As
winter comes to an end in the southern hemisphere, with pale bushveld sunsets
feather-touching the wilder parts of our souls, Africa Tour Operators are still
bringing Africa to your doorstep all manner of safaris and bush adventures
alike.
A
while ago, we were reminded by one of our own that the bush is a humbling place
and we should not forget who this untamed wilderness actually belongs to. A
chance encounter upon one particular rhino in the Lowveld area had guests
scrambling up trees, while the guide fended off the mighty beast with his bare
hands. Well, almost…
A
few minutes later, said rhino carried on his merry way, the guide stood up and
brushed himself off and promptly continued on his walk with his guests as if
nothing untoward had happened.
A nomad:
(Greek:
νομάς, nomads, plural νομάδες, nomades; meaning one roaming about for pasture,
pastoral tribe) is a member of a community of people who live in different
locations, moving from one place to another.
Some of us would love to be eternal nomads; sadly
our lifestyles don’t allow it. Africa Operators offer you the next best thing:
a wonderful adventure staying in luxury mobile safari tents that follow the
herds of wildebeest as they travel along their migration routes through
Tanzania and then further north into Kenya.
By contrast, relatively few people venture to
Tanzania’s vast and remote western and southern locations. Raw and wild,
southern Tanzania boasts some of the richest wildlife in East Africa. From the
tented camps of Chada Katavi and Jongomero to the beautiful lodge, Sand Rivers
Selous on the banks of the Rufiji, you can lose yourself far from the
wilderness of addictions offered by civilisation.
Sandi Elkington, East African expert, swears by
it as a lifetime experience second to none. Katavi, Tanzania’s third largest
national park provides the few intrepid souls who make it there with an
exhilarating taste of Africa as it must have been 100 years ago.
With a truncated arm of the Rift Valley ending in
the sombre expanse of Lake Rukwa, the bulk of Katavi supports a hypnotically
featureless cover of tangled Brachystegia (miombo) woodland, home to copious populations
of antelope such as sable, roan and localised eland. The floodplains of the
Katuma River boast a plethora of water birds as well as Tanzania’s densest
concentration of hippo and crocodile; magnificent territorial displays of
aggression among the male hippos will linger in your mind long after your
departure.
During the dry season, an estimated 4,000
elephants converge here, together with several herds of 1,000+ buffalo, while
an abundance of giraffe, zebra, impala and reedbuck provide easy pickings for
the numerous lion prides and spotted hyena clans whose territories converge on
the floodplains.
Like true nomads, the team in Africa do not stop at just one destination. If
it’s not the wild plains of Tanzania or the mighty Zambezi River, you’ll find
us trekking the scenic arid landscapes of the austere Namib Desert.
The walking safari
This is as close to being a nomad that most
westerners can get. For some, it evokes memories of days gone by spent in
orange dust-covered tents with camp side fires and unforgettable wildlife
encounters. Walking safaris were the original “safari” in Africa and remain the
purest form of experiencing Africa, albeit minus the old suitcases and porters
and a few more luxurious options when it comes to where to rest your head.
The basic idea of travelling on foot with a guide
remains the same. I wonder how our safaris differ to those of old. Did these
adventurers also have preconceived ideas of what they hoped to encounter along
the way? Did they track the game as we do? Or was it a case of enjoying a walk
in beautiful surroundings and if you happened upon a sighting along the way
that was a bonus?
Back in the days, an African safari was still a
hunting experience and the thought of taking people to look at animals and
photographing them rather than shooting them was still a distant reality.
Nowadays, a myriad of African adventures awaits
the fervent traveller: tented camps; off-the-beaten-track destinations; luxury
lodges; camps and mobile camps that follow the natural migration route of the
wildebeest throughout the year; tiger fishing expeditions in the Okavango
Delta; balloon safaris over the Maasai Mara plains; ancestral San Rock art
sites… Africa has it all!
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