Strip Pan Wrinkle

by David Fletcher

  Of course, that much water brings a lot of other stuff with it as well, stuff like sand, topsoil and leached nutrients. Which means that, rather than being just a big patch of damp in Botswana, the delta is a maze of lagoons, channels and islands – and an ideal environment for a huge assortment of wildlife, and especially for some of its bigger representatives, such as elephants, buffaloes, wildebeests, giraffes and hippos. It is also, of course, the sort of pristine landscape that is beautiful in its own right, and is considered by many (and by Brian and Sandra) to be amongst the most scenic in all Africa. On top of all this, it is one of the few places in the world where humans take the back seat. It is such a precious part of Botswana’s natural resources (and contains 95% of all its surface water) that it is highly protected, and is essentially run as a giant 16,000 square-kilometre wildlife haven, and, for those fortunate enough to be able to visit it, as one of the most sensational wildlife destinations on the planet (and one that, for Brian and Sandra, will never lose its appeal).

  Well, with that sort of build up, it is easy to understand why these two travellers were quite prepared to invest a night in Maun at a pretty ordinary hotel in readiness for a flight into the delta the next day, where they would then spend the following five nights. And the first part of this investment process was to find this establishment, the rather misleadingly named “Maun Lodge”.

  It proved quite easy. Maun really is a very small place. And it was equally easy to find the airport and the offices of “Wilderness Safaris”, the mammoth company that would be transporting Brian and Sandra into the delta and housing them in two of its lodges there. Sandra had thought it would be a good idea to spend time finding this office today rather than failing to find it in time tomorrow and thus missing their flight. Brian agreed. And anyway, he was beginning to resent the fact that he would be abandoning his trusty Land Cruiser for a whole five days and he welcomed any opportunity to drive it while he still could. (And to flaunt its “exotic” Namibian plates around the streets of Maun – albeit he wasn’t going to admit to that.)

  So, the reccy job done, it was time to return to the Maun Lodge and to check in. It really was a simple place. Unlike the receptionist who just gave the appearance of being simple. It was her mix of indifference and ineptitude, which, judging by the behaviour and demeanour of her hotel colleagues, was not unique here. Brian quickly decided that the Maun Lodge was the sort of place where winning the employee of the month award wouldn’t be too much of a problem…

  And there he was – at it again. And he’d only got as far as reception. So he slapped himself on the wrist, reminded himself that he’d already been warned that this hotel was “unsophisticated but comfortable”, and made every effort to be as nice as possible to the receptionist, even smiling at her as she dithered.

  So, ten minutes later, Brian and Sandra were ensconced in their room and contemplating its ambience. It could be best summed up, thought Brian, as… unsophisticated but comfortable – although it was at least sophisticated enough to have a telly. It also had an air-con system, which, given that the heat-wave had abated only a little, was very welcome indeed. In fact, almost as welcome as an early lunchtime drink in the hotel’s boma. For Brian and his wife had now forsaken their room and its air-conditioning for a bite to eat – and a drink – in the hotel’s newly constructed “eating corral”. It was essentially an outdoor restaurant and bar, modelled on a traditional Botswanan boma, but much larger and in an urban rather than a rural setting. But no matter. It was very well done, and so too were the cheese toasties it served. It provided Brian and Sandra with just what they wanted and set them up perfectly for an afternoon of in-room entertainment…

  Some of this involved the telly and, in particular, the catching up with world events. After all, what could be more entertaining than discovering what had been going on around the globe through the eyes of CNN? This lot didn’t just present the news; they moulded it into a performance – with the principal performers made to look like either aliens or mannequins. And one couldn’t get away from it: real plastic never looks as plastic as those complexions, and Widow Twanky would just die for that hair. However, if one tried, one could ignore the theatrics of it all and just focus on the news, which was fairly entertaining in its own right.

