Actually, April 2014.

Ruh took us to the airstrip so we can catch our flight from the Kalahari Desert to the Okavango Delta. The 1.5 hour flight seemed more like 3 hours. We were cramped in with the pilots, luggage, and with no devices or headphones to block out the whir of the propellers. The ride was also rather bumpy due to the gathering clouds. Joining us, as co-pilot, was an instructor who came along to check out our pilots navigation skills - being able to find camps without GPS is mandatory. This skill demanded that the pilot (who is flying the plane) had to juggle maps, protractors, pens and notes while flying through turbulence. I’m not sure why we keep getting these multi-tasking drivers? First Jordan and now here!

The one thing not in his hands? The Tiller or, steering wheel! (Blur courtesy of the turbulence)

A herd of elephants was hanging out by the airstrip, so we did a low fly over to encourage them to move along. We were greeted by our Abu guide, the enthusiastic BT.

On the drive to the camp we saw a hundreds of impalas, dozens of females and a few males with gently swirling and sculpted horns. BT explained that the male impalas chase the ladies they are interested in, flick their tongues and do a nodding gesture. They also show off by jumping as high as they can. Once he has conquered her he moves onto another female, the female mates with many different males. It is crazy to be able to sit in a Jeep and watch nature in action - the Impalas mating rituals, running, jumping and and being chased, and to have our own private narrator describing it all. There are so many impalas, it caused a woman, tried of seeing them, to call them Jafi's. Whats a Jafi? someone asked. Just Another Fucking Impala.

The approach to Abu camp is via a long log bridge over the lagoon surrounded by reeds and water lilies. Abu is devoted to elephant rescue and is owned by Paul Allen (co-founder of Microsoft.) This is important because it is THE ONLY camp in Botswana that has WiFi. We downloaded a few days of email during lunch. We ate a trio of salads, and drank a bottle of sauvignon blanc in the stunning African Mod dining tent. Next to us was a family of elephants munching in and on the marsh.

We were taken to our “tent” one of six on the property. It’s a large spacious room with a wrap around deck on the lagoon. You could sit outside and watch the hippos swim. The screens let the sun and the view in and kept the bugs out. The bathroom was huge with a large closet space, and the shower had a floor to ceiling glass window/door leading to a deck with an outdoor bathtub. Large shrubs and trees gave the tub privacy (from the hippos?) while still having a view of the water.

Bathroom, or a place to get up close and personal with an elephant

We joined a group arriving from Istanbul for Tea. They went on an afternoon game drive and we stayed behind to enjoy the WiFi. At 6 we were taken to the elephant pen to enjoy sundowners at sunset, and meet the rescued female elephants who live on the property - 2 adults, 2 teens and 1 baby. The bar was downstairs from the Star Bed Experience, an elevated screened bed you can book to sleep under the stars. As we were handed our drinks BT got a call from the guide for the Turkish couple - they had spotted the leopard. He asked if we want to go? so we jumped in the jeep, with our roadies, and raced to see the leopard.

It was easy to find the area - all the jeeps were idling side by side. We watched the leopard saunter down the road, I imagined she was disappointed from her uneventful hunt. We followed her as she walked in front of the car - completely uninterested in us, or the sound of the engines. She rolled around on the ground 2 feet from us. It’s like we were invisible as we watch these animals in awe. BT used a red spotlight which doesn’t disturb the animals while they do whatever they do. He panned the airstrip with the light, and hundreds of yellow eyes reflected back at us: impalas, zebras and wildebeest. BT says the airstrip is like being at the mall - a bunch of teenagers hanging around after dark. They like to be able to see their surroundings and if any prey is lurking nearby. We spotted the leopard again, walking across the airstrip oblivious to the animals around her, or maybe she is so superior, she doesn't have any interest in the others.

After Dinner BT walked us back to our tent. We were discouraged from walking around in the dark without a guide or someone from the camp. We were in their territory and an animal could show up at any time. As he was telling us this, we came upon an elephant and her baby eating a tree. You are never supposed to get between an elephant and her baby. BT put his hand up to block us from taking another step and put a finger across his lips to silence us. The three of us walked backwards slowly and quietly to the dining tent.

