My host, Dr. Mike Chase, had made frantic calls 30 minutes after my arrival at the busy Maun Airport. He had been a host to several visitors to the Okavango and he had learnt that one had to be time conscious to catch a light aircraft to fly into the delta.
That his high concerns were sky-high was not unfounded. While I was at the Sir Seretse Khama International Airport, he had emphasised over the phone that missing a scheduled flight would mean the end of my journey at the Maun Airport because bookings done during the weekend had to be honoured. With such an advice, I recalled one of the Maun Station Commanders in 2006 jokingly telling me that so busy was the Maun airfield that light aircrafts landed there like hungry vultures landing on an elephant carcass in Makgadikgadi pans.
At the terminal, with his mobile phone gripped in his right hand, Dr Chase was poised to punch in the numbers of my own mobile phone when he caught sight of me zigzagging through a crowd of airport employees and their clients.
He withdrew his hand from the phone’s screen as I raced toward him. Sporting shorts and long sleeved light blue shirt, Dr Chase didn’t stop but met me on the way. He had to make sure we did not miss the three o’clock scheduled flight. In tow was a middle aged man accompanied by a boy.
I assumed they were his clients; tourists from overseas. Dr Chase used his phone to point at the entrance leading to the busy airfield. This was after he had introduced me to his other guests and not tourists as I had assumed; Dr Patson and his son Mike.
“Are you ready for the journey into the Okavango?” This was an introduction into the Okavango Delta by Dr Chase and what later became my intriguing and memorable journey.
In fact with this question I knew that my exquisite adventure into the Okavango Delta had begun. We were then guided through the busy airfield where we met our pilot, James from Wilderness Safaris to connect for the flight to Abu Camp. The pilot gave us a brief lecture on safety precautions.
With a welcoming smile spreading at the back of his lips, perhaps to calm my visible nervousness, James motioned me with his right hand. I jumped into the front passenger seat of the five seater plane preparing myself to have a fine view of the Okavango Delta. In tow were Dr Chase, Dr Patson and Mike who strode toward the back seats.
We were ready to board the light aircraft called Cessna into the world’s largest inland water systems and most famous and the most popular tourist attraction in the country. As one the guides at the Abu camp would describe the delta later on; “the only place in the country where one can experience second wet season.”
As we flew slow over the 10,000-square mile delta, I peeped through the window and was met by channels forming islands, lagoons, grassland and waterways, which spread below like a map showing roads on a Geographic text book. It was my first time in a light aircraft. I had a scare. I was a bit disoriented. My wonderful introduction to the Okavango as I had envisaged was shaken. The 30 minute flight to reach Abu Camp as James had promised seemed like an hour. “We will soon land,” he mouthed, assuring me as I glanced at him surreptitiously. True to the pilot’s assurance, we landed at the small Abu airstrip within a few minutes, where a guide in one of the 4×4 drove us to the Abu Camp site.
On arrival at Abu camp, I had time to acclimatize before taking part in my first activity which involved a tour of the campsite and later had a hearty supper. Surrounded by the open floodplains, island sanctuaries and papyrus-fringed channels, Abu camp itself is located on the edge of a lagoon in a grove of towering hardwood trees. Though it has been designed in such a way that it does not lose its natural surroundings, the camp has modern bathroom facilities and running water, unique tents, distinctive furnishings and fittings.
When we thought we had seen a better view of the camp, Dr Chase took Mike and I to the elephant boma or enclosure where we met Abu’s residents elephants. We were there on time to meet some tourists who had just ridden these docile tamed animals. We were told that the guests had also spent time feeding and bathing them. My curiosity grew. As if Dr Chase was reading my mind, he voluntarily invited Mike and I to ride the elephants the following morning. We felt part of the elephants even before we could ride them. Just by merely looking at the mahouts dismounting, I was assured that I should prepare for the “African Adventure.”
Come sun rise, a hyena howled on the other side of the lagoon. Before I could ask Dr Chase if there were no hippos nearby, another one mewed feet away. Seated comfortably in our wooden made chairs around a bonfire, we sipped on our drinks as we discussed that and that subject, mostly related to activities in the delta.
