Village Meeting, Loliondo

‘But why can’t you employ more night watchmen this year?’

It’s 3pm.  I’ve been sitting on a hard bench since 11 this morning, without a break for a drink of water, let alone lunch.  This particular question has been worked over for at least 45 minutes, with no end yet in sight, and we haven’t even touched on what I consider to be the crucial issues facing the assembly.   It's going to be a log session...

The village elders are an interesting bunch: a group of Maasai men, with a smattering of women, for the most part dressed in red shukas (Maasai blankets), with lots of stretched earlobes and bright beadwork on show.   They are the elected officials of the village government, the people who decide what can happen in this part of Maasailand, adjacent to Serengeti National Park.

It can seem pointless and frustrating at times.   I’m a guide, so I spend most of my time (lucky me!) introducing visitors to the wonders of the African bush.  I don’t relish the long hours going through the minutiae of village contracts - always dealing with the same issues, year in and year out. 

 And yet, these village meetings, where we sit together a few times a year and talk about all the ‘stuff’ of running a safari camp on community–owned land can be of great significance to wildlife and conservation.  And besides, it’s all part of the job description.

Across much of Maasailand (and elsewhere in East Africa) wildlife numbers, which have done remarkably well over the years, are now in decline – largely due to recent increases in human and livestock populations.  Predators are routinely killed because they are a threat to cattle and goats, while vast herds of domestic stock roam across the land, consuming all the available forage, leaving nothing for wild herbivores.

The Maasai themselves are struggling: overstocking means that they suffer big losses every time there is a dry spell.  There is much talk about climate change, but increasingly, people are realising that the land just can’t support all those cattle, the backbone of their economy for hundreds of years.

Which all seems terribly gloomy.  But there is a silver lining: some communities, especially those bordering national parks, are living on a gold mine, in the form of tourism dollars.  But how to unleash that potential?

For a would-be investor, there is a complicated bureaucratic and political landscape to navigate.  Anything to do with land is a potential minefield, so village leaders are rightly very cautious about any commitments they sign up to.

Luckily, there is a growing band of safari operators across the region who believe in community-based tourism and who are putting in the time to talk to the owners of the land - the local communities - and are investing.  Success means a win-win-win situation: a great safari experience for camp owners and visitors; a steady source of precious income for villagers; and a safe haven for threatened wildlife populations, a precious buffer zone for beleaguered parks and reserves.

It’s dusk by the time I get back to camp.  A pregnant moon is hanging low in the east.  A herd of wildebeest is walking across the plain in front of us, their demented grunting (mooing? honking?) fading to a distant oceanic rumble as they move away.  In the distance, a hyena calls.

Later, we're sitting around the campfire enjoying a pre-prandial drink. Jenny, a first-time visitor to Africa, says: ‘Can’t we cancel the rest of our trip, and just stay here instead?

Suddenly, the tedium, the hours in a dusty village office, my aching back, the overly sweet tea – it all seems hugely worthwhile.

Skeleton Coast Safari

NamibRand landscape

 Namibia.  So familiar, yet so utterly different.  As we drive into Windhoek from the airport, we could be in Maasailand: the same scrubby, thorny vegetation, the same low, dry hills.  But the city is immaculate, the traffic runs like clockwork - all very unTanzanian!

We head out to the NamibRand Nature Reserve, an area of huge views, stunning sand dunes and unexpected wildlife.  Easiest to see are the oryx and zebra: the oryx in particular have a wonderful habit of standing on top of the dunes to catch the sea breeze and cool off.

Oryx catching the breeze

Oryx bulls fighting

But we are soon captivated by the tiny stuff: Toktokkies, Dancing White Ladies, Barking Geckoes and Armoured Crickets.  (The first 2, by the way, are Tenebrid Beetles and a very cool Trapdoor Spider… while the gecko and cricket just stepped out of a sci-fi blockbuster).

Dancing White Lady (Trapdoor Spider)

Armoured Cricket

All around us, tracks tell a story about the denizens of the dunes: Cape Cobras and Golden Moles appear to dive and 'swim' through the sand from time to time; once we see where a cheetah has passed by.

But the real treat is yet to come: one day, a small Cessna buzzes out of the blue and taxis to a halt on the small bush strip. Out gets Andre, a soft-spoken man with twinkling eyes in his weather-beaten face, our pilot, guide and host for the next 3 days.  Without mucking about, we are soon taxiing out again and we set off on our adventure.

