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Africa
Travel Newsletter > HChobe
- The Elephnat's Promised Land > Page
2
1.1 Chobe -The
Elephant's Promised Land
The park's northern entrance is at Sedudu
gate -just a little drive from Kasane. Wildlife activity
is rife as you leave the town into the Sedudu Valley
Road. If you are lucky, you can spot the elusive leopard
among the skeleton woodlands. Near the Kasane rapids,
anglers have every reason to enjoy a fishing expedition.
There is a great variety of fish to be caught here including:
the bream, pike, catfish, and the wily tiger fish.
After some fishing, you can take a sunset
river cruise while enjoying game and bird viewing at
close range around the Sedudu Island. Short game drives
on 4WD are also good ways of exploring the riverfront.
Elephants rule this corner of the park, but there are
lots of buffalos too, and their mortal enemies -lions.
You can enjoy a picnic at a site in the area, as you
wait for the magical Chobe River sunset to usher in
the night. The nights are filled with sounds of the
wild.
At the Serondela Reserve, there is a
variety of good to excellent accommodation, and also
a newly established campsite at Ihaha. There are plenty
of animals in the area and gaming is particularly delightful
in the dry winter season. At this time of the year,
the rest of the park is dry and the animals flock the
riverfront in the thousands.
At the river, crocs and hippos are at
home, while elephant, buffalo, lion, zebra, red lechwe,
waterbuck, hyena, impala and the sable antelope carry
visitors' passes. Look out for the wild dog, cheetah,
bat-eared fox, and the serval -though they may be a
little difficult to spot. The Chobe bushbuck, roan antelope,
aquatic sitatunga, and puku antelopes are the riverbanks
exceptional treats.
Birding here is also very rewarding,
especially in the summer when it is hot and wet. Over
450 species of birds flock here to breed in the warm
conditions. The river stretch bordering Namibia from
Ngoma to Kasane is very abundant as a birders paradise.
Common species in the area are: Carmine Bee-eaters,
the rare Narina Trogon, Pel's Fishing owl, African fish
eagles, African skimmer, Copper Sunbird, African Finfoot,
Kingfisher, African Pygmy-Goose, Brown Firefinch, and
many other colourful species.
Given its vast endowment and numerous
fun activities, the riverfront is prone to overcrowding,
especially over winter months and school holidays. You
can round off your experience by adding a side trip
to the magnificent Victoria Falls. The falls are less
than 100 km away from Kasane, on the Zambia - Zimbabwe
border.
From the riverfront, Savuti lies towards
the west of the park. Occupying 5,000 sq km, it is an
area of marshland with rich vegetation, open grasslands
and great savannah forests. The swamp thrives when the
rains come but chokes dry afterwards. This is the best
of Chobe's wildlife viewing areas as the many waterholes
and pans here attract animals in the dry season.
Residents here include: zebra, wildebeest,
buffalo, impala, roan, tsessebe, sable, kudu, waterbuck,
warthog, eland giraffe, and of course the Chobe elephant.
As expected, the predators for which Savuti is famed
for, are present in plenty to complete the food chain:
lion, cheetah, hyena, jackal, the rare wild dog and
the bat-eared fox.
Game viewing at Savuti is at its best
at the onset of the rainy summer season, when the grass
is new and plentiful. The place is especially popular
with the larger herbivores. Twice every year Savuti
experiences one of nature's wonders when large herds
of zebra and wildebeest migrate south, and then back
north in search of pasture and water.
Every year around November, the zebras
and wildebeest of Linyanti trot southwards to Savuti
where the grass is already ripe. They camp here for
a few weeks, enjoying the goodness of nature's giving.
In perfect timing, the pregnant mothers bring forth
a new burst of life. The availability of nutritious
grass is a boost to the well being of the lactating
and their newborns alike.
Around January, they heed to a silent
call southwards towards the Mababe Depression to the
welcome of wholesome grass. Towards April, the migrating
horde returns northwards and cuts through Savuti again
on their way back to the western Linyanti and eastern
Chobe Riverfront. Many visitors love to catch a glimpse
of this migration and there is palpable excitement in
the Savuti as lions, hyenas and other opportunistic
carnivores hotly pursue the migrants. This experience
is a whole lot similar to the Serengeti-Mara annual
migration of East Africa; though with a little less
drama as there is less stampeding and no treacherous
river crossings.
