Month: September 2014

De-bugging

Moremi Game Reserve has been on our list of “places to visit before dying” for several years. Although in 1999 we visited Botswana, we had limited time and focused on Makgadikgadi Pans National Park and then flew into the Okavango delta where we stayed at a camp known as Oddballs.

Fifteen years later in May 2014, and taking advantage of our son’s holidays, we re-visited Botswana with the main objective of seeing Moremi Game Reserve. We made an additional effort to adjust our accommodation to the itinerary of the President of Botswana, as his visit to the area coincided with ours and, for some reason (perhaps justified?) he had priority over us!

Our itinerary was:

Nxai Pan National Park, South Camp (29 – 31 May).

Moremi Game Reserve, South Gate Camp (31 May – 3 June) and Third Bridge Tented Camp (3 – 5 June). The earlier post “Tree Cheetahs” is part of this visit.

Makgadikgadi Pans National Park, Khumaga Camp (5-6 June).

As the trip was long, we included two nights at Nxai Pan. We remembered the place because of the very large baobabs known as Baines’ baobabs, found on an island in the saltpan with not much else!

Regrettably, during our trip we lost one of the camera’s memory cards so many pictures are lost to humanity!

An innovation during this trip was that the Department of Wildlife and National Parks of Botswana (the Department) has tendered the management of its camps to different private companies. While this may be good for the maintenance of the camps and other reasons important to the Department, booking and paying becomes cumbersome. In our case, we had to pay three different companies to secure our bookings! (here I will insert link to Department’s page with info on bookings)

Coming from Zimbabwe, the entrance to Nxai Pan is 65 km from Gweta. We registered at this first gate where we learnt that the President had been there in the morning and that he had left already, leaving a good impression among the staff there! After negotiating another 37 km, most of which over deep sandy tracks, you arrive at the final entrance gate. A note referring to this road on the Department’s web page puts things into perspective, so I should have been prepared:

“The sandiness of this track should not be underestimated and only 4×4 vehicles should attempt the journey, engaging 4-wheel drive before negotiating the deep sand – carrying a spade is also wise!”

Wisely we did carry a still uninitiated spade and arrived at South Camp without problems. The place was well shaded and all facilities were excellent.

When it was time to use the ablution blocks, we encountered a surprise. They were protected by a field of hundreds of cement blocks aligned at a 10 cm distance from each other. Each block ended in a 5 cm sharp iron spike. We had seen similar but simpler arrangements of concentric stones to deter elephants from damaging trees. However, this was an advanced version, almost resembling anti-personnel barriers seen in WWII pictures! As the use of showers and toilets was essential, crossing them was imperative! (pic of baobab with stones?)

Careful exploration of the barrier revealed a slightly wider gap, large enough to plant our feet toe-to-heel and make slow progress, taking care not to lose our balance. This was challenging enough during the day. At night it became a potentially mortal field where all senses needed to be focused on the task to avoid falling to what it looked like sure maiming!

We arrived at the campsite quite late and after putting our tents up (and surviving the visit to the ablution blocks) we went to the nearby water hole for a quick look. This is perhaps the focal attraction of Nxai . It is near the campsite, in the heart of a large grassy plain and dotted with umbrella thorn trees. Here, several animal species can be seen, drawn by the availability of water.

Nxai Pan’s is at its best during the rain season when a multitude of animals congregate there (including large numbers of springbok) and various species reside there permanently. Although it was the dry season, we were lucky enough to see a pride of lions made up of two adult lionesses with five cubs, together with two adult males. They were well fed and being their usual lazy selves, totally ignoring possible prey such as giraffe, zebra and greater kudu that came (in numbers) to drink.

Unknown to us, a surprise was waiting for us back at the camp. As earlier we were focused on the “spike-crossing”, we had not noticed that the camp was crawling with small stinkbugs. Although they were rather nice looking with a combination of brown and orange, crushing them released their strong and rather pungent odour. To our great consternation, there were hundreds of the smelly things!

A green relative of the campsite invaders. Their pictures were lost with the camera card.

To make matters worse, like most insects, being attracted to light is in their genome! Protecting your glass of wine, cooking pots and dinner plates from their dive-bombing became a high priority, as there was not much else to be done about their presence! Despite our efforts, some drowned or got burnt to death in our pots. Fortunately no unexpected crunchy bits were found in our food!

