After breakfast I said my goodbyes to Amanda and Nick at the Thorntree Riverside Resort in Zazmbia. I took a van to the banks of the Zambezi, cleared Customs then caught a ferry across to Kasane, Botswana. I was met on the other side by Sue from the Elephant Valley Lodge.

Ron and Sue are what Nick and Amanda will be like in 20 years time. Ron loves the jungle lifestyle and Sue is hanging in there thinking next year Ron will get tired of all the fresh air, come to his senses and move to London. They are economic refugees from Zimbabwe. Elephant Valley Lodge is a tent resort located on the banks of a dry river bed running through a valley that define Botswana on one slope and Zimbabwe on the facing slope. The tree canopy is populated with vultures.

Just outside the electrified fence surrounding the tent resort is a waterhole. When I wasn’t cruising on the Chobe River or touring the Chobe National Park, the waterhole was the place to be. The waterhole functions as a stage where every 15 minutes the cast of characters changes.

On the second morning a leopard showed up around 5:30 in the morning for a drink but the baboon’s shriek frighten it away before I could get my camera. At sunset a herd of wild dogs showed up. This was a very rare treat. Wild dogs are an endanger species and rarely seen in this area. There are only about 600 wild dogs left in Botswana. They are multicolored, very skinny and the most efficient of the African hunters, with a 60% successful kill rate compared to the not even close second, lions at 35%. They just breezed by the waterhole not even stopping for a drink. A pack of wild dogs can cover over 150 miles in a week.

The most playful visitors are the elephants who patiently wait their turn until everyone else has left the pool. Or maybe it is everyone else leaves when the big guys arrive. They usually arrive with the warthogs, not the most beautiful animal, but endearing. Water bucks, Cape Buffalos and Kudus are solitary drinkers.

One afternoon the elephants left the waterhole and come over to the blind where I was watching them. It was amazing; they started digging a private mud bath with their feet. I never thought of elephant’s feet as being capable of digging. Within minutes they struck water and proceeded to turn it into a mud hole. They wallowed around in the mud for a half an hour. Elephants know how to pamper themselves.

That evening when I shared my morning experience watching the elephants making mud holes the conversation turned to “The Elephant Problem”. I was surprised to learn there is an elephant overpopulation problem in southern Africa.

The problem is most prevalent in Botswana, but exists throughout the region. It is due to the success of the conservation program to stop the slaughter for their tusks. There is now an oversupply of elephants of monumental proportions.

Even if their numbers were managed to match the carrying capacity of the land, elephants are extremely destructive. This is exacerbated by their numbers. They tear up twice as much grass as they eat, half falls to the ground uneaten and they won’t pick it up. They knock over and snap off tree trunks while scratching their sides. They tear off and eat the bark of the acacia tree, eventually killing the tree. (Don’t get me wrong. If my arm’s were long enough I’d be an elephant hugger.)

As I traveled around Africa I often saw what looked like former forest fire sites, when in fact it was the result of elephants peeling off the bark. The total elephant population in Botswana is over 125,000. The vegetation can only support 25,000, so what to do with the excess 100,000?

The government tried a culling program. There are still a lot of people around who are willing to pay large sums of money to hunt them and then there’s the pent up market for ivory. The zoos are at elephant capacity.

When a US conservation group heard about the culling programs they lobbied the US government to stop exports to Botswana until the killing was stopped. So the Botswana government is left scratching their heads for a solution while the elephants continue scratching their hides on the trees. Sterilization is not viable as it is too expensive.

Not sure what Freud would have to say about this but my sophomoric sense of humor will not let this pass. I tried to ignore it but it’s too large a subject to leave untouched.

The male elephant’s penis weights over 50 pounds and discharges a half a gallon of semen. So like, can I get a copy of the grant application asking for funding to conduct the study that produced this data?

I learned this after coming across an elephant in musk, as they call it. I was told the elephant is the only animal where both sexes go into heat. Whoever conducted that study never spent time hanging around an American high school. There are a couple of clues that your male elephant is in musk. First are the wet spots on either side of his head. He secretes musk oil; if you can’t see it you can certainly smell it.