  For example, there was first the news that some Pakistani cricketers had been found guilty of cheating, which was a good curtain raiser. Then there was the news that a Polish aircraft had successfully landed without an undercarriage (through a mechanical failure and not through a memory lapse on the part of the crew), which was a real crowd pleaser. And then the news that the Greeks were busy screwing up their latest euro bailout, which was a fitting finale to a genuine variety performance. It appeared – on this last item – that the bailout deal was going to be put to a referendum sometime in the future, in the full knowledge that a majority of Greeks were against the austerity involved and would vote against it, albeit that a bigger majority wanted to stay in the euro. Which sounded to Brian like a clear case of having your baklava and wanting to eat it.

  But now it was time for dinner, and dinner was back in the boma. What appeared on the plates there wasn’t very exciting, but what appeared in the centre of the boma was distinctly more enthralling. This was a local dance troupe in local minimalistic garb, made up of a number of energetic males and a smaller number of rather less energetic females, most of whom would have been well advised to be more energetic. These female dancers were all young, but the majority of them were already well on their way to acquiring a local “traditional” shape and the sort of Body Mass Index which accompanies this shape. But at least they weren’t looking for a bailout from Europe.

  Yes, that Greek news item was still playing on Brian’s mind, and soon he was imparting his latest thoughts on the matter to his long-suffering wife. He had a solution, he announced. A novel, imaginative solution. Why don’t the Greeks, he argued, simply sell Crete to the Chinese? They could easily get enough for it to pay off their debts, and they’d even be getting rid of that dreadful airport at Heraklion as well. Then, when they’d been sorted, Brussels could invite China into the European Union (because part of it would now be part of Europe), and they would then be able not only to sting the Chinese for a massive EU contribution and so solve the whole of the euro problem, but they would also be able to saddle them with all those EU regulations, which would inevitably bring China’s economy to a shuddering (and probably permanent) halt. Job done – and, as a bonus, no more of those interminable images of platform shoes and trouser suits, because Sarkozy and Merkel would have no further reason to keep meeting every week – and smiling at each other.

  Sandra conceded that this was a novel idea, but argued that it was probably more a demented idea than an imaginative one. And anyway, wasn’t it about time that they both went to bed? They had a flight to catch tomorrow, and if they stayed in this boma any longer, there was also the risk that Brian might dream up another novel and imaginative solution to a world problem, and she wasn’t quite sure she was up to that.

  Brian got the message and, with Sandra, he returned to their room. On the way there, he noticed that the automatic shoe-polisher near reception had no English instructions on it but was instead covered in Chinese hieroglyphics. For a moment he thought he’d been whisked off to Crete. But then he remembered where he was: in Botswana – and in Maun, the gateway to the Okavango. And tomorrow he’d be in the Okavango itself – at one of its lodges, where even he might have difficulty in finding any faults…

  20.

  Breakfast was from a buffet in the boma. Unfortunately, due to the restrictive practices concerning toast making and a byzantine system surrounding butter procurement, it was more a meal to be negotiated than one to be enjoyed. But it did remind Brian of where he was going – and how matters would soon improve. The first sign of this improvement was at the offices of Wilderness Safaris. This was where Brian and Sandra dropped off their vehicle, and where they got their first tast
e of that same Wilderness hospitality they’d so enjoyed in the past. And that meant a welcoming chat with the office staff and then an escort to the nearby airport by the office manager and the office dog. Here, when the office manager had sorted out the check-in stuff and wished them a good trip, Brian and Sandra made their way to the departure lounge to await their flight – and discovered that it was to be a virtually full one. There were already two other people in the lounge.

  Maun Airport does have a conventional commercial airline activity – with planes with lots of seats taking off for places like Johannesburg and Windhoek. But the vast majority of its business is facilitating the ferrying of foreigners – and local lodge staff – into the Okavango Delta, for which purpose it handles somewhat smaller planes. These are either Cessna “Caravans”, which take about a dozen people, or Cessna 172s, which, including the pilot, take only six. Brian and Sandra were in a 172 this morning, with two local girls who were returning to their lodge after a scheduled break. This was good news. Not only because both Brian and Sandra preferred these smaller craft, but also because they had learnt that just a couple of weeks earlier, one of the Caravans had lost power after taking off from Maun, had crash landed and burst into flames. Only two of its passengers had survived… Brian knew that lightning rarely struck in the same place twice, but lightning didn’t come off the same aeroplane production line. So he was more than a little relieved, and far more than he was prepared to admit.