Unlike dinner, achieving a stinkbug-free sleep was infinitely more complicated! The first alarm was sounded by our son when he discovered that they were getting inside the tents, despite the tight zippers: “my tent is full of bugs!” he said with a touch of exaggeration and adding a few epithets that I omit for the sake of the under-aged readers.

I was very pleased in my sleeping bag -having successfully negotiated the ablution spikes at night, so I decided to weather out the bug storm. I did so by adopting the ostrich trick of burying my head deeper in the bag, trusting that my poor sense of smell would not betray me. My companions did not join me in the use of this tactic, being of different genetic make up (my wife) and having inherited a lot of that (my son).

Although I believed it to be a fruitless procedure and told them so, they proceeded to methodically review all their belongings to remove the invaders from their clothing and shoes. This required a prolonged de-bugging session that was painstakingly achieved. They then proceeded to extract all the bugs from the tent. As this was all done with the aid of light and torches, it was a near never-ending exercise as new bugs kept getting in while others were being extracted.

Eventually an equilibrium that favoured the humans was achieved, the lights were turned off and calm was restored while I tried to keep first my chuckle and then my rude remarks to myself. The calm did not last too long as I heard my son say: “Shit, I just crushed another bug!” and opening the zipper to take it out. We spent a “perfumed” night, some of us resigned and others fighting the bugs to the bitter end!

Despite the rather “bugged night”, the following morning we left early for Baines’ baobabs. They were painted in 1862 by Thomas Baines, a famous painter and explorer of the last century during his journeys through southern Africa. Today, the same scene that entranced Baines is still there, unchanged as these trees take hundreds of years to grow! Perched on the edge of the large Kudiakam pan, dry for most of the year, they preside majestically over the salty flat span surrounding them. However, if the rains are good, the place becomes an island in a large sheet of water where water lilies appear, along with abundant waterfowl life. Needless to say that the place looked the same as in 1999…

Baines’ baobabs in 1999.

You get to the baobabs after driving a couple of hours over sand dunes on a rather rough and undulated road that eventually delivers you to the open area of the pan where you immediately spot the clump of trees in the distance. Luckily some pictures taken with the cell phone survived and I include them in this post.

The trees are rather dark and coppery, standing quite close to each other. One of the colossi has fallen but it is still growing on its side! I must confess that I did not count them and, judging by Baines’ own account of his discovery, he was not very precise either after seeing them for the first time when he wrote:

“… five full sized trees and two or three young ones were standing, so that when in leaf their foliage must form one magnificent shade. One gigantic trunk had fallen and lay prostrate, but still losing none of its vitality, sent forth branches and leaves like the rest.”

After watching a Secretary bird in search of snakes, a rather rare sight in this latitude, the trio of “stinkbug-wise” campers returned to the camp later in the evening. After an excellent shower to rid ourselves of the dust collected during our drive, and a hearty pasta dinner to settle us down, we soon were in our tents without bothering too much about our smelly foes.

The bugs were a real nuisance while we disassembled our camp, as the beasts contrived to find their way into all the folds of our tents, empty bags, chairs and any item that offered a crevice to be filled. It took a lot of work to remove them and, despite our efforts, we carried a few fragrant reminders of Nxai Pan with us to our next destination: South Gate at Moremi Game Reserve.

Note: Header picture by Julio A. de Castro.

A tame lion: a Kenyan tale

A tale told to me by a friend while enjoying a drink at a campfire in the Maasai Mara Game Reserve in Kenya. As lions are among our favourite animals, this short story stuck in my mind. I hope you enjoy it!

I believe that the event took place in the 50s. There was either a farmer or a game warden that resided at a camp in the Athi plains, a few kilometres from Nairobi. Somehow he had acquired a lion cub that he raised to become, as usual, a rather large and potentially dangerous male lion that lived with him and his workers at his camp.

He was well known in Nairobi as he came to get his provisions from the duka (store in KiSwahili), leaving the lion tied up in the back of his truck. This was rather unusual at the time and therefore it attracted some curiosity among shoppers!

For some reason, on this particular occasion he came to Nairobi with a loaded truck and he was forced to leave his lion at camp, together with his camp staff. The jobs he needed to do that day took him longer than he anticipated so he left late and it was dark when he got back to his camp.

It was the norm that his vehicle lights would warn the camp of his imminent arrival and people would be waiting for him to report on the events of the day and help him to unload. The camp was by the river and he could see it from above just before he came down to it. The camp appeared deserted. He slowed down and had a good look, still nothing. “This is odd” he thought and then caught a slight movement with the corner of his eye. A male lion was trotting towards the bush and it was not his!

