Meet Promise - Xugana Island Lodge

Xugana Island Lodge
June 2008

Xugana guests often remark on their questionnaires that they liked their friendly mokoro poler, Promise.

They might see him one morning with a rake in his hand caring for the grounds and at midday carrying luggage to the bungalows. Later in the afternoon they see him wielding a wooden pole to push them quietly past the reeds and tiny frogs that can be viewed from the modern version of traditional dugout canoes – mokoros, which historically constituted the main form of transportation in the delta.

“I like the guests. When they do mokoro, I do mokoro,” says Promise Kabelo. “I drive them in the mokoro to show them the animals….Tell them (readers) we saw the lions – 3 females and one male on Palm Island.” It’s a sight he is still marveling days after the event.

Promise, a Desert & Delta Safaris employee for 9 years in September, is a man of the upper Okavango Delta. He was born in Seronga in 1969 and at age 11 learned to pole the mokoro when he and his grandfather went fishing for bream. Of his home village, he says, gesturing to illustrate the distinction, “This side is the desert. This side is the river.” Today his 5-year-old daughter, Kimberly, lives there with her mother, and he visits on his time-off.

Promise is proud of his specialist guide license for the mokoro and his tracking skills. He likes zebras and looks for roan antelopes, sable antelopes and Cape buffalo. He is also known around Xugana’s staff village as the lone staffer who has an appetite for the abundant catfish caught in the delta waters. If someone catches a catfish, the refrain is, “Promise will eat it.”

When guests first meet Promise on the motor boat that will take them to their walking safari or their mokoro ride, they can’t help but be struck by his introduction: “This is Promise,” he says, smiling broadly and going from guest to guest to shake hands.
They won’t forget him.

Many thanks Maria Henson - Desert & Delta Safaris Volunteer

Xugana Island Lodge - Adrenalin in Paradise

Xugana Island Lodge,
Okavango Delta, Botswana
June 18, 2008

Look behind palm tree leaves where weavers’ nests hang like rustic Christmas ornaments, and you’ll discover Xugana Island Lodge. Arriving by boat after crossing a lagoon, guests appear universally delighted to find a lodge tucked into a verdant paradise, a hidden gem dotted by 8 bungalows near water’s edge. They step onto the island and instantly feel their stress fall away and their sense of clock time disappear.

But today in this serene spot in the Okavango Delta, adrenaline surged. Exuberant guests returned from their morning walk on Palm Island to tell the story of a lion kill they had witnessed on foot and with unarmed guides.

“Anything I’d say would just sound like a cliché,” guest Matthew Keep from the UK said. “A once-in-a-lifetime experience. It was a truly memorable experience.”

Lily Gibson of Ireland said, “There was a danger element….This was nature. This was Africa. It wasn’t contrived.”

Matthew said, “It is what you come to Africa for.”

At 7 a.m. two groups of guests traveled in separate boats to do their morning walks on nearby islands. Guides at Xugana say the islands where they walk are small, which necessitates larger mammals moving freely and quickly from one island to another in search of food. A sure bet in this area is birdlife, abundant on any island. Xugana’s guests typically walk for two and a half hours on an island each morning; they see and learn spectacular details about this unique place on the planet – the birds, the warthogs, the red lechwes, the medicinal plants, the baobab tree and, on occasion, elephants – but rarely do they see lions. Today was another story.

Lets has been a guide for 3 years at Xugana and more than once has come upon the remains of a kill. But today was the first time he had seen a kill happen before his eyes. He and guide Body tracked the lions near a herd of Cape buffalo.

Image above: Buffalo before the chase.

There were four lions: three females and a young male of about 2 years. Body spotted the female in the distance, about 100 meters away. Lets and Body moved their guests closer, then edged them toward a lone male buffalo.

The attack was on. The lions succeeded in striking the loner, rendering it helpless as vultures waited ominously in a tree nearby. Body said he had seen films and documentaries relaying such events, but today was “the first time I have seen it through my own eyes.” When you see a chase and a kill in person, he said, “you feel it.”

Lets called it “an amazing day” he will never forget.