Bliss.

We buzz the giant dunes at Sossusvlei, then fly west over an ocean of smaller dunes, the wave-like forms marching to the horizon.  Then to the Atlantic coast, where we spot seals and (once) a pod of dolphins and circle over a shipwreck half submerged in wind-blown sand.

Flying flamingos

Shipwreck

Salt works

First sight of the Atlantic!

We land on a shingle beach: Andre produces a picnic, simple but delicious, which we eat with our fingers.  Then we're off again, landing this time in a canyon, where we see Bushman artefacts and strange rock formations.

Bushman art

Later, we float over an enormous landscape, range after range of weirdly sculpted hills and ridges.  The sun is sinking towards the western horizon by now, so the drama of the scenery is amplified by huge shadows.

Alpha Alpha Charlie's shadow as we land at sunset

Oryx standing on his shadow

Tectonics, Namibia style

We sleep that night in a simple bush camp overlooking a huge stretch of desert.

In the morning, we head out on a short drive looking for desert lions. We find instead a dodgy-looking desert lion researcher and his even dodgier-looking vehicle. This turns out to be the legendary Dr Philip Stander, who tells us a little about his project over lunch. (One male lion recently walked 90 kms overnight, an unheard-of feat of endurance in our East African lions.  He then proceeded to cover 75-80 kms on the 2 following nights!)

Reluctantly we take leave of the Good Doctor, climb back into Alpha Alpha Foxtrot and set off once more.  When we land, there is a totally clapped-out looking land rover, all rust and bulging tyres, parked by a shed.  This turns out to be out trusty steed.  Low pressure tyres mean that we float on top of the sand rather than ploughing through it, as we swoop and glide through the endless dunescape.  It is a magical ride: we lie flat to peer through a magnifying lens at the sand, which turns out to be a jewellery-box of garnet, quartz and other gorgeous crystals.  We surf down the face of a dune on our bottoms, setting off a slo-mo landslide, the flowing sand moaning like an orchestra of didgeridoos.

Sliding down a sand dune

Jewellery-box sand dune

It is a day of huge fun - we all revert to childhood, howling with the sheer pleasure of it all.

There are many ore spectacular moments: the desert ellies in a gorge; the rhinos spotted from the air, the stall warning squealing as Andre banks hard overhead; but nothing else quite matches up to the fun we had in the dunes that day.

Where's Waldo?

Sitting upstairs in our office, I heard a loud commotion from the tree just outside the window - lots of birds all calling and swearing, very agitated.  Clearly there was something up.  So I scanned and scanned and eventually saw green, green scales among the green, green leaves - and a head, staring indignantly at me, clearly not enjoying the attention.  A lovely Green Mamba, maybe 2m (6'+) long, looped and coiled in a dense patch of leaves.

Mambas occur here, but this was my first time to see one near the house.  They are shy, arboreal creatures, moving gracefully through the treetops, hunting mainly for birds.

Jules is convinced he (she?) is after our lovely Kingfishers...

Bushmen in the Kalahari

It was fascinating to spend a bit of time with a Bushmen family in the Kalahari recently.

The Bushmen (sometime also known as the San) of southern Africa’s drylands belong to the Khoisan group, the original hunter-gatherer inhabitants of much of Africa, who have been displaced from most of their traditional range by later arrivals, peoples with new technologies and lifestyles.

Recently, their way of life here has been threatened by a Government relocation policy, with some claiming that this has been spurred by the need to clear the way for profitable diamond mining and tourism interests.

Wikipedia has this to say:

‘Since the mid-1990s, the central government of Botswana has implemented a relocation policy, aimed at moving the Bushmen out of their ancestral land on and near the Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR) into newly created settlements, such as New Xade. The government's official reason for adopting the policy is as follows:
"Over time it has become clear that many residents of the CKGR already were or wished to become settled agriculturists, raising crops and tending livestock as opposed to hunting-gathering when the reserve was established in 1961
"In fact, hunting-gathering had become obsolete to sustain their living conditions. These agricultural land uses are not compatible with preserving wildlife resources and not sustainable to be practiced in the Game Reserve.