Savuti is a favourite with many wildlife
filmmakers, and especially the National Geographic conservationists
Dereck and Beverly Joubert. The couple has been at it
for over 25 years, and have 20 documentary films, 6
books, numerous articles, four Emmy Awards and a George
Foster Peabody Award, to show for it. Some of their
popular works on Chobe include: "Eternal Enemies:
Lions and Hyenas", "Lions of Darkness",
"Wildlife Warriors", and "Zebras: Patterns
in the Grass".
The Savuti marsh gives way to the Mababe
Depression to the south, and the Nogatsaa and Tchinga
central pans to the north. It is however delimited to
the west by the Magwikhwe sand ridge, which measures
100 km long and 20 m high. Northwestwards, the marsh
opens out into a natural conduit known as the Savuti
Channel. This is currently a dry waterway that once
nourished the Savuti marshlands that now have to rely
on the seasonal rains.
The channel is a peculiar feature of
Chobe that has perturbed geologists. It links the marshes
to Linyanti -a far-flung private game reserve to the
northwest of the park. It flows and dries up unexpectedly,
and inexplicably. It is known to have been alive in
the 1850's, but by 1888, it was completely dry. In between,
it intermittently flowed again from 1957-1958 when its
run was interrupted for a period of 8 years. It resumed
in 1967, before drying up again in 1981.
Geologists have suggested that these
unpredictable episodes are fashioned by tectonic movements
beneath the Kalahari sands. The channel itself today
lies barren as open grassland, lined with dead trees,
and at times wrings the life out of Savuti swamp. It
is no wonder that when the explorer and missionary David
Livingstone journeyed through the marshland in 1851,
he referred to it as a "dismal swamp".
The Linyanti is an ecological region
of swampland and dry hinterlands of the central pans.
The swamp lies along the Linyanti River where game is
copious and viewing is exclusively private and most
enjoyable. This is perhaps the only reserve in Chobe
where night and off-the-track game drives are readily
offered. Accommodation here is limited and strictly
exclusive.
The reserve is landscaped with open
grassland and floodplains on the peripheries, and has
an inland of Mopane woodlands and leadwood forests.
Antelopes abound here, and this is great lion territory.
Elephants are however the kings of this jungle, especially
in the winter when they keep close to the waters. There
are numerous natural waterholes in Linyanti that keep
the animals within the area.
Elephants have done exceptionally well
in Botswana, but some wildlife experts are worried about
the capacity of the country to sustain the massive numbers.
They place great pressure on Chobes' ecology and water
supply. The elephants destroy trees and vegetation,
and therefore endanger the habitat both for themselves
and other species. They are such heavy eaters of vegetation-
with an adult munching as much as 300 kg daily.
So far, Botswana's elephants have escaped
calls for culling- as occurs in South Africa and Zimbabwe.
The hunting lobby is also very resilient, and it is
always inventing clever arguments as to why hunters
should be allowed in their bloodthirsty ways. Nobody
knows for how long the elephant's good fortune will
last.
Within Chobe, there are public camping
grounds equipped with basic toilet and shower facilities
at Ihaha, Savuti, and Liyanti. Game lodges offering
five-star luxury are also available within Chobe. The
best way to enter Botswana for the international visitor
is through Johannesburg- the regional air travel hub.
You can then connect to Botswana by road or on regular
or charter flights to Kasane or GaboroneGaborone - the
country's capital is -360 km away from Johannesburg
by road.
A trip to Chobe needs to be well thought
out and planned, making your bookings well in advance.
It is recommended that you take an organised Chobe National
Park and Botswana safari package, which includes accommodation,
meals, guides, and transport logistics.
Chobe National Park enjoys two distinct
seasons- winter and summer. The summer falls between
late November and March, and is usually quite hot and
rainy. The rains peak in January and February and the
vegetation is luxuriant. The scent of flowers and shrubbery
fills the air and many animals give birth while the
rest fatten. This is the best season to go birding in
Chobe, especially at the riverfront where migratory
water birds flock in the thousands to take advantage
of the superb conditions.
Game viewing is not as good in summer
as the lushness of flora is an obstruction and easy
availability of fodder makes the animals to scatter
far and wide. Summer conditions are conducive for mosquitoes
to breed and the risk of malaria can be high. It is
advisable to take anti-malarial prophylactics and bring
along mosquito repellent.
Winter lasts from April/May to October,
and the days are drier and cooler. Conditions are brilliant
for photography as the skies are clear, and the lighting
is perfect. Game viewing is at its best as the grass
is short and the landscapes are open. There is little
to eat and drink and many animals congregate around
the waterholes and riverfronts. April and November are
difficult months as the seasons swap. November can get
uncomfortably hot, when the expectation of rain is high.
But once the rains check in, the winter parch is transformed
almost overnight and life springs back to Chobe.
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