It was not rare that lions “visited” his camp so he moved on, while keeping an eye on the situation. He regretted leaving his rifle behind! After making sure that there were no more lions in camp by using the car’s headlights, he decided to get out of the car. Being cautious, before he entered the camp, he called his staff but no one replied. After waiting for a while in the dark, he carefully walked to his staff quarters. There was no one there either! He then decided to fetch his hunting gun from his tent.

The tent was zipped up. He unzipped it as gently as possible, and put the light on. He could not believe what he saw! All his workers were there; looking rather frightened and, also with them was the lion, looking equally terrified and shaky!

Gardening in the wild (I)

After I was offered a job in Ethiopia in 1988 and while still in Kenya, in my anxiety to know where we were getting to, I contacted a consultant that had just been there to get preliminary information. We knew each other quite well and he was frank with me. “The place is beautiful” he said, and he added “if you can get there with your car in one piece! We blew a tire, went off the road and had a near miss as we hit a large rock that stopped us from going down a steep slope”. I am sure he was enjoying this -probably the look on my face- when he added “but don’t let me put you off!” Trying to digest this and making fruitless efforts to hide my discomfort, I asked for details about the living quarters and the work. He complied with the latter and then said: “You are lucky as you will have a very large garden”. This somehow lifted my spirits and then he finished me off by saying: “the whole of Ethiopia will be your back garden!” I refrained from more questions…

Contemplating our "enlarged' garden with a visiting friend.

Contemplating our back garden with a visiting friend.

So we prepared for self-sufficiency through gardening! We bought seeds and tools and this was the beginning of our gardening experience in Africa. Our first visit to the local market confirmed that we had taken the right decision. There was a market every Saturday where farmers brought their produce, often walking very long distances over very hard terrain. A look at their feet clad in the ubiquitous sandals made from car tires vouched to that! Clearly their farming efforts were not directed towards the “forengis” (foreigners in Ethiopia) and fresh vegetables were rare. You could find tomatoes and, occasionally, onions. Both were sold by rows of farmers (mostly women) seated behind piles of 3 to 5 fruits. Attempts at buying all the tomatoes offered by any one of the sellers -through a kind Oromo interpreter- provoked a strong negative response as they were only happy to part with one or at most two units. That meant that to get a kg you needed to negotiate with about six farmers! A time consuming exercise!

A local market.

There was also a number of produce that was utterly unknown to us and I do not even recall their names or use. I do recall seeing Oromo potatoes (Coleus edulis) and ensete (Ensete ventricosum). The former is widely consumed in Oromia and we did enjoy them steamed or boiled. The ensete is an important contributor to food security in the region and “kocho” was on offer. This greyish paste is prepared from the fermented pulverised trunk and inflorescence. This is a delicacy consumed at weddings and other important feasts. We did eat it occasionally but it did not leave a lasting impression.

Through her dedication, after a few months, my wife had transformed our backyard into a vegetable haven that was the topic of conversation in the laboratory. There were tomatoes, Chinese cabbage, lettuce, spinach, beans, peas and various spices. We were enjoying our fresh produce!

We discovered Seven year beans (scarlet runner beans) in Ethiopia.

My wife tendering the garden.

This lasted until the monkeys discovered it! To enlighten you, we were dealing with two main species: the vervet (Chlorocebus aethiops) and the mantled guereza (Colobus guereza), also known as black and white colobus. We loved watching them in the wild but not in our garden. The vervets were the main menace but the colobus, a hervivorous species, would also come down from their normal arboreal habitat to enjoy our garden. It is one thing to deal with small pests (insects, mollusks) and another one to control birds and/or mammals! To make matters worse, monkeys have quite developed brains, are very daring and they arrive in troops! After the first rather devastating visit, the superior primates -us- needed to deploy appropriate measures to prevent this from happening again! Clearly, we were not able to take pest protection measures applied in developed countries (enclosing the garden in chicken wire, flash guns, etc.). We had a problem and needed to act fast!

Colobus monkeys keeping an eye on the garden.

We did not invent anything new when we decided to consult the local farmers to seek their wisdom on the problem. At the end of the “expert consultations” we came to the conclusion that the best and probably only acceptable solution was to scare them. So, following their advice, we needed to find someone to watch our garden. It is common to see planted areas being watched by farmers from small raised towers from where they can see the crop area and take measures to scare pests away, such as stone throwing, shouting, running after them and other measures that vary according to the intruder. It is a different thing to scare monkeys flock than to chase away an elephant or a hippo!

