A safari at Little DumaTau

Up we go. We lift-off in the smallest plane I’ve ever been in, on the most dreamlike flight I’ve ever had. The view from above is hard to describe. Winding used-to-be-rivers, bushels of green dotted across vast plains, hundreds of trees and scattered water holes. Despite it being summer, when the Delta’s waterways have largely dried up, I will never forget that view. “Beautiful” doesn’t cut it. As the plane jolts and I hold my core tight to keep the motion sickness at bay, my mind soars. Straight out the window and down to marvel at three elephants walking in convoy along the edge of a stream. Already I’m picturing them close up, and the tears start to come. I imagine what this will look like in winter when the waters are high and the land lush, but without a hint of longing. At this moment, I’m in the best place in the world, and would not trade it for a thing. 

Eventually the Linyanti Airstrip comes into view and I feel the plane tilt and ease into descent. Here we go, I think to myself, and so it begins. Verena and I tumble out of the aircraft sweaty and dazed, but no less excited to get to the camp. 

“You must be Merryn”, a tall man with sunglasses yells through the noise. In the classic khakis of a safari guide, I figure this must be our guide for the next two days. And so he was. Nyatsang or Nas helps us with our bags and loads us onto a game vehicle that waits in a shaded area made of logs. Feeling a bit sick and rattled, but nonetheless keen to get out there, we chat away with Nas while he waits for the plane to depart again. Like the heavens themselves are opening up, he retrieves a cooler box from under the passenger seat and hands me an ice-cold ginger beer to settle my stomach. My hero. And off we go into the wild Linyanti, headed for Wilderness Little DumaTau. 

So many friendly faces greet us at camp; Dolly, a very sweet woman who hands us cold, damp towels to cool our warm foreheads; Chippa, a tall, kind-faced waiter who gives us welcome drinks made of mango and passionfruit; Pedi, the manager, who greets us like old friends. The space and the people exude such a friendly energy that the fatigue of travelling immediately dissipates. With cool cloths round our necks, Verena and I dreamily ascend the boardwalk into camp.  

The moment I lay eyes on Osprey Lagoon, I want to extend our stay. To leave this place after just two days feels mad. Sparkling under the afternoon sun and even larger than I’d imagined, Osprey is gorgeous. After being drenched in our own sweat for four hours, the urge to jump into the lagoon is potent. We have a quick camp briefing with the lovely Dolly, then head off to see our illustrious quarters. 

Roughly the size of my apartment back in the city, what Dolly calls my ‘room’ is more of a suite. The bed is massive too, and through its draped nets I can see a brilliant and sweeping view of the lagoon. Verena chuckles at the shock on my face – we really get to stay here? – and off she goes, escorted to her own suite a little down the way. 

After a mad rush 15-minute break – during which I wash my face, change my shirt and gawk at the room – I head back to the main area to meet Verena for High Tea. I’m not hungry, but that doesn’t stop me from eating two chocolate-covered magwinyas, a chicken wrap, and some salmon and cream cheese balls. I also sip on the most refreshing lassi, made with banana, vanilla and baobab root powder. How very Botswana. 

After a little while gorging on the food, we begin our very first game drive of the trip. Fatigue and the heat be damned – I’m dying to see more of the wilderness area that has swallowed us up. 

Nas is a born storyteller, that’s for sure. The way he describes the phenomena around us is captivating. Even Verena, who has been on safari in Botswana at least 10 times, hangs on his every word. Within ten minutes of driving, we encounter a small herd of elephants under some mopane trees, and Nas has a wealth of knowledge to share. This is a breeding herd, he says, made up of several females and some babies. “They’ll crowd around the baby soon to protect him”, he notes, and within seconds, they do just that, forming a tight circle around an infant still too young to run without tumbling over. 

We continue the drive, bumping along past jackalberry and sausage trees, past increasing numbers of elephants sheltering in the shade. Hundreds of impalas come and go, and I stop counting them and their spindly-legged young – freshly dropped during this calving season, Nas tells me. We spot giraffes with their heads peeking out from the bushes, some with cattle egrets lined up on their sloping necks, and again, there’s a story in there that Nas is excited to tell me. Despite the fact he’s likely told these tales hundreds of times, I don’t detect a speck of boredom in his voice. This is his life and his passion – and it shows. 

He tells us about the resident lioness Mma Mabele – a literal Setswana name meaning ‘large breasts’ – who descends from a Namibian pride of about eight lions. Impressively, Mma Mabele has been raising her male cubs on her own, cubs that will one day become rivals of the local Army Boys, a coalition of six males. All these stories get us excited to see the lions for ourselves, but we haven’t spotted one yet. 

The drive continues through woodlands and savannahs, and my city brain cannot help but look (in vain) for a border to this wild, unruly landscape. As we drive, more and more elephants reveal themselves, and it strikes me how outnumbered we are out here. It feels as though Verena, Nas and I are the only three people in the world. 

After what feels like a full day of traversing the reserve (but was in fact two hours), the sun is about to set, so Nas takes the vehicle over a log bridge and toward an idyllic green floodplain. As I look over the bridge, I see about 15 elephants gathered around a stream, and croon at their beauty under the yellow-orange light. But Nas seems to have spotted something elsewhere. Verena, too. She gasps and points, he speeds up and speaks in into his radio, and I have no idea what all the fuss is about. 