Sunrise saw me and Mike on the ready at the two ramps by the elephant boma. Before that the elephants were taken out of the boma by the trained mahouts. One of the mahouts, Onkemetse instructed me to follow him to a ramp where I was to wade on an elephant back. The heard, all females, were shackled before being fed with horse nuts which they seemed to be very delicate.
Wading on elephant-back through the delta wetlands and through a pathway had begun. The ride on its own went at a slower pace. The Abu herd consisted of among others Cathy, Sherini, her calf Warona, Keitumetse and Lorato. As we trudged and waded through the lagoon we were led by a guide equipped with a gun and some tourists sauntering in front of the elephants that we were riding. The camp’s General Manager Wellington Jana imparted a lot of knowledge about the elephants to the guests as we traversed the terrain.
Leading the herd was the 53 year old Cathy we waded through the wetlands. Onkemetse echoed Dr Chase’s introduction of Cathy that she had been kept in a number of zoos in Africa and overseas.
“She has never given birth, but she is a good influence to those we bring into the boma,” so Onkemetse explains as I held tightly to the saddle. A solitary bull hurried by as the tourists on foot cowed behind, the guide armed with the gun; ready to retreat. But, with the trunk raised and ears flapping, the bull hurried into the bush and trumpet a few minutes later.
“The large ears play an important role in an elephant’s life,” Onkemetse jolted my thought from the untamed male bull; to ease my discomfort. “They regulate temperature,” he says as Sherini branches away from the pathway to snatch a branch from the nearby tree and stuff herself. “They eat almost the whole day. Even after taking them back from the other side of the lagoon where they spend the whole day grazing, we have to feed them,” says Onkemetse.
As if to confirm Onks account, Sherini grabs the nearest branch again to stuff her mouth with thorny materials forcing the guide to issue a command. “Let’s move on Sherini.” I was impressed with how Sherini’s large trunk was able to manipulate a small object like horse nuts.
At some point Onks would give Sherini a nudge behind her ears with his knees to pick up her pace. It was an exciting game as Sherini would also have her turn to challenge Onkemetse. She would lift her truck and expects Onkemetse to stuff the tip of her trunk with some nuts.
When Onkemetse accidentally dropped his stick, Sherini hesitated, stopped and picked it. In return she expected Onkemetse to reward her with the horse nuts, which he did.
As I raised my head from Sherini’s trunk, my eyes landed on a herd of giraffe and zebra near a thorny thicket, grazing majestically.
We slowed to a trot as we waded through a deep lagoon. Within 10 or 15 minutes drive, crossing the lagoon, we dismounted at the other side where there was another ramp, purposefully for safety “landing” from the padded box meant as saddle. I realised as we reached the other side of the lagoon where we had to disembark at another ramp that have ridden a horse before but an elephant is wide to straddle.
“Cathy is originally from Uganda, later from a safari park in Canada and brought here in Botswana,” Onkemetse further explains as we dismount. “All of the heard here are females. There was a male one but we had to release it into the wild because it was exhibiting some highly aggressive behaviour,” Onkemetse points out.
Before I could feed and bath the herd, one of the mahouts informed me that he had received a call from Dr Chase to the effect that we had to go back to the camp in a 4×4 because my flight was at 13:20 hours. Hence my elephant adventure ended there but I had gained enough knowledge from Onkemetse and Wellington and their mates about elephants.
By the time one of the guides took me to the air strip, for some reason I was scared of flying back in the Cessena ÔÇô a short 30-minute flight to another camp called Chitabe where my pilot Rowan also from Wilderness Safaris had to drop a few luggage.
As we boarded the light aircraft, Rowan kept on asking me if I was “okay.” Even if I was not “ok” I had no choice.
My heart still thudding we landed at an airstrip at Chitabe Camp. “Are you ok?” Rowan asked in an effort to ease my visible discomfort. By this time I had lost count; how many times had I repeated the same lie “yes I am.”
“We are dropping this luggage and from here to Maun is a 20 minute flight.” True to his word, we landed safely at the Maun Airport within schedule.
The experience of sharing my life with elephants, which I had always considered aggressive, the channels of the Okavango Delta spreading below like the veins of an elderly person as we flew in the Cessna, crept out of mind slowly like a fog on a cloudy day as I boarded Air Botswana plane back to Gaborone later that evening.