Acting as per the recommendations, we proceeded to find the suitable candidate by consultating with other neighbours. We were fortunate to find a young relative of one of the veterinarins that was presented to us as the solution and he was duly employed to carry out the task. After this measure, although the monkeys at first continued to besiege our garden, they soon gave up and moved off.

A Vervet monkey feeding on stolen produce.

Once this major problem was dealt with successfully, vegetables were produced in abundance as the climate there is very favourable for plant growth with an average temperature of 18°C and an annual rainfall of about 1800mm and insects were not a major problem.

International Women’s Conference

We spotted this signpost near Acornhoek in South Africa while returning from our trip to Kruger National Park. The ‘Latter Rain Church’ organized the event. Would you agree with me that this church is perhaps related to the ‘Lutheran Church’?

On 30 September 2014 the Bushsnob wrote:

The Latter Rain Church in not related to the Lutheran Church. Check this link if interested in following this issue further:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latter_Rain_(post–World_War_II_movement)

Tree war

I said earlier that I am not a botanist and I am interested in the animal rather than the plant world. However, a visit to Mana Pools National Park would not be complete without spending time “tree-watching” . Here I present some facts that I trust you will find of interest.

It’s difficult to describe the various Mana Pools’ habitats. They range from clumps of green Natal mahogany (Trichilia emetica), Sausage trees (Kigelia africana) and Zambezi fig trees (Ficus bussei) to the rather sparsely populated Apple ring acacia (Faidherbia albida) woodlands, not to mention the areas of dense bush (known in this region as “jesse”) found further inland in the hillier parts. The result is an amazing, if rather fragile, bio-diverse habitat that many animals share, including more than 300 bird species. The above pictures, hopefully give you a better idea of what I fail to describe!

Although the experts list many tree species, the uninitiated (like me) feel attracted by the most striking ones. The Apple ring acacia trees are the main species of the riverine Mana Pools’ woodlands scattered all over the flat plains. They are large trees that, with time, develop a characteristic knobby trunk and as mentioned in an earlier post, they produce pods rich in protein that constitute important food for the animals during the dry season. Regrettably, a friend told me that for some reason they have stopped multiplying. This is rather surprising as the seeds are found all over the place.

Apple ring Acacia woodlands.

The large Sausage trees were beginning to produce their strings of strongly scented dark red flowers. Many animals, including monkeys, also consume them. I remember seeing buffalo sniffing the ground for long periods at dusk at the campsite in Mana Pools on an earlier visit and to wonder what they were doing. It was only after a while that I realized that they were feeding on the Sausage tree flowers that had dropped to the otherwise dusty ground. Its fruits -rather large sausages weighing up to several kg- develop later on during the year, and various animals such as baboons, elephants and hippos consume them, while people also use them in beer brewing.

The Natal mahogany are large, dark green trees whose crowns in Mana Pools show a characteristic bottom foliage with an evenly trimmed horizontal lower edge, which is an example of the wild art of the master topiarist-browsers that feed on them, among whom are impala and greater kudu.

Can a human achieve such trim?

All trees complement each other to achieve this beautiful landscape. However, and perhaps surprisingly to the reader, there is a silent and long-term tree war being waged while we watch… I am not talking about Lord of the Rings’ Ents but rather a combination of several battles being fought by stationary trees since time immemorial. It all starts with a bird or monkey feeding on a fig and dropping its seeds in a suitable place up a tree, where a hollow filled with soil allows germination to take place.

One more tree…

Good eyes are needed to spot the "baby" Zambezi fig tree...

Good eyes are needed to spot the “enemy”…

A further close-up reveals the birth of a Zambezi fig tree.

Soon, an innocent-looking two-leaf seedling appears. After consolidating itself, it starts sending down aerial roots that surround the host tree and that will eventually reach the ground to bury themselves, becoming true roots. The fig tree uses the host to gain support and structure in its growth; the host is like a guiding stick similar to those used to support grapevines or tomato plants. In their quest for support and with their uncanny ability to survive in the most unlikely places, fig trees produce natural sculptural Masterpieces that occasionally damage ruins, which is an entirely different problem.

Fig tree growth can even crack rocks and buildings.

At some stage during the battle, it seems as if the two trees coexist naturally, adding great beauty to the forest. However, the process continues inexorably and the invader eventually strangles the host tree. This is purely mechanical as the pressure applied is such that it has the same effect as if the host tree would be ring-barked, interrupting the flow of water and nutrients between roots and the rest.