I follow Verena’s eyeline and see something like a heap of sand on the grass some tens of metres from the bridge, a heap which is now revealing itself to be a large male lion. Nas gets us off the bridge and heads towards the lion. I keep wondering when the beast is going to move, but the lion is totally relaxed. We’re so close now that I can see his chest rising up and down, along with the little tremors of his skin thanks to bothersome horseflies. He’s huge. Huger than I expected. I hold my hand up to my face and compare it to the size of his enormous paw. The havoc that lion could wreak on us right then and there is not lost on me, but I take my cues from Verena and Nas, who seem completely calm. 

As Nas pulls yet another bounty of snacks from under his seat, he tells us all about the lion, whose name is Ranoka or Mr Hip – a name given to him because of his laboured, post-battle walk. He has two scars above his left eye that hint at a similarly violent story. He’s part of the Army Boys coalition, Nas tell us, and soon we spot another one of Ranoka’s gang behind a bush some distance away. We’re in the perfect spot to watch them quietly and enjoy the sunset – elephants in one corner, lions in the other. I recall that this is only Day One and my heart sings. 

“Lion tracks”, Nas tells us as he leans over the car door the next morning, inspecting the sand and showing us where to look. “She must have been hunting last night”. From the lone tracks, he can tell it was Mma Mabele, though I see nothing but sand. Verena and I scan the horizon dutifully looking for the lioness we’ve heard so much about. In the meantime, Verena is an awe of all the birds –hornbills, goliath herons and many others I jot down to Google later. 

After driving a while longer with no sign of Mma Mabele, Nas says it’s time for coffee, and we enthusiastically agree. We park right in front of a shallow waterhole, just in time to watch the morning sun cut through the clouds like a theatre spotlight. It’s the perfect lighting for the performance below – a pod of hippos grunting in the water like a chorus of grumpy altos. 

Later, on the drive, distracted by the beauty of the landscape, I forget we’re looking for lions at all. Herds of elephants, countless trees and birds and the remarkable light filtering through the clouds – I don’t know where to look anymore. It’s a breath of fresh air from the noise of Cape Town city. No ostentatious sports cars threatening to push me off the road. No traffic lights, or street lights, or even a hint of the urban world I’m used to. I catch my own expression in Nas’s mirror and can’t believe how content I look. 

About an hour later something shifts in Nas’s energy. He grabs the radio from his dash and in an instant seems to be communicating with another guide somewhere on the reserve. “Cubs”, I hear him say in amongst the Setswana words I can’t understand. Verena has her binocs up, and again I look around frantically to see the sights I must be missing. We curve around a tree, Nas turns to us and says “There”. 

And so they are. As one male lion cub emerges from behind a tree, my jaw is on the floor. Two and I’m gobsmacked. By the time all eight cubs are in view, I have no more words. The strength of their shoulders is much more obvious now, compared to Ranoka who was lying down when we saw him. I’m amazed at how their muscles ripple as the lions’ paws hit the ground.  Nas tells us they must be escaping older lions, and sure enough two maned beasts arrive just a few metres behind. 

I’m on the side of the vehicle where the action is, and I lift my camera to photograph one male lion coming right towards me. Closer, closer, closer he comes until he’s entirely filled up the frame, then suddenly I don’t care about the photo anymore. I slowly put the camera back in my lap, watching the lion all the while, and feel myself push my back deeper and deeper into the car seat. After a time, I can reach out and touch him, and by now I’m using the full force of my legs to lean as far back as physically possibly, so much so I can hear the plastic on the seat squeaking behind me. Finally, the lion turns and walks around the front of the car, and I let myself relax. “He just stared right into my soul”, I tell Nas, and he chuckles away at me, starting the car once more.  

“DumaTau, do you copy?” I hear Nas speak into the radio. “Nas, go ahead”, the disembodied voice answers. We’re on our way to DumaTau main camp for brunch on the barge. After a morning driving in 40-degree heat, the mere thought of being on the water is cooling me down. As Nas radios the camp – “DumaTau, we’re 5 minutes away” – I’m ready to enjoy the lagoon and hopefully see more elephants. 

The barge has been set up just for Verena and I, and we’re practically blushing at the amount of spoiling we’ve received. The spread they’ve put out for us is elaborate to say the least, and I joke with Verena that we’re having a spectacular honeymoon. 

Ten minutes on the water and I feel tears begin to form again. I wonder why humans ever built cities when a place like this exists. As we enjoy what Nas calls a slow “DumaTau drift”, I turn my head to the left and right, stunned by the expansiveness of the landscape. In the distance I see the silhouettes of a few elephants wandering through tall, billowing reeds towards the lagoon banks. Nas seems to spot them too, and turns the barge towards them. 

I watch wide-eyed as a large elephant wades into the water. Her ears flap and trunk flails with what I can only assume is joy in thanks to the cool water, the rest of his herd close behind. As the barge drifts, so do they, with the babies playfully colliding with the adults’ backs. I’m enraptured by every detail: the bull’s ashy grey skin turning a deep charcoal in the water; the humorous, floppy movement of his trunk as he sucks and drops water onto his back. I lift my camera with the knowledge I won’t be able to capture the strength of his stride, press the shutter and try to hold the picture in memory. 

After just two nights at Little DumaTau, Verena and I are unwilling to leave. We hug everyone as though we’ve known them for years and they’re kind enough to do the same for us. Knowing how bountiful this land is – how much wildlife, biodiversity and bird life thrives here – I’m already dreaming of a return someday. A week in this waterside paradise would be far better than two days, but I know that even a lifetime in the Linyanti would never be enough. As we fly out of the airstrip and wave goodbye to Nas, I make a promise to myself to come back soon.