"This is the fundamental reason for government to relocate the CKGR residents."
The government has also explicitly denied that any of the relocation was forced. The official website states:
"Government's policy has at all times been based upon the consent of those concerned, at no time has government contemplated the use of force."
However, a 2006 court ruling confirmed that residents had been forcibly and unconstitutionally removed.’

I think it is fair to say that the Botswana Government has, on the whole, done an honorable job of looking after its citizens, spending its diamond and tourism cash far more wisely than has been the case across most of sub-Saharan Africa.

But it is also true that indigenous peoples around the world (think Native American, or the Aborigines of Australia) have suffered at the hands of their new political masters.

One thing that particularly struck me on my recent visit concerned hunting. Botswana used to be a well-known tourist hunting (love the ambiguity…) destination but has recently banned all forms of hunting. Which applies equally to the Bushmen. I was told that, in certain areas, Bushmen can apply for a license to hunt small game such as springhares and porcupines, so they can demonstrate their survival skills to tourists.

When asked about this policy my guide responded: ‘Sure, hunting is banned, so of course that must apply to Bushmen too. Otherwise it would be unfair.’

But: what happens to a hunter-gatherer when he can no longer hunt?

On a rest break while walking through the bush, my bushmen hosts were astounded to hear that Tanzania has recently passed a law granting the Hadza (Tanzania’s very own ‘bushmen’) title to their own land. On this land, they are entirely free to live as they always have, by hunting and gathering – this provoked a gasp of amazement and a burst of animated talk. Finally, my translator: ‘They are very lucky, these Hadza.’

I can’t help wishing that the Bushmen had a similar deal: a piece of land to call their own, with full rights to live a traditional life. Surely we can make a special exception for these amazing people, who until recently eked a living from an exceptionally harsh environment in a truly sustainable way?

Deep down, I’m sure the government’s claims are mostly right: that most bushmen WANT to live as agro-pastoralists; they WANT access to healthcare, education and clean water from a tap, they WANT to take their place in Botswana's economy and society; even so, there must be a few who want to live as their forefathers did.

Is that so very much to ask?

The Mighty Zambezi

Just as you can't write 'leopard' without prefixing it with 'elusive', it appears that Mighty and Zambezi just have to go together.

Which is fair enough - it is a magnificent river, especially the awesome spectacle of Victoria Falls.  It doesn't matter how much you've read and seen before about the Falls (and we all have) - when you stand on the lip and watch this huge mass of water hurl itself over the edge, the great curtains of water falling in slo-mo into the chasm below, the roar and mist rising from the abyss, it takes your breath away.

We sit in Devil's Pool, a natural jacuzzi inches from the lip.  It is ludicrous how much fun this is, squirming onto the rock ledge to peer over the lip and into the depths as the water swirls past your elbow.  Health & safety - sorry, can you spell that please?

A couple of days later, we find ourselves floating down the same river in canoes. The same river, but how changed from the restless power of the giant that you see at the Falls; here in the Lower Zambezi National Park, TMZ is a wide and lazy body of water, meandering between low-lying islands with happily munching elephants and gape-mouthed crocs lying on the banks.

What a great way to experience the river this is, floating slowly with the current, with plenty of time to take in the teeming life on the river bank - everything from gorgeous Carmine Bee-eaters to monitor lizards and drinking elephants.

Coast Trip

Jules & I are in chilled mode after a wonderful week away at the coast with a small group of friends.  Let's call it a recce...

We started out at Capricorn, simple yet lovely self-catering bandas near Kigombe Village, about 20 kms north of Pangani.  The highlight here (apart from great seafood BBQs and delicious pizza, general chilling and much-needed R&R) was the birdlife.

Traditional ngalawa at dawn

To the north, there is a shallow bay that drains extensively at low tide, fringed with stands of mangroves, so there are hundreds of plovers, sandpipers and other shorebirds, all feeding enthusiastically in the mud.  In particular, there were lots of Greenshank, Terek & Common Sandpipers, as well as Grey & Ringed plovers.  Plus a colony of 100+ Madagascar Bee-eaters roosting in the mangroves, wheeling and trilling just before they settled for the night.

After Capricorn, we set off for Saadani safari Lodge - a great beach'n'bush destination in Saadani NAtional Park, set on a wide sweep of golden beach near the Wami River.

Beach at Saadani Safari Lodge

Top Saadani treats: tracking Marsh Mongoose, Spotted Hyena and Civet (and Jules...) on the beach each morning;

Tracking on the beach...