Andrew Delicata and his new bride, Veronika, were walking with guide Motaa and guide trainee Daniel when the word came from Lets’ group for them to come see the kill. The Delicatas, newlyweds from the UK, had missed the stalking of the buffalo, but they and Lily and John Gibson were able to move in close to see what was happening as the lions feasted. They took photographs from a termite mound 20 meters away. (The Delicatas’ photos accompany this blog item.)

“As stupid as it might sound, I actually wanted to get closer,” Andrew said. Veronika called the scene “breath-taking. I was scared, but I liked it. I had this rush in my stomach.”

John said, “In other circumstances I would have found it sickening. It is horrible, but in the end you see it is nature.”

All of them came away with a respect for what they had encountered.

It was another day to witness the truth of the adage that in Africa one should always expect the unexpected. Even at tranquil Xugana Island Lodge, best known for its gentle boat trips past papyrus and the nightly grunts of a shy hippo neighbor, guests on such a morning as this might dare to follow the footsteps of a lion through waves of tall green-gold grasses to a scene of brutal reality and a breath-taking reminder of the stark renewal of natural life.

Image above: Andrew Delicata showing all the staff back at Xugana Island Lodge the images taken of the kill.

With many thanks to Maria Henson
Volunteer, Desert & Delta Safaris

Savute Safari Lodge - Wild Dogs in Camp

There are some nights in Savute that it is action all the way. As soon as one thing calms down the next one is there.

Last night (20/06/2008) was definitely one of those. Sanet (our new Assistant Manager) and myself were on duty during the afternoon. At around 18:15 the guides were returning from the afternoon game drive. Sanet was a little bit ahead from me to welcome everyone back from the drive. Suddenly I could hear her calling from the front of the office where the vehicles usually park. At speed I went over to her.

A Wilddog has just chased an Impala about 3m in front of her. I was a little bit to late to see this. At the same time the game drive vehicle entered through the gate, about 30m in front of us. At this stage both Sanet and myself were standing at the small fence next to the vehicle parking area, with the headlights of the car directly onto us. The next second an Impala came running towards us, followed by a big male Wilddog. The Impala, closely followed by the Wilddog, jumped over the low fence, less than arms length away from us. A big sigh went out from all on the vehicle, as they could see how close the Dog and Impala were to us. The Impala was clearly very exhausted, and the Dog was still at full strength.

At the same time three other Dogs split around the eastern side of camp, while the last three went to the west. The big male chased the Impala around the buildings and straight towards the Dogs on the western side that was waiting in ambush. They eventually got hold of the Impala right next to room #5.

When our Company Doctor (Dr. Birkenstock) and I saw them about 2 minutes after my first glimpse of them, the Impala was still kicking. All were very excited, getting off the game drive vehicles as fast as they could in order not to miss the action. Everybody in camp went to see the kill. At about 15m away from us, seven Wilddogs were devouring the Impala.

After observing them for a few minutes, we all retreated in order to keep the disturbance to the Dogs to a minimum. At 19:00 when all arrived for drinks at the bar, the conversation was all about the last hours excitement.

Sanet and I were not on duty that evening, so we joined Dr. Birkenstock for a quick dinner on the waterhole viewing deck. Exhausted we headed to our quarters on the northern side of camp.

As we walked past room #1 we heard a big noise in the bushes directly ahead of us. We immediately retreated into the room, trying to see what was causing the noise. We could clearly hear large animals walking in the bush, accompanied with the sounds of bones being crushed and large carnivores feeding. As our quarters are still furter along the track we decided to make a hasty retreat, back to the main lodge. Walking backwards, I could just make out the front part of a Lioness on the lawn in front of my house.

The only option then was to get a vehicle and drive to the back of our respective houses, in order to get through a window, so that at least we could sleep in our own beds. As we parked behind our houses, we could see a couple of Hyaena that had joined the party on the lawn. Quietly Sanet sneaked into her house, and I went over to mine. I could hear a rustle in the branches above my head. A leopard was in the branches above me, chased up there by the raucus caused by the Lions and Hyaenas on the lawn. I went to bed with the sounds of the bush around me, sleep did not come easy. In a matter of two hours, we had Wilddog, Lion, Hyaena and Leopard in camp.