Watching a fig embrace. The branch on the left belongs to the host tree.

Watching a fig embrace. The host tree is still strong and visible on the left.

Luckily for some (in rare cases) animals may come to the rescue. The aerial roots are eaten by elephants and, in this way, these animals become an unwitting ally of the host tree, halting the growth of the fig and saving the host tree at least for a while.

A closer view of the fig tree being browsed and stopped from engulfing the host tree.

However, this is an exception and the usual outcome is that the Zambezi fig tree becomes established, winning another battle.

A battle going on. The branch on the right, above my wife, belongs to the host tree being engulfed by the fig tree.

The branch on the right, above my wife, is what remains of the host tree.

A very large Zambezi fig tree.

Fig trees are beautiful shady trees with a great canopy that extends further than most trees, considering the size of their main trunk. This is often their weakness as, being soft, they often crack and fall which leads to the death of the tree.

A collapsing fig tree.

Despite these battles that rage silently in plain sight, we should not worry as the outcome is by no means the doom of the striking Mana Pools woodlands!

On silent feet

To write these lines I needed to sit down and in so doing, I sat on a snake! Luckily any concerns you may have about my derrière are unnecessary as said snake was made of rubber. Yes, I know, I should not be playing with toys at my age but some of us are take longer to mature!

Baboons and vervet monkeys are a menace while camping in Africa, and Mana Pool’s lodges are no exception to the rule. We learnt that rubber snakes are a good deterrent so we alwayscatter a few around our area while on safari. They work well and we have had fun watching monkeys perform panicky gravity-defying summersaults while screaming in terror after spotting them! I will come back to the topic of monkeys and camping in the future, so for now I turn back to Mana Pools.

In my earlier post I mentioned that in Mana Pools you are able to go about freely on foot. Funnily enough, you often come into much closer contact with wild animals while in your lodge or campsite than when walking in the bush. The former (named by the Zimbabwe Parks & Wildlife Management Authority) is a small house with one or two bedrooms, a kitchen and a toilet.

Mubvee, our lodge.

Solar lamps provide lighting and there is a freezer, a gas cooker and a BBQ place. The ubiquitous Tanganyika boiler -firewood operated- provides ample hot water while the vervet monkeys and baboons come free of charge!

The lodges are well positioned, only a few metres from the river bank providing great views of the Zambezi. The sunsets over the river were spectacular as usual.

The Zambezi river seen from the lodge grounds.

At the time of our visit the sundowns were made even more dramatic by the bush fires raging on the mountains opposite us, across the river in Zambia. Most nights the hills were decorated with crisscrossed fire garlands that devoured the dry brush voraciously and added drama to the view.

The sunset and bushfires.

A view of the burning hills (apologies for the bad picture).

Usually we are at the lodge in the morning (before leaving for a walk or game drive), lunchtime (when you are not in the bush) and in the evening (always). It is during these times that you have the closest encounters with wild animals.

In the early mornings we were woken up by loud birdcalls that made going back to sleep rather difficult. The din came from the goings on of a colony of white fronted bee-eaters (Merops bullockoides) that had their burrows in the banks in front of our lodge. With them were also a large number of the much bigger southern carmine bee eaters (Merops nubicoides), adding more colour to the scene while basking under the morning sun in the treetops above our lodge (a magnificent sight).

Southern carmine bee-eaters basking in the sun (please note the smaller white-fronted bee-eaters on the right of the picture).

The white-fronted bee-eaters were very active and most likely involved in courting and nesting. A bit of reading when we returned to Harare revealed that mixed colonies of these two species are common. I also learnt later that these birds are colonial but also cooperative. The latter means that many individuals of both sexes play a role as helpers* and that they may switch from breeder to helper and back to breeder many times over a lifespan.

White fronted bee-eaters at the river bank. Their borrowed nests are below.

Every morning the carmine bee-eaters, after being sufficiently warmed by the sun, flew off for the day on unknown errands, and returned in the afternoon. Unfortunately I could not tell if these birds were also nesting in the banks but I suspect so.

The proximity of our lodge to the water’s edge provided us with a continuous parade of animals without having to move too much. These included some really huge crocodiles as well as buffaloes, hippos and elephants: they were on both sides of the channel that ran in front of the lodge. It was wonderful to see elephants wading to reach the opposite shore only to return once they ate their fill of their favorite vegetation.