- stunning boat trip on the Wami (more fab birding, hippos, crocs and Angola Colobus);

Great White Egret

Spoonbills & Yellow-billed Stork

Angola Colobus

and a game drive to a beautiful palm-fringed pool, much visited by elephant and buffalo, judging from the sign; more R&R.

Here comes trouble...

... oh, and these vervets playing on the makuti roofs in camp!

Ngorongoro Crater and Serengeti

Ngorongoro Crater, a cold, cloudy morning. A male ostrich displays to his consort, an elegant, balletic performance.  She indicates her approval, and they mate.

A lioness lies by the road, hidden from a nearby wildebeest herd by the slope of a drainage ditch.  She focuses on 3 animals that are drifting closer to her as they feed.

Their path changes subtly; decision time. If she waits, they may walk out of range, but if she charges, she risks missing them as they are still a good distance away.  In the end, hunger drives her to make the attempt, and the startled gnus run panic-stricken from her.

Her presence is now known to all, so she decides to move on, try pastures new.  She walks surprisingly fast.  It is warm, approaching mid-day, an indication of how hungry she is.  She spots a lone zebra out in the plain - single animals are easier to approach than herds, which have the benefit of lots of eyes all looking out for threats; alone, the zebra must rely on its own senses to survive. 

She starts her stalk along a small gulley.  The zebra, unaware of the danger, moves onto more open ground.  Suddenly he spots her approach and stares at her, snorting. She realises the game is up and moves off once more.

From a small rise, she spots a line of wildebeest on the move.  She moves fast to intercept them, getting into position in a grassy thicket close to their line of march.  The herd keeps coming – it seems that they must walk right over her.  There is a sudden tawny blur, wildebeest scattering in all directions.  When the dust settles, she is left standing there.  She has missed again.  Frustrated, she lies down in the grass and begins to groom.  It’s not as easy as it looks being King (Queen?) of the Jungle.

Kogakuria Kopje, north Serengeti.  A dead spider lying on the path.  A wasp, shiny blue-black, emerges from a small hole, looks at the spider then continues excavating once more, showering earth particles backwards, like a dog digging.  After a few minutes of energetic excavation, the wasp returns and drags the spider into the hole, which looks far too small.  Somehow the wasp manages.

The spider isn’t dead at all.  The wasp has paralysed it’s prey with a carefully placed sting; it will now lay a single egg on the spider – the grub will be provisioned with plenty of fresh food when it hatches, a neat solution to the problem of food storage.  Not a great outcome for the spider though…

 Mara River.  Thousands of wildebeest are pouring across the river, a great honking, bleating, mooing horde, driven by some ancient urge, the-grass-grows-greener...

Some young animals, having already crossed once, decide to cross back again.  It's the wrong move for one unfortunate - a large, scaly head slices through the water, easily overtaking him.  There is a brief swirl and the water closes over his head.
Video - Mara crossing

On the side of a road,  a magnificent Martial Eagle, feeding on an Egyptian Goose.  He has plucked his prey and eaten most of it - there's not much left but the webbed pink feet.  The eagle pants hard, from the heat and overeating.

Midday, north Serengeti.  It’s hot.  In a thick tangle of branches atop a nearby rock, we can just make out a patch of patterned fur, a resting leopard.  We wait. There is a rustle in the bush and a lithe shape emerges onto the rock nearby, followed by another.  With a mix of flirtatiousness and much snarling and apparent ill will, they mate in the typically perfunctory manner of large cats.
Video - Leopards mating

Within minutes, they mate again – and then again.  But the level of hostility doesn’t abate one jot.

  

Kogakuria, early morning.  We heard lions roaring as we set off, so we are trying to track them down.  We try one set of rocks, where we estimate the sound came from but no joy. Then Jairo spots them, distant specks.  They appear to be on the move.  Hunting?  But all have full bellies.  There is a fresh kill nearby and one small lioness has blood on her neck.

One by one, the ladies move off, until we are left with two adult males and the small lioness.  Suddenly, mayhem – the males attack the female, who defends herself ferociously, lashing out at them.  They circle her, looking of ran opening, as she crouches, ears laid back against her skull, snarling and spitting.  They move in again and she launches herself at them, a blur of whirling claws and teeth.

The males roar at the morning sky, then move off, leaving her to lick her wounds.
Video - Lion fight