Each night we organized our laundry for the morning pick up. Its an incredible perk that all of the camps do same day laundry service so even though you may be visiting 5 camps, you really only ever need to pack three or four days worth of clothing. Jacks camp would wash everything but our underwear so we had a disproportional amount of undergarments to get washed at Abu. Maybe it was for cultural reasons? but they were forbidden to touch the underwear of the guests.

I woke up at 4 am to the sound of hippos trumpeting - a loud snorting sound. This was more of a background noise to some very heavy crunching sounds. The room was freezing and damp. I tried to go back to sleep but decided to go to the bathroom instead. I turned on the light, and out of the corner of my eye I saw giant elephant head that filled the entire glass window of the shower! I stifled my scream, shut the light and ran back to bed, heart thumping out of my chest. Now, as elegant as our tent was - it was still a tent - a piece of stretched fabric with a few strategically placed beams to shore it up. I had no idea if that elephant was ripping that branch off for her 500lb baby, or if I may have inadvertently come between them, or if she would crush right through the tent while we slept. Talk about the elephant in the room!

As I was running through scenarios, I realized something else unsettling - the rooms do not have phones. Since you are not allowed to walk around without an escort in the dark, I wasn’t able to leave the room, and without a phone, I wouldn’t be able to call for help if I needed it. The 6am wakeup knock was not a problem for me, as it took those two hours to get my heart rate back to normal.

Since elephants are the main attraction at Abu camp, one of the options is to Walk with The Elephants into the bush. In 2008 A and I went to an elephant training camp in Thailand where we spent three days learning how to mount, dismount and ride elephants bareback. It was an incredible experience and we are now licensed “mahouts.” Riding an elephant in a boxy saddle contraption had no appeal for us - we are Pachyderm Purists, so we decided to walk. We set out on foot with the elephant family, their mahouts (trainers) and a few guards with rifles. The landscape was the opposite of the desert and salt pans of the kalahari, the delta is dense with reed grasses, palms and other trees and today, a backdrop of blue-grey storm clouds. We crossed the reedy river in a mokoro, an african sort of gondola, with the elephants splashing ahead of us.

As we walked I asked BT why the guards brought rifles when the elephants were so tame? He said it was because of the wild elephants. Oh right, I reminded myself - we were out walking in the African bush where other wild animals LIVE. He said that the wild elephants might want to check out the ladies we were walking around with. And, although our elephants were used to their trainers and other people at the camp, the wild elephants weren’t. And the wild elephants were males wanting to mate, and they can be territorial and unpredictable. BT was certainly learned about the sex lives of the animals. Luckily we didn't encounter any wild male elephants, just a few giraffes, grey haired pelicans and baby impalas.

At the end of the walk we were met up with the other guides, drivers, jeeps and refreshments they brought. They lined the elephants up and we were each allowed to feed them by throwing a popcorn-like food into their mouths.

BT took us to see the Hyena den where we found three baby hyenas. They were unafraid of the jeep, and curious, so they came right up to us. Apparently they like to chew on the tires when they are teething. The mom tried to round them up and get them back underground but the allure of the car was much more interesting to them. She'd tuck one of them underground and another one would escape. “Look!” BT said, “all of their genitals are out!" He informed us that they drag their genitals on the ground and across shrubs to mark their territory.

After the walk BT radioed to the area where they kept the orphaned Paseka - named for the easter holiday when they found her. There were a group of filmmakers at Abu working on a documentary about her. We heard the story of the elephant family*, from the matriarch Cathy to Paseka who was attacked by Hyenas and was spotted injured in the wild. All the camps have a strict ‘No interference’ policy so they weren’t able to intervene. Paseka ran to the jeep and followed it back to camp. She hid in a generator room and was discovered by workers, so she became a part of the Abu herd. She was nursed and ‘adopted’ by Sherini who suddenly changed her mind and abandoned her.

When we met Paseka she was 3 months old and already weighed 300 lbs. She was such a little elephant and totally unaware of her weight. When you pet her she leans into you and nearly knocks you over. She has two full time dads that bottle feed her. Only when she is fully weaned can she be returned to the herd, and even then they don’t know if they ‘ladies’ will welcome her.