Life in the bush does not get any better than this!

Written by Kobus Lubbe - Savute Safari Lodge Manager

Shaping the Landscape

Only three living species is said to be able to change the landscape that surrounds us. All three these species can alter the shape of the environment in such a way that it is changed permanently. These changes can be both positive and negative, making or breaking the fragile balance of the global ecosystems.

The first specie is responsible for the shaping of natural areas. Especially in the Delta this specie is responsible for the construction of the landscape. It creates the very soil under our feet, lifting the moist substrate to the surface where it dries and forms the islands. No, this is not some massive colossus, but rather the humble termite. Termite action is responsible for the recycling of the majority of dead plant material on the African Savannah.

From the humble termite, the next specie shaping our landscape is the elephant. Due to its large size, and very inefficient digestive system, the average elephant needs about 240kg of food per day. This leads to one of the biggest problems in elephant conservation: the ecosystem has to provide this mass of food daily for the elephants.

Currently the Botswana Elephant population is standing at around 150 000 individuals, around a third of the total population. To sustain this population, they need 36 000 000kg – yes, that is thirty six million kilograms - of food every day. For this reason Elephants roam over very large distances to get enough sustanance. An Elephant that was fitted with a radio collar in Botswana has travelled from here to Hwange in Zimbabwe and all the way up to Katima Mulilo on the Namibia / Zambia border. From there he came back to the Chobe area and into Botswana. He covered a distance of more than 450km and a total area of over 21 000 square kilometers. The smallest area covered by a single elephant in this survey was around 900 square kilometers. A young bull that was collared at a waterhole in Savute has covered an area of 24 848 square kilometers. Interresting to note that around 60% of these animals movement was outside of protected areas.

This brings us to the third, and most destructive of the Landscape shapers. Homo sapiens – man in his full glory. Man has attacked termites by many different means, aimed at trying to stop their jaws devouring the human food supplies. Termites has in return launched their own counter attack. Many homes suffer from termite infestation. The termites eat the wooden structures that humans construct all over the planet, getting back at humans in their own unique way.

In the case of the Human / Elephant interaction the conflict is not as simple. Humans has constructed artifical barriers such as International Boundaries, Fences, roads and towns across the natural migration corridors of the elephants. This leads to the elephant range being constricted. The impact of the growing elephant popultation is being forced onto a smaller and smaller area. As man has created the problem, man is the only specie that can solve the problem. The best solution for the elephant problem is to re-open the natural migration routes. This is done by means of transfrontier conservation areas. Big plans are currently being put together for the Kavango – Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation area, which would include parts of Botswana, Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe. This will greatly enlarge the current area under official protection, thereby enlarging the areas over which they can roam safely.

Man made problems, man makes solutions!

Written by Kobus Lubbe - Savute Safari Lodge Manager

Camp Okavango - John Kata, Mojei Island Legend

Camp Okavango, Botswana
June 20, 2008

If guests at Camp Okavango look up from their candlelit dinners, they will see a mighty remnant from the storied past of the Okavango Delta. Above them, hanging from the rafters of a thatched roof, is a 5-meter-long, mahogany-colored mokoro – the traditional means of transportation for the river bushmen of Botswana.

The man who worked day-in, day-out for a month nearly 30 years ago carving the canoe from a sycamore fig tree ‑- the man who has poled that mokoro through the narrow, papyrus-lined channels of the Okavango Delta -- is no doubt sitting nearby. He is John Odumetse Kata, the keen-eyed veteran guide at this camp for 28 years and a river bushman who remembers what the delta was like long before his kinsmen and women had ever seen a white face, let alone a tourist.

John Kata’s childhood was a time when clans of the ethnic Bayeyi tribe claimed islands temporarily as their own for means of survival. Constructing reed huts topped by roofs of what was known as red lechwe grass, they set up makeshift villages wherever they found plentiful game and a big tree for shade.