Elephants crossing the channel (note the two termite nests in the background).

It was during the first lunch hour -a bit too hot to go looking for animals- that, after a light salad lunch, I prepared myself for my usual short siesta. I placed myself under the shade of an acacia tree that provided ample shade (and pods!) and prepared myself for sleep while reading my book. It was warm but there was a soft breeze, which resulted in the perfect cool spot. These were ideal conditions and I was even prepared for a monkey-attack, just in case…

The bushsnob prepared for a “monkey-proof” siesta!

It all started with my wife becoming very agitated at the exact moment that I had duly dropped my book (on my face) and entered the “drifting off” stage of my nap! Her alert call brought me back to life. Before I could proffer my -I am sure expected- complaint, I heard a soft “Don’t move and look” I knew then that I should do as I was told! My eyes were filled with an elephant!

Thankfully its attention was solely on the Acacia pods.

Thankfully, its attention was solely on the Apple ring Acacia pods.

I froze -purely out of fear rather than bushsnob wisdom- as the elephant was three metres away from me and still approaching! I immediately noticed that, although very close, it was after the pods on the floor and oblivious to its surroundings including me! With a super human effort, given my panic-driven semi paralytic state, I lifted my feet off the ground as it could have otherwise, unintentionally stepped on my bare feet (ouch…). The sight mesmerized me! Finally, it came to about a couple of metres and looked at me “Now I am history” I thought. However, it simply raised its head as if saluting me and continued with its feeding, slowly ambling past with the only heralds of its presence the crunching of pods, the rattle of those discarded and the occasional soft huffs of its trunk as it searched for more.

It was coming in my direction on silent feet…

The amazing thing about elephants is that despite their size, you will not hear them unless they want you to. While walking on tarmac elephant footpads make a whisper-like ‘chuff’, similar to the sound produced when one brushes a hand over the fabric of a pillow; on dusty earth they are virtually silent. At night, they silently walk through your campsite while browsing without disturbing anything. Finally, although I often trip over the tent ropes, I have never had an elephant doing so day or night!

As my knees had suddenly turned into jelly, I did not move, even after it passed and not even when my wife’s “order” was issued: “That was close! Get up quick and take a picture of it before it goes away” When I managed to collect all my wits and do a mental inventory of the condition of my various body parts, it was too late and I could only see its backside moving off. Although we have had these kind of encounters before this was a very close one and it is quite an experience to be literally “face to trunk” with a fully-grown male elephant! The siesta was abandoned, this time for a good reason!

This was not the only occasion that this happened during our stay at Mana Pools but I describe it to you so that you have an idea of our interactions with wildlife at the park. More than one tusker visited us everyday and a few family groups walked around the lodge during the day and night. They were even rude enough to try to spoil our BBQs!

The bushsnob just discovered the bomb dropped by a “terrorist” elephant and he is horrified thinking on cleaning the mess (the faeces were almost pure Apple ring Acacia seeds!).

In addition to the pachyderms, a lone hippo kept us company everyday as it fed on the pods. It would arrive after sunset and we would hear it chomping while it walked about. Although it occasionally entered the circle of light provided by our lamps, it preferred to stay in the dark. This meant that every now and then, we would have to locate it as it was an additional hazard while walking around our lodge (particularly when going to the BBQ area or the water boiler) to avoid the danger of bumping into it!

My wife keeping an eye on our hippo visitor during a rarer day visit.

A least one spotted hyena also did its food-run every evening. We did not think that hyenas were around as we did not hear them but they were afoot operating silently in the darkness! The lions were, quite to the contrary, rather close and very loud. They were heard, as my wife put it, “all night long” and a lioness and two cubs passed by while the occupant of our next-door lodge was having his morning coffee!

* Birds (normally juveniles and sexually mature young birds of both sexes) that remain in association 
with their parents and help them raise subsequent broods.

The unseen painted dog

We arrived at Mana Pools National Park (Mana Pools) at about 15:00 hours after a six hour drive from Harare. Just before the turn off to get into the final stretch of rough dirt road, we stopped at the edge of the escarpment to take in the hazy view of the Zambezi valley below, always a beautiful sight, and one that is full of anticipated adventure. The view was even hazier than usual, as this is the season of bush fires that add a blue tint to the horizon.

The view of the Zambezi valley from the main road.

