Are There Lions Around Here?

By: Alice Gully
Submitted: 2007-01-17 16:42:59
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Getting married was a good excuse to spend a good length of time in Africa again, something I haven’t managed to do since my days guiding riding safaris. Somehow research trips where you rush from lodge to lodge just aren’t the same. For our honeymoon Jim and I paid our own way which allowed us to stay for long enough in each place to really experience Africa as normal travellers.

We started with a day flight to Nairobi, a gentle experience of meals, movies and naps, a great chance to catch up on some much-needed sleep. Our first night was spent at Giraffe Manor. Well out of the city centre in Langata, the hospitality here is in true colonial style, but it is also a sanctuary for orphaned or homebred Rothschild’s giraffe. As most of the residents have been bottle-reared this is a great place to meet Africa’s gawky giants at close range: though of course you have to treat them with respect. They really like cattle nuts and we were soon covered in giraffe slime.

The following day, after a couple of short afternoon flights we reached northern Mozambique, landing in Pemba. From here the trip out to Quil?lea was by helicopter. As it only seats two passengers it was really romantic with just us and the pilot skimming the blue Indian Ocean low and fast, heading to the beautifully remote Quirimbas Archipelago. Quil?lea Lodge was a fantastic place for a honeymoon, with a bed that would have slept eight: I needed a map to find my husband. The days were paradise, diving, kayaking and watersports are all included, and the only extra we paid for was game-fishing. It was good to get out onto the open sea but we only caught a kingfish and a mackerel, making them the most expensive fish per kilo I’ve ever met. The diving is fantastic, and we saw dolphin, turtle and ribbon eels, but for sheer romance you couldn’t beat the kayaking: we spent a full day kayaking around the islands getting pelted with flying fish and then returned at sunset with beers at our sides. On our last evening we came down and the waiter said ‘Oh sorry, no dinner for you tonight’, but after we’d sat for a few minutes wondering what was going on we were led up to the cliff top where a private thatched chalet had been set up with white linen and candlelight, so we dined in total seclusion as the moon shone over the water.

Our time to leave came all too soon, and we flew down to Johannesburg for a night revelling in the western luxuries of the Airport Hotel. Bath, TV and room service: we didn’t stir till we had to make the 100-yard dash for the check in desk for our flight to Maun.

I’m not sure a safari would suit every honeymooning couple. Even the mobile tented camps aren’t totally private, as there are always guides and cooks around, and you can’t really relax for a day if you feel like playing backgammon or spotting birds as the crew will want to be breaking camp and moving on. But as I’d worked in Africa and Jim had visited several times we decided to drive ourselves and rented a 4wd with a tent on the roof – at the push of a button it folded out, you climbed up the ladder and you were in. Being on our own in the bush did make Jim a bit nervous though. He kept asking “Are there lion here?” On our first night we were camped out in waist-high grass and as the sun went down Jim enquired again about lion. Dead on cue the air shook with a lion call, very close: impeccable timing.

I’m not so worried about lion – they generally regard eating humans as just not worth the hassle – but the next night, at a public campsite, the hyena were rather unnerving. They just sit there waiting for you to climb up into your tent and the minute you do they’re in, seeing if you might have dropped any food, while you watch through the flysheet. Some of the other people camping lost a saucepan, another family a pair of flip-flops: you just have to put everything in the car or take it up into your tent. And the baboons, well they’re just a pain. But it’s all worth it. High in your tent you can hear absolutely everything, and really feel a part of the bush.

Part of the reason he was worried about lion is that we hadn’t seen all that many animals they might want to eat. He was starting to feel like the only thing on the menu. This is partly because we were driving ourselves along public tracks – though even in this busy time of year we’d only pass five or six other vehicles per day. On your own you don’t usually see so much, partly because you don’t have radio contact with other vehicles who tell you of anything going on, and partly I suppose because you just don’t have those rangers’ eyes. When you do see some game though it’s much more significant and personal, and you also have time just to watch the wildlife interact: we saw a great fight between elephant and hippo, and plenty of birds.

Apart from the camping we also stayed at a couple of lodges. Xakanaxa (pronounced Kakanaka) is a great lodge in the Delta. They knew we were honeymooners and gave us a fantastic boat safari, with an excellent guide who really knew his birds, ending up at a small island with a table and two chairs for sundowners at sunset. It could have been really cheesy but of course it wasn’t. Jim asked if there were any lions around and the guide just laughed. “No lions”, he said, “just leopard”. We also stayed at Meno a Kwena, a really unpretentious camp in the Makgadigadi Pans Game Reserve with just a few walk-in tents overlooking a dry sand river. The owner, David Dugmore, is a really great host who has put in several bore holes for the local villagers. He’s also put another in the riverbed, and as the bush had been very dry for a while his waterhole was packed, providing the best game-viewing of our safari so far.

For the third part of our honeymoon we flew on to Namibia, where Africa’s great landscapes take centre stage. We took a Schoeman Skeleton Coast flying safari which was a wonderful experience. Charlotte covered this pretty thoroughly in the last issue of Drumbeat so I won’t describe the dunes at Sossusvlei, the Skeleton Coast, or their small camp by the Kunene River. Suffice it to say this old-school company really love Namibia, their camps are simple but beautifully sited and every flight was a new adventure.

It’s almost enough to make me want to get married again.

http://www.aardvarksafaris.com

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