The musked male elephant ‘edrips’ 200 gallons of a fluid per day from his genitals. So if you don’t see him or smell him coming you know where he’s been by the trail through the jungle.

Now back to my question about the study. During the drive returning to the camp I couldn’t stop thinking about who would do such a study and how they got the funding for such a project and wondered how they collected this data.

I tried to put myself in the position of the researcher faced with this challenge and thought what would I have done if I had to gather the data. OK, so you have the grant to come to Africa to determine the weight of the elephants unit and quantity of his load.

What do you do? I’m bouncing along in the back of the Land Rover trying to recall the various scientific methods for determining the weight of objects that you can’t put your hands on, so to speak or put onto a scale. There’s the scientific paper method where you draw an outline of the object, burn the paper and weigh the ashes. Nah, too much paper and then there’s that 200 gallons a day in the lab.

The only solution I could think of involved a chainsaw which would have resulted in living out my golden years marching with the Emperor penguins.

The tents at Elephant Valley Lodge are extremely comfortable. There are proper beds on a wooden deck with a hot shower. There is electricity all night and a fan. At the front is an open deck facing the waterhole.

One afternoon while sitting on the terrace keeping an eye on the waterhole a uniformed gentleman with an M-16 rifle walked up to my terrace.

‘Oh?! Hi’ He was immediately followed by six of his armed comrades. There was a report of three illegal Zimbabweans crossing into Botswana a couple of hours before and they were looking for them. That night as I zipped into my tent the night guard came over and said, “If you hear anything strange and you need some help just œring your whistle. It’s on your night stand.” My last thought as I fell asleep was what constitutes a strange noise in the jungle to a city dweller; it’s all strange!

The first evening’s activity in Botswana was a boat trip on the Choba River. It was a half hour drive down Vulture Alley onto a wide modern deserted highway then over to the river. Half way down the valley there was the foulest odor to date on the trip. It was an experience repeated every time I traveled to and from the lodge. An elephant had died just off the path about two months ago. It makes a road killed skunk smell like an air freshener. Every time I approached it I played “How long can I hold my breath?” The eyes watered.

Exploring the Choba River was relaxing, although the boat was a little unstable. Boat? It was a set of parallel pontoons made up of 55 gallon drums lashed together topped with a steel plate and folding chairs. There were little ‘xs’ on the steel plate where the chairs had to remain to maintain balance.

Eugene was an excellent guide and was able to maneuver the ‘boat’ within a couple of feet of a number of crocodiles and Monitor Lizards. Out on the grassy islands were dozens of elephants and hippopotamus. There are no trees on the island but plenty of sweet grass.

The elephants only come out to the islands during the day. They return to the tree covered mainland at sunset. The islands used to be a major killing spot for poachers. Four countries meet at one point here, Botswana, Zimbabwe, Zambia and Namibia. So it was difficult to monitor poaching in the past. Now there are international agreements in place stopping the poaching.

It was the worldwide ban on the sale of ivory that finally killed the business. Eugene says the elephants remember that time and will not stay overnight on the islands. All of the killing was done at night.

At sunset the elephants cross the river returning to the mainland. Neither elephants nor hippopotamus swim. Elephants use their trunk as a snorkel to cross the river. Hippos on the other hand walk along the bottom. A cross section of the river at sunset would make an interesting piece of underwater video. The area is rich in birds in particular the Fish Eagle, a look alike to the American Bald Eagle.

Fish Eagle The Crock Frolicking Elephants & Staid Warthogs A Chobe Sunset

 

I’ll spend the next week in Cape Town removing ticks and chasing penguins at Simon’s Town. I don’t expect there will be much to report from there. So this will conclude my southern African adventure.

© Copyright Michael Morrissey, All Rights Reserved.

Article by Michael Morrissey is considered one of the new generation of adventure and travel photographers. Based in Bangkok, Thailand with a passion for travel, Michael got hooked on photography while driving a bus from Istanbul to Katmandu in the 70’s; an obsession briefly interrupted with a twenty year career in business. You can view his photography at: www.mjmorrissey.com

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