The stop to contemplate the view had to be brief as we still had about two hours of driving to get to the park. As soon as we started the escarpment’s steep descent we came across a queue of lorries parked on both sides of the road. The normal sightings involve slow moving lorries either struggling uphill or burning brakes downhill, so this kind of mass convergence was not normal. We drove through the narrow “lorry tunnel” very slowly, passing around 60 lorries before we came to the reason for the queue. An unfortunate driver had lost control of his truck while going downhill and crashed at full speed against a rocky bend. The accident was recent as the rescue of the occupants’ was taking place as we passed by. This was a stark reminder of the dangers associated with driving.

The turn off into the rough road leading to Mana Pools came as a relief after witnessing such a mishap. We drove on and, after 80 km of dirt road; we arrived at Mana Pools, a UNESCO World Heritage site of similar standing to the Great Barrier Reef, the Tower of London or Yellowstone National Park. The recent book “Mana Pools” by Gregg Robinson presents excellent pictures and describes the park in great detail. What more can I say not being a poet but rather a humble veterinarian!

The road to Mana Pools.

Mana Pools is a place of unique natural beauty. The Zambezi River, with its hilly background, forms its northern border and the area to the South is a flat wooded expanse where earlier river meanderings have left a number of separate pools that give the park its name. This is where game abounds and, because of the nature of their habitat they can be spotted at a distance, similar to the East African parks.

The Mana Pools woodlands in the afternoon.

In addition to its magnificent and ancient trees and its abundant wildlife, Mana Pools is -I believe- the only national park in Africa where you can leave your car and walk on your own despite there being dangerous animals at large. We know of two prides of lions and a pack of painted dogs that live in the area, not to mention numerous hyenas, several buffalo herds, many elephants, the occasional leopard, crocodiles and hippos, among others.

Hippos and elephants sharing the grazing area in the banks of the Zambezi River.

You may be surprised at this unusual and seemingly dangerous freedom but it works well due to a combination of animal tolerance and human caution. So, you are able to leave your metal cage and walk around freely! However, we must never forget that the animals we see around us are wild and as such, require the utmost respect and caution from us. Walking away from the protection of your car demands extreme prudence at all times, along with being aware of your surroundings, the direction of the wind, where you place your feet along with being able to read other important signs and, most importantly: to remember where you parked your vehicle!

The beauty of leaving your car.

We found lions on our first day, ten minutes after leaving our lodge! There were two: a young male and an adult female. They were just visible in the bush, near Chisasiko pool. We stopped the car and joined other people already there having their morning coffee while watching the lions, a rather unique experience! The opinions were divided on whether they had or would hunt. To us they looked alert as if looking for prey but it was difficult to guesstimate!

Lion paw marks on the dusty road before they entered the bush.

While the lion conversation was going on, a new vehicle arrived. It was a group of tourists with a professional guide in his late fifties, known to some of the people present. As usual, the excited crowd informed him of the lions’ location. What followed next was as unexpected as it was shocking! He, followed by his unknowing clients and another staff member with a gun, walked straight towards the lions, doing exactly what you must not do! What happened next was as predictable as it was unnecessary: the lions moved off! The group then turned back and left!

The Chisasiko pool, where the lions were.

“He is after a fat tip from his clients” was my angry and rather loud comment and then I heard my wife’s lapidary “poor man, it is sad that at his age he has to do this to get some extra money!” The latter was followed by another remark from a lady in the group “he left it a bit late!” Anyway, seeing that the situation had been modified by human folly beyond immediate recovery, we pushed on with the idea of coming back later as we knew that, despite the interference, the lions would remain in the area.

However, finding lions only ten minutes into your safari changes the situation as you become somehow “dependent” on what they will do next! Afterwards, while driving you wonder if they are hunting, moving or whether other lions have joined them (which means you could miss something unique!). We also made a mental note of their proximity to our lodge!

During our stay we were rewarded by nice sightings of buffalo, eland, greater kudu, waterbuck and zebra among others. We also saw a trio of fish eagles engaged in a loud territorial dispute and a proud saddle bill stork mother with her two grown offspring, although no male was around.

The two young saddle bill storks (left) and their mother. A hamerkop and a baboon complete the picture.

We did see the lions a few more times in the general area of the Chisasiko pool, but they did not hunt and on the final day they moved off towards the mouth of the Mana river, probably stalking a buffalo herd that resides in that area. We also spotted a pair of Selous mongooses and two side striped jackals (Canis adustus). Our general impression was that the park has a good animal population.

