Botswana, Kingdom Of The Animals

Sunday Star - 17 January 1988

Author: Douglas Alexander

Richard Burton and Liz Taylor chose wisely when they holidayed in Botswana 12 years ago. It truly is one of Africa’s most exciting destinations. Such is its magnetism that one of Burton’s several widows, the beautiful British model Suzy Hunt, flew there on holiday with her wealy new American husband not long ago.

Probably she wanted to discover what magic Botswana held to entice Burton and Liz from the fleshpots of the US and Europe, to taste the wilds of Africa and remarry at a dusty Chobe magisterial outpost. “Suzy and her husband loved it,” said Map Ives (32), warden of the bush-covered, riverside camp at Linyanti which overlooks the Caprivi Strip.

The likeable Suzy, plain in khaki and spectacles by day, but a stunning beauty around the camp-fire at night, is remembered by the locals with affection. But not so Burton. They still want to know why he never honoured his promise to donate R1-million for a district clinic. OK MD Gordon Hood believes Botswana is probably the greatest wildlife spot in the world. He describes the elephant viewing at Savuti in southern Chobe as “unparalleled”.

Hook, a keen wildlife photographer, who frequently visits Botswana with his wife Diana and friends, told me: “Botswana takes a lot of beating. It is fantastic.” Rod Murphy, whose Bonaventure Botswana has offices in Johannesburg and Maun, told m the ration of South African to foreign visitors is 50-50.

Such is its lure that wildlife experts and tour firms predict that within five to 10 years, Botswana will replace commercialised, over-priced Kenya as the most popular African bush destination for US, British, West German and other tourists. Already Botswana is advertised overseas as “Africa’s last true unspoiled wilderness”. The Gaborone authorities received 600 applications a year from foreign entrepreneurs, including many South Africans and Americans, to invest millions in tourist camps and safari bases in Botswana.

Only a fraction will be lucky. Botswana has not wish to see its magnificent Okavago Delta, Chobe Reserve, Tuli Block and other great wild life regions, overrun by camps and safari outfits. Botswana is rare among African black states in its dedication to wildlife conservation (no wholesale slaughter there of ivory, aphrodisiacs and skins), an attitude inherited from the late Sir Seretse Khama, who was rightly proud of his country’s unique wildlife heritage.

Botswana, where the camera has mostly replaced the gun, is a photographer’s dream. On a five-day trip you’ll see everything from lion, elephant and rhino to baboon, sable antelope, tsesebe, giraffe, hippo, crocodile, warthog and lechwe’ and some of the biggest buffalo and zebra concentrations in Africa. You may not always spot all of the big five (lion, leopard, elephant, rhino and buffalo), or the monster crocodiles that lurk in the reeds. You can’t always be lucky. “It’s not a zoo,” game ranger Richard Hills reminded us.

Camp life is a major part of the fun, and the tented camps at Camp Okavango and Moremi offer sweet luxury in the bush. One brochure describes a camp as “a five-star hotel under canvas.” Highlight of an Okavango trip is a boat ride, like the seven-hour journey we took along the meandering, reed-fringed waterways linking Cap Okavango and Moremi.

Our boutman Lou treated the hippo with respect and always gunned the engine to sweep past them. “Hippo cause more deaths in Africa than any other wild animal,” Richard Hills pointed out.

Rangers are astonished by ignorance among tourists of the hippo danger. An elderly American couple, drawn ot the African wilds by the movie “Out of Africa”, stopped their self-drive vehicle at a water-hole so that dad could “tickle those cuddly, roly-poly things”. Fortunately the hippos stayed in mid-stream. You don’t have to tempt fate to enjoy the wilds of Botswana.