Africa Part III: The Wildest Stop on Our Journey

This year Southern Africa experienced one of the heaviest rain seasons in decades. Water starting deep in Angola collects from a rash of tributaries and forms the Kwai River that snakes its way through the Kalahari desert crossing from Angola to Namibia, and ultimately into Botswana where it diffuses into the Okavango Delta. This water never makes it to an ocean - It simply diffuses and evaporates over time. Because of the Kalahari sands, dense Papyrus vegetation and other factors, water might only travel a few kilometers per day along this path, meaning that the enormous rains in Angola take 6-9 months before they reach the Delta. Although the Okavango had extremely high water levels throughout its 22,000 square kilometers, they are already starting to brace for another rush of flooding that will arrive in the coming month that will add to the rains that poured down earlier in the year.

To get to our next destination, we would have to fly in a Cessna Caravan for more than an hour across the top of Botswana, and nearly the entirety of the Okavango Delta. Kala Camp is located near the top of the delta where the Kwai River begins to fan out across the Kalahari. As we flew over, we could see a few of the airstrips were flooded, and more were expected to flood in the coming month, meaning that many areas would only be accessible by helicopter.

We finally landed in Jebidu, which is pretty much just an airstrip next to a small village. From here, we jumped on a boat that transported us and our luggage about 30 minutes upstream where we then boarded another Land Cruiser (how they got the Toyota there I don't know) to drive another 10 minutes across the sandy island Kala Camp sits on.

The best way I can describe Kala Camp is … a bigger Toyota Land Cruiser (essentially we were in a place where we, again, couldn’t dangle any appendage or full human outside without risking an “encounter”). The camp is likely the remotest place we have ever traveled. Other than a small handful of native villages, there are no other permanent humans for at least 80 miles in any direction. The land is wild and unspoiled… with even more beauty, violence and unpredictability.

After arriving and eating a quick lunch, we were shown to our tent-cabin and told we had about 2 hours before we should be back at the main lodge for high tea before the afternoon's adventure. We opted to sit on our raised outdoor deck looking out over the area in front of our lone tent where a hippo was mostly submerged eating grass from the river bottom. Some time later as we relaxed, we heard a loud commotion that could only be elephants. Sure enough, a small herd of elephants (large females and adolescent males) made their way between us and the water where they then approached the area around the deck we were lounging on to eat vegetation. Wild African elephants were less than 20 feet away munching anything green. 

At one point, a larger member of the herd could not reach some of the high leaves. Not wanting to be deprived, it simply walked up to the tree (about 12 inches in diameter), put its head against it, and snapped it in two to bring it down like it was nothing! We sat in amazement as the elephants destroyed all the vegetation around our tent.

The view from inside our tent

And then the baby elephants arrived.

I don't care how gruff and ill-tempered you are… no one can be around baby elephants without smiling. They are like 1200lb floppy labrador puppies. They walk with a sort of dance and appear to always be smiling as they gaze in child-like wonder at everything around them. Other than Laura and Alex, these might be my favorite creatures on the Earth.

The view from our deck

 Unfortunately… baby elephants usually come with very protective mother elephants.

The moms and babies walked about 30 feet in front of our tent, and then proceeded to the side of our deck about 20 feet away where the other elephants were eating nearly everything. For some reason, I decided to stand to get a better picture. This was NOT a smart move. One of the larger moms noticed me and turned to face me head on… still about 20 feet away. I immediately froze, but it was too late to go unnoticed. Mom was feeling extra protective and took one aggressive step towards me. It was at this moment that I had the sobering thought of, "There is nothing but a flimsy deck with flimsier railing separating me from one of Africa's most dangerous animals …” which was my cue to get in the tent and let mom and baby eat in peace.

Tea time came and went. The elephants were still munching away which meant it was unsafe to leave our tent. Eventually two of the camp's guides figured out what was going on and came to scare the elephants off. It was then that we learned that 2 days before a baby had gotten separated from a mom on the other side of one of the raised walkways. A nervous mom decided this was not safe and so just demolished the wood structure of the walkway to get to her baby. In other words, the mom I squared off with would have made short work of our deck if she considered me a true threat to her baby.

That night we did an organized canoe trip through the papyrus grasses spotting hippos (which we steered very clear of!), elephants, baboons and wild birds. Yes, we briefly left the comfort of the Land Cruiser for the equivalent of a bicycle! Our guides were quick to tell us, "Do not dangle any part of your body outside the canoe, and absolutely do not put any part of your body in the water!" Their comment was that the water was “infested” with crocodiles and poisonous snakes. That's not a great thing to hear when your butt is just below water-level in a canoe barely wide enough to fold your arms inside!!!

Sunset on our canoe trip

Awesome.