We also attempted to visit a new water hole, recommended by a friend as a good place for a “sundowner”. Equipped with the right ingredients for such occasions, we drove following a path that was clearly a firebreak with the anticipation of reaching a quiet place where animals would come to drink. Unfortunately, after driving about 10 km we came to a wide sand river with very broken and steep banks. There were very recent and deep wheel marks in the sand showing that someone else had tried to find the waterhole and got severely trapped in the deep sand. The story was reinforced by the warm ashes of the campfire they had lit while spending the night by the car! We decided not to risk the crossing!

The river was a lovely place to have a drink anyway. We also enjoyed a nice walk on the dry riverbed framed by rather high cliffs made of red soil, where trumpeter hornbills feeding on wild figs could be seen. We will come back next time for another attempt at crossing the river.

Walking by the red cliffs in the sandy river

Elephants were numerous throughout the park. Young animals were in abundance. We also saw a number of adult tuskers. The latter do not carry heavy tusks of the type we saw in Kruger and described in my earlier post.

A small group with a young one. Note the Apple ring acacia pods on the ground.

Although I will focus on the Mana trees in one of the next accounts, one tree is a major protagonist in Mana: the Apple-ring Acacia (Faidherbia albida). It is the main tree of the Mana riverine plain forest and it produces a spiral shaped pod eaten by most herbivores in the park and it constitutes a valuable source of food in the dry season.

The elephants are very fond of these pods and at this time of the year they can be seen feeding on them all the time, wherever the trees are. To watch this activity is rather engrossing so we stopped often to watch them as they pick them up from the floor using their trunks as vacuum cleaners! However, as usual, the best are difficult to get! The tastier pods are those still high up in the trees!

Pod collecting at full stretch.

Aware of this, elephants will go to great efforts to reach them and, with patience; you may be able to watch them doing it. This was, fortunately, our case as we came across several pod-eaters that stopped at nothing to get these treats!

During the second day of our stay we found a particular tusker that “agreed” to put on a show for us. He was dealing with a rather tall tree, so he stretched to the highest possible extent in order to reach the place in a wild circus-like act, and brought down branches full of pods. After finishing them and unable to get any more, he changed tactics by leaning his head against the tree trunk and proceeding to head-butt it vigorously, which provoked a “pod rain” that it subsequently picked up from the floor.

Shaking the tree.

As the tusker moved off in search of other tasty trees we also moved off, still looking for elephants. As we were driving slowly, we were overtaken by another vehicle that, we found parked by the road after a while. We stopped and asked its sole occupant if he had seen the lions. “Not today” he replied, “I have been here for three days and only saw them the first day” he added. We volunteered what we knew about the current lions’ location and asked “Any painted dogs*?” as we knew that these carnivores are often seen in Mana.

We could not believe his reply: “Do you mean other dogs apart from the one that we just saw crossing the road in front of your car?” “Are you serious?, we did not see anything!” my wife’s response came immediately. The reply came: “OK then, apart from the one I saw and you didn’t?” he said, clearly enjoying the moment and with a nice touch of humour. “We did not see it!” we confessed rather sheepishly, as it seemed unbelievable to us that this could have happened. He then added “I see them often as I am part of a painted dog conservation project that works here!”. Our embarrassment was somehow lessened as he had a “trained eye” for dogs!

Talking to him we learnt that the dogs are present in Mana around the “Mucheni” area and that the one he saw (and we didn’t!) was probably a male of a new pair that had just come from the Rukomechi area. We also learnt that the alpha male of the local Mana pack was missing and, although there could be several reasons for his absence, it is possible that it has died. We thanked him for the information but, despite it, we failed to see them during our safari. Our only consolation was that, although we did not see one, it was in the same place at the same time as us!!!

As a last attempt to save face, I tell you that we had seen painted dogs on a previous occasion in Mana Pools. We were on a game drive with my daughter/Editor when we spotted a pack on the road. There were about 16 dogs and they were moving rather fast. Taking advantage of the freedom of Mana Pools we parked the car in a hurry and followed them on foot, together with a group of tourists. It was very exciting as they caught an impala just before we got to them and they were feeding on it. Regrettably, the scene was interrupted by my loud talking -being a bushsnob- and the weird noise my camera made every time I switch it on! The picture below was taken at that time.

Wild dogs seen during an earlier visit.

* Lycaon pictus is commonly referred to as African wild, cape or hunting dog and African painted dog, among other names. I use "Painted dogs" as this is the name used by the project in Zimbabwe.

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