On the evening drive we saw beautiful birds, Monkeys, Kudos, Giraffes, more Impalas and a herd of wild elephants that you have to be very careful around. We tried to find the leopard again with no luck. We saw dozens of giant anthills that look like 12 foot tall fingers pointing to the sky. Across the marsh, we spotted a family of Widlbeest with a baby. The Turkish couple that we were with insisted that BT drive over to the Widlbeest so he could get a photo. Driving in the marsh is difficult, because its impossible to gage the water levels through the density of the reeds. It took 30 minutes for BT navigate around the Marsh to get to where the Wildbeest family was. And by the time we got there, they moved to the place we started from. Funny thing about wild animals, they don’t stay still for photographs.

A and I were peeved because it was cold, raining and we were kind enough to invite the turkish couple to join us in our jeep and now they were running our very kind and accommodating guide ragged. We returned to camp over an hour late and on the way back we ran into a wild elephant. A wild male elephant - in musth. BT backs the car up slowly and turns around. The elephant moves to block us. BT explains that its a macho thing, a territorial thing. He was casually leaning over the front seat his back to the elephant who was clearly not happy that we were in his way. He was making noise and pawing at the ground with his giant stump of a foot. I was getting nervous and praying that BT would move us further away, right away. BT obviously wasn’t worried as he slowly explained that to make matters worse, the elephant has musth on his genitals - how he loves that word! Musth is a sort of urine stain, a white fluid marking. It’s a show of high testosterone which also leaks from his forehead. BT says the lady elephants find it sexy. Could you imagine men having that leaking from their foreheads? Could you imagine finding that sexy? We eventually find a way around the musthy guy and head back to camp in the dark. This tardiness did give us the opportunity to see two species of owls - the Verreaux Eagle Owl and the African Barred Owl, and to hear the magical bottle-clinking evening song of the reed frog which lives on the reeds lining the log bridge.

We were anxious to get to our tent to change into something warm for dinner. Despite our request at breakfast to zip the place up, we returned to find the tent flaps still open. The rain blew in over the water and into our tent. A large part of the floor was soaked and the furniture in the room was covered in a fine mist. The screens also allowed the wind in, so the the room, much like us, was cold and damp.

At dinner we asked the temporary manager to please have someone go and zip up the tent so that it would warm up by the time we got back. The staff at the restaurant was lovely, they brought us blankets to wear at dinner and they delivered hot water bottles with our cold cocktails. After dinner BT escorted us to our tent and, despite our second request, the room was still wet, windy and unzipped. We couldn’t figure out how to zip it ourselves, and there was no way to call to get instructions. When we got under the covers we were happily surprised to to find more hot water bottles heating up the bed. I think the restaurant sent them over for us because of our excitement at dinner.

The rain continued for the rest of our stay at Abu. At breakfast the next morning we met the manager who had been on vacation. She was horrified about our wet tent situation and had it fixed before breakfast was over. Instead of going out on more rainy game drives, we decided to spend our last day at camp and take advantage of our newly zipped up tent and the wifi. After dinner the film crew treated us to a screening of the Paseka film. With popcorn.

Here is a link to the film trailer...

http://www.nhuafrica.com/license-acquisition/one-off-specials/paseka/

Other Animals:

Monkeys: Bush Baby • Vervet blueballed monkey • Chacma Baboon

Bird Watching:

And there are birds! The variety was incredible. Unfortunately they are difficult to catch on camera. I’m listing them here as a way for me to remember all of them.

African Hooper • Bard Owl • Birchel Starling• Blacksmith Lapwing • Brown Chested Snake Eagle • Crown Plovers • Desert Cisticola • Double banded Courser • Eastern Kleplock • Egyptian Geese • Giant Eagle Owl • Grey Lorrie - the go away bird • Greater Kestral • Great Sparrow • Ground Hornbill • Pale chanting goshawk • Pied Barbler • Pygmy geese • Red billed buffalo weaver • Red billed teal • Redheaded coolies or curlies • Rufus kneptlock • Saddle billed Stork • Spike heeled block • Temmincks Courser • Yellow billed Hornbill • Wattled crane