge by my guide (for safety after all we are in the middle of wild animals) and sat sipping a rather fine glass of red on my wooden deck overlooking a water pan listening to the night sounds. There was the scent of damp vegetation and water in the air lifted by the pungent sweetness of the wild sage that danced in the light breeze on the paths around my tent. Hippos grunted close by as they grazed on the 4 foot high pampass grass, cicadas churped in the trees and in the distance a few bullfrogs started to practice their mating call- perhaps they had heard like us that the annual flood of waters from Angola was due to arrive in the next four days. Hyenas called to the full moon in the distance, while closer to my toes fish gently plopped out of the still dark waters which were only broken by the whiteness of the stairway to the full moon and the green flashes of fire flies as they danced amongst the reeds. Tiny fruit bats performed acrobatics around my head jostling for the best position in the Moriula tree and a male lion roared in the distance while nightjars called to each other across the lagoon. This was Africa- untainted nature, devoid of signs and sounds of human habitation.Just animals going about their business like they had done for thousands of years when man's footprint on the Earth was negligible.

Its a credit to the Botswanan government that they are very strict about the fragile ecosystem of the Delta. No villages are allowed to be created in the Delta so everything is flown in from Maun, no gardens are allowed to be planted, no seeds taken out, all kitchen waste shredded so that monkeys cant inadvertantly eat seed carrying plants and spread them throughout the fertile plains. Anti poaching units are prevalent along with constant inspections by the government to ensure the lodges are following strict guideliness. All buildings, bar the fuel storage areas, have to be built with wood rather than concrete and brick so that they are in effect semi permanent and can be removed in full at the end of the time frame granted on any concession without any permanent marks on the habitation.

Day 2, slightly stiff from 2 hours with my legs hanging either side of Cathy as well as a late night from star gazing in my plunge pool, we rose for a 6am breakfast . The oranges and reds of dawn had given way to blue skies and a searing heat. by the time we were back on the elephants for the 7am early morning game drive. This time I was on Shirene- without doubt a greedy elephant!! Elephants only digest about 40% of what they eat and so to support such bulk they constantly moved through the vegetation tearing up clumps of grass and munching them without breaking a step nor failing to grab the next morsel ready to be eaten as soon as they had finished the first. They added back to the vegetation by becoming a veritable mobile fertilising machine. 


On the back of Shirene


The mahouts largely worked in silence, urging on the elephants when needed in order to move quickly to the ultimate position, or utilising apparently universal elephant commands such as "come here" (which turns the elephant left) and "get over"(which turns it right). I wonder whether Randall realised when he was training the first herd of elephants that teaching them "left" and "right" was perhaps not a great idea when you had a guest on board and wanted to point them out something and the mahout said "see to your left a lion" and so the elephant started walking left..."and then to your right some impala" and so the elephant turned right. At some stage sooner or later the elephant is just going to sit right down and say "my mahout is missing some marbles". Elephants by the way have the ability to learn more than 2000 commands- all of Abu's herd could raise their trunks and kiss me , shake their ears, rumble to us, lift their trunk, stand on two legs, hold their ears out- and its reward for doing it on command was to have a handful of horse pellets thrown into its mouth by the mahoot.



Two mahouts ready for warning shots if wild elephants came along



Gently swaying in my saddle as this beast ambled out of the boma and into the surrounding water plains, I could not but feel a moment of superiority as I gazed down on the noses of a few juvenile crocodiles basking in the cool muddied waters. Cresting a corner we then waded into a pond and spent an enjoyable 20 minutes looking down from our great height on a family group of hippos including a tiny baby a mere 5 metres away who were completely unconcerned about the elephants. 








To the wildlife- we were just an elephant- rather than an elephant with a person on the back, which enabled us to literally walk right up to game. Such close encounters with the likes of impala, kudu, warthog, buffalo, hippo, crocodile, hyena, giraffe and zebras- all of which were encountered on Day 2, was enough to bring even the most seasoned safari person to speechless silence.







impala and zebras




Day three was another two game drives on the elephants - this time I was on the smaller Gika and we took them to their mud baths. It was so cute watching these massive elephants get down on the ground and roll around in the mud, the little babies sqealing with delight, then it was down to the task of covering themselves with dry sand to further cake their bodies.

 



Baby Abu as unconcerned about the close proximity of the lone male buffalo as we were





Jacko my guide preparing pimms at sunset

 After returning to the camp for lunch we went out to ride them again in the afternoon- all now a rather ghostly grey from the sand- for a leisurely two hour amble through the bush back to Abu's camp. After that pimms on the delta before a return to camp for dinner- tuna mousse with salmon, roast chicken and tarte tatin was followed by a night drive to find the elusive leopard. Sadly it was not to be but we did get to watch a hippo graze on the banks and bush babies nimbly fly from branch to branch.

Visiting the places in the 1000 places to see before you die has meant seeing some incredible sights, visiting some amazing countries and staying in some fabulous places, yet I have to say that, while Abu's camp will no doubt be the height of 5 star luxury - and Seba's is one of the few that cater to families- the experience of such intimate interaction with Abu's herd of elephants is up there in the top two best experiences Ive had so far in this book. The other being the polar bears in churchill.



Cathy and I doing a photo shoot....until she starts looking for treats



Both very different but i have to say- Abu's wins hands down! The sun is always shining, sitting on an elephant a few metres away from the most dangerous animal in Africa the hippo and being completely safe was mindblowing, the incredible hospitality of the Seba camp managers and the ability to see so many wildlife with the assistance of fabulous guides........this is the place so far in the book Id say "number 1"...even though for me its number 179 of the 1000 places Ive seen in the book.

and then gently nudges me out of the way when she cant find any!

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