John Kata told me in a conversation translated from Setswana by his nephew, Camp Okavango Resident Manager M.C. Odumetse, about the history of this region where he now leads guests at a brisk pace on morning game walks and guides their boats and mokoros past the reeds and papyrus. His eyes, perpetually lit as if by sunlight within, can scan the horizon and detect the faintest movement of animals and birds. His gift derives from a singular heritage, a way of life he embodies as though he were a faithful firekeeper with a single ember to tend.

His first memories are of learning to hunt with snares and traps, to make a net for fishing, to carve a mokoro – as he says: “how to survive.” The best guess – only speculation by government census takers --is that John Kata was born in 1944 on what is now the famous Chief’s Island but called by the river bushmen “Sazeta” or “Tsobaoro” – big ebony. Perhaps at 10 years of age, perhaps 13, he carved his first mokoro under the tutelage of his father.

Each clan in the region numbered from about 50 to 80 people, he said. They lived in villages governed by “a headman,” each of whom John Kata said ruled an area “like a hippo.” For those unfamiliar with Botswana, that means with a fierce sense of territorial preservation. As the hunter-gatherer people moved from island to island to set up their homes, they needed to ask permission of areas’ headmen to secure passage.

“You will never ever pass through somebody’s place without consulting the headman,” he said.

And so when food became scarce, men would set out in mokoros to scout for the next place to move the clan. Danger was a given. From an early age, the river bushmen knew to stay clear of crocodiles, lions and hippos.

Their mokoros were made from the wood of African Ebony, Sausage or Marula trees and from the labor of communal hands. A single man would take 1 to 2 months to carve a mokoro, while teamwork – valued and stressed at fireside storytelling for their children’s lessons – could produce a mokoro in three weeks.

Once the scouts found a place teeming with herds of kudu, impalas, wildebeest or tsessebe, they would return to their families to start the trek. First, the mokoros would haul basics: the pots, cups and blankets for a family. Then the families would come: a mother poling at the front tip of the mokoro, a father at the back, with the children in between. On the way to their new land, they would fish for tilapia and nibble on dried catfish that had been smoked with palm leaves.

If someone became ill, a traditional doctor was always at hand. He was a member of the clan, one ready with a plant remedy for even the most poisonous of snake venoms. For some diseases, the traditional doctor would enlist the clan to sing and dance around the fires as an entreaty to the heavens for healing.
Did it work?
John Kata told me it did.

Eventually his clan’s wanderings took its members to what is now called Buffalo Island and even later to an island known as Mojei. Today it is these islands where John Kata walks with Camp Okavango’s guests. On Mojei there are scant signs of the village that was – the clearing, the shade tree. Occasionally a few remnants turn up, such as a metal cup or bits of rubber used for fishing line. It can strike one as sad, the absence of communal life gone from these islands, but John Kata said the clans of the river bushmen made their choice.

After diamonds were discovered in Botswana in 1967, the government promised to use royalties to build schools and health clinics. Out of this development effort came the government’s offer to relocate the clans to Maun, the gateway bustling village for the Okavango Delta. John Kata said the elderly people of his clan had no idea what a school was, but the headman had gone by mokoro to Maun and understood. He persuaded his clan to make the move, John Kata said, sometime in the mid-to-late 1970s. The fact that the clan moved meant that John Kata’s sister gave birth to M.C. Odumetse, Camp Okavango’s manager, in Maun in 1977. M.C. got an education. All of John Kata’s five children went to school as well.

John Kata appreciates the opportunity to show guests on holiday from their fast-paced lives his beloved Buffalo and Mojei islands.

“This is the place of memories,” he said.
It is a beautiful place where “life was very simple and very basic…Maybe they can take that back with them.”


Many thanks to Maria Henson
Volunteer, Desert & Delta Safaris

Savute Large Predator Update

With the split up of the big Lion Pride in the Savute area in September 2006, the other large predator numbers in the area have had the opportunity to increase. Normally the area can only sustain a certain amount of large predators. Due to the aggressive nature of the Lions, as well as a pride size of 36 animals, they displaced the majority of the other large predators from the area.

After a big fire in the Mababe area, south of Savute, two large males from that area moved into the Savute area. They killed the big dominant male of the old pride, resulting in them splitting up and moving into small groups, all around the area.

