Following in the Footsteps of the Famous

Chobe Game Lodge in Botswana is a favored get-right-away-from-it-all for the rich and famous. Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton re-married there. So, more recently, did Des and Noelle Bolton… and Prince Bernhard of the Netherlands has been known to wander in for afternoon tea.

Financier Anton Rupert, the Ackermans, Maureen Reagan, Richards Chamberlain and Sol and Dol all declare this remote area where the boundaries of Zambia, Zimbabwe, SWA’s Caprivi and Bostwana meet – a magical zone. Indefatigable as ever on your behalf, Jani flew to this untamed last resort. FRIDAY 10, 5.30: A straggle of nosferatu the undead assemble in the dismal-before-dawn departure room of the airport.

Lashes

Lighting short-circuits the sky. Rain lashes down like its Noah’s last warning. We stagger aboard like Mosquito Coast refugees. The undead drop into the nearest seats. I choose the rear fuselage, wedged between the damp luggage, cooler bags, cameras and straw hats.

Snooze

For two hours we fly north in the toy Speeder jet-prop. The nosferatu snooze, their jowls sag. There are small caves where their eyes should be. By 8am a faint light bleaches the Makarikari Salt Pan. Through the heat haze, the flat earth looks like a crumpled, brown paper bag.

Beyond this place there are dragons…

Life stirs in the cabin. Among the nosferatu are now recognizable broadcaster Bea Read; TV newsreader and Monitor’s morning news bird Marietta Kruger; Marilyn Hattingh, editor of Style magazine; and the ST Colour Magazine.

The Eminent Persons Group peer out of the windows, blinking. Soon bored, they turn to the contents of the food hampers organized by Melanie Millin-Moore, PR executive of Sun International.

The brown paper bag has become green corduroy, veined with silver ribbons of rivers. Through a mouthful of sarine, Bea Read bellows: “Oh look, everybody! The Victoria Falls.” Visible just beneath the cheap-cutlery-silver of the wingtip, is a ball of fluff resting on the khaki carpet, fluff overlooked by God’s vacuum-cleaner.

Giant

The Chobe flood plain spreads out like a giant nursery tablecloth, patterned with hundreds of toy elephants. The plane kangaroos onto Kasane’s gravel airstrip, narrowly avoiding collision with a tractor. Jill Haniger, the ever cheerful lady of the lodge, welcomes us warmly.

The passport control office is a battered tin trunk where Botswana officials stands, rubber stamp at the ready. A Louis Vuitton bag rests in the trunk. Chobe is the millionaire’s malarial area. We wait for the Mosi-Aou-Tunya, the barge that is to carry us to the lodge.

The EPG are starting to turn pink – the first stages of foil-roasted. As we chug down the river, Jill tells me about the R and F who have also been foil-roasted. Richard Chambelain was an absolute pleasure; Ruth Khama, wife of the late Sir Seretse – well, the people adore her around these parts; Anton Rupert… and of course all the honeymooners.

Why do they come to Chobe?

Perhaps it’s the spectacular scenery, the whispered dawns, the stain-glass sunsets, the shooting stars that will make all your dreams come true…

Precisely as advertised, elephants trundle down to the water’s edge, Egyptian geese fly past in high-kitsch formation, wire-tailed swallows needle past our ears and prehistoric crocdiles bask on the banks.

I ask Jill about… er… shopping. Kasane is the nearest village. I gather that it consists of four mud huts. No chance of picking up a carton of Malboro? A calabash even? Jill roars with laughter. The closest town is Francistown, some 550km away.

Beasties

Two hours later we reach Chobe Game Lodge, nestling on the bank of the river. Outside out bedroom I trip over three rooting beasties who seem to have some design error since they have to kneel on their front legs in order for their snouts to reach the ground. I consider the possibility of hallucination due to exhaustion – either that, or they ARE warthogs.

FRIDAY 10, 4pm: Ranger Walter takes us on a three-hour game drive. (Everything takes three hours at Chobe). He knows the bush like his own backyard, He pronounces ‘Puku’, “Phoooookooooe”. There are lots of Phoooookhoe and lots of Khooooodhoooooe. There are also lots of elephants. Each time someone says “oh look”, Bea Read booms: “Well spotted!”

When we see baby animals of any kind Bea goes “Ooooezawooozaietiebietiebabie!” We chorus: “Well spotted!” Jill tells us not to be alarmed if any elephant stages a mock charge.

Culled

“Just watch Walter’s face. In any case, elephant haven’t been culled in this area for five years.” “Elephants have got good memories,” mutters Marilyn darkly as a young bull dances are shrieks theatrically a few meters ahead of us. “Maybe they remember”.

By now the sky is spilling a campari-pink glow on the river and the acacia trees have turned into hunched, anthracite sentries. When the campari pink turns Quink blue we head for base camp.

Over a candle-lit supper, GM Helge Haniger entertains us with game ranger stories: how they have to chase elephants off the lawns, how Jill (his wife) had to rescue a visiting Sir Big Wig from becoming crocodile fodder when his canoe overturned. I fall asleep listening to stars falling and the procession of night as it moves through the timeless continent.

Saturday 11: The verandah at lunchtime looks like a Camel cigarettes/ Safrics sponsored safari. Why aren’t they perspiring? There is climate at Chobe – only scorching heat. I meet film producer Ricky Lomba, whose “The End of Eden” is to be previewed at the Johannesburg Film Festival on April 24.

Noisy

He’s here with environmentalists Delia and Mark Owens (they wrote “Cry of the Kalahari”) to meet bob Castens, a US senator, to discuss Important Environmental Issues.

A noisy crocodile Dundee-type, evidently well known in this outback, distributes bone-crushing handshakes. “Colin Bell. Overland Safaris,” Jill informs me. Machismo is an incurable disease in these parts.

Saturday: I am woken from a sticky siesta by a young black man. “Mess Jeel. She. Say You. Come. On boat. Now,” he tells me sternly. I Come. To. WAKE. UP. YOU”

The barge creaks under the weight of a zillion expensive cameras, video recorders and binoculars. The creek is creaking. The shutterbugs have that Determined-To-Record- Every-Moment anxiety look on their faces.

Pink-eared hippos hrrrrumphed likes plummet, skim and soar. Baby elephant jiggle-trot and fall plop in the mud. As sunset we drink a toast to a honeymoon couple who beam happily in their brand-new pith helmets and sun-poisoned red complexions. I make mental notes to book a facial instanter we return to civilization.

Dances

When I face west, the Chobe glistens languidly like apricot juice. When I face East, it glitters and dances like a million brilliantined bream. Later that night, a splinter group of the EPG decides to defy the lights-out curfew and sweet-talk a couple of rangers into giving us a nightcap on the river. Sipping Irish coffees in the moonlight on the Mosi, I decide is… uh…. Out of Africa.