This old pride had a particular hate for Hyenas, resulting in their complete decimation in the Savute area. The Hyenas were one of the first to make a improved recovery in numbers after the Lion pride split up. Although still quite skittish, we regularly see a group of five Hyenas around the camp. Their tracks are now seen regularly around the Savute area and their calls form part of the nightly chorus.

All around Africa, the African Wild Dog is considered to be endagered. For a long time there were no sightings around the Savute area. Now, for the first time in many years, we are seeing them on a regular basis, often hunting around the camp as well as in areas directly to the north of camp. The pack currently consist of three adults and four sub-adults. Unfortunately a fifth juvenile has died. The current alpha female is heavily pregnant, so soon again another batch of youngsters should be encountered within the Savute area. As the pack size increases, their hunting success rate also increase, giving them a better chance for survival in this harsh environment.

For about two years, two brothers were the only Cheetah in the area. During the last two months another female and a very large male has been seen around the Savute Marsh. Cheetah find life especially difficult when there are a lot of Lions in the area. Although the are very fast, they take a long period (up to 15 minutes) after a kill before they are rested enough to start feeding. The scent of blood, as well as the bleating of the prey often attract the Lion to the kill, resulting in the Cheetah loosing their kill to the more aggressive Lions.

So even though the Lions of Savute are not as dominant as they once were, their reduced pride size is leading to an increase of other large predators in the area. For how long this would remain true remains to be seen. The question is: when the Mababe males are deposed of, will the pride come together again and what will the impact then be on the other large predators of Savute? Only time will tell….

Story Submitted by Kobus - Savute Safari Lodge Manager

Savuti Reveals New and Rare Sightings

As the pans around the Savute area dry up, the game becomes more concentrated around the few permanent waterholes. This year a number of interesting species, and in even more interesting numbers are arriving in the Savute area.

The first odd one of this year was a herd of around 60 Giraffe in the Marabou pan area. Usually we do have Giraffe in the area, found in family groups of around five to seven animals. To see a herd this size is unique, and a phenomenal sighting.

From the arrival of the first rains in the area (normally around December) until the last rains (usually in March) we have a group of Buffalo in the area, never as abundant as in the Delta, but enough to make it a special sighting. As soon as the rains stop, the Buffalo move to the northern areas of Chobe. This year the normal movement pattern changed substantially, propably due to the good rain we received in March. I woke up a couple of days ago (around 02:00am) to the sound and smells of a herd of large animals moving just outside camp. Looking outside, a herd of 28 Buffalo was settling in for the night in the Savute Channel, directly in front of the camp. Since then we regularly see their tracks and droppings around the area. A second herd of about 23 animals have moved into the Marabou Pan area. For the first time on record, we have two herds of Buffalo giving every indication of spending winter in the area.

The larger grasers are also putting in some guest appearances this year. On two separate occasion, a single Sable antelope was observed grazing at the start of the Marsh. A small herd of Roan antelope are also regularly observed in the Harveys Pan area. Although not rare in the northern parts of Botswana, these two species are very seldomly seen in the Savute areas. As Savute is closer to a desert area, the grass cover is usually very sparse, making life for true grasers very difficult.

To top off the list of scarce antelope sightings, a herd of around 150 Eland was observed moving across the southern section of the Marsh. Although common in other parts of Botswana, Eland are very seldom observed in the Savute area.

On Saturday the 31st of May I joined a group of clients for an afternoon game drive. When driving around the Leopard Rock area, I spotted what appeared to be the back of a Lion in the bushes around 100m from the road. We stopped to have a better look at this suspected Lion (It turned out being a tree stump). As we stopped, we noticed a group of seven Wilddog in the tall grass directly next to us. The tall grass acted as perfect camouflage for the Dogs. For about 20 minutes we observed the Dogs playing right next to the vehicle. A young Kudu came walking across the road, resulting in an abandoned chase by the dogs, after which they disappeared into the Mopane Thicket.

A perfect end to afternoon game drive was enjoyed at sunset by all!

This story was submitted by Kobus - Savute Safari Lodge Manager