  However, relief gave way to pleasure as soon as the diminutive Cessna left the ground. Because Brian’s “Delta adventure” had already started. For the next hour or so he would be flying low over its endless flat landscape, and he would therefore be able to savour the delight of its ever changing form and its ever changing colours. It was an experience not to be missed.

  To begin with, the land below was where the delta’s waters “only just make it”. Here, at the height of the wet season, the annual flood creeps towards the outer edges of the delta basin and, in doing so, determines the elevation of the land with absolute precision. Where, just inches higher than that surrounding it, it remains dry. Where, below this, it is inundated either partially or completely. And now, at the end of the dry season, when most of this water has gone, the ground bears the evidence of this hydrological resolution. Where the water never penetrated – and where there is no vegetation – there are islands of beige. Where the water made just an ephemeral visit, there is apricot – often as a ring around some beige. And threaded between these largely lifeless hues, and indicating where the water had run and stayed (and in some places is present even now), is green, the unmistakable green of life-loving life. Give it just a taste of that precious liquid and it springs from the earth. And here, just north of Maun, it decorates the dry sandy earth with this delicate lacework of green, a vivid illustration of both the vigour and the fragility of all living things.

  Soon, however, the green becomes the predominant colour. This is where that delta basin is imperceptibly lower, but in hydrological terms, a bit of a push over. There are still patches of beige and apricot, some of them very large, but this is now more a water environment than a land one. There are trees down there – near the water, reeds – in the water, and even clear water, real crystal-clear ponds, deep enough to take a bathing hippo – and persistently irresistible to elephants… And one can see them from the plane! Troops of slow-moving pachyderms, looking impossibly small, processing across the vastness of the land below, and maintaining one of the millions of pathways which criss-cross its face. For here, in these wetter realms, and looking like veins on a giant leaf, elephant walkways have been scored into the surface of the land and, with the help of hippos, through the reed-beds as well. And without this invention called an aeroplane (and the resources needed to be on this one), Brian would never have seen them, or the totality of the splendour that the delta embraced. Shit, he told himself, he was such a lucky bastard…

  Although maybe not quite so lucky as the girl beside him and the girl behind him who saw all this stuff on their way to work and, on top of that, had a job in the middle of Shangri-la. Or maybe they didn’t see it quite that way. Maybe a job is a job wherever it is, and anyway, they probably got to see more of the inside of a lodge kitchen than they did of the marvels of the delta. And how could one use one’s iSpud out here or even have a night out at Nando’s (yes, there is one in Maun)? They’d probably be happier in somewhere like Newcastle, where not only could they be continuously connected but where they could also enjoy a good night out every night. However, he would never know for sure, just as he would never know to what degree his prejudices against the habits of the young were misplaced. And this was because of the noise in the plane. Cessna 172s are pretty nifty aircraft, offering the prospect of close-proximity accommodation with strangers on every trip, but not the ability to chat to them or conceivably to chat them up. So when the two workers on board had been deposited at an airstrip near their lodge and had been replaced by a young American couple, the curvier and more attractive of which had been squeezed next to Brian, he could no more converse with her than he could invite her to join him in the mile-high club, even, assuming for a moment, that he could ever harbour such a despicable ambition. And this despite her confession, as she boarded, that she might need to hold his hand. And anyway, the Cessnas never got anywhere near a mile high in their progress. It was more like a thousand feet, which for spiritual rather than sexual satisfaction was more than ideal. Because below the aircraft there was yet more of that magic green – which soon petered out into fawn, brown and bronze…

  Yes, the Cessna had now reached the north-eastern side of the delta and was leaving it for the land just beyond. This land was technically not the Okavango, but instead the southern part of Chobe, where further north, Brian and Sandra had earlier spent such a wonderful time at Muchenje. But for Brian and many other visitors to this place, it was still a product of the Okavango and therefore a real part of it – only considerably drier. In fact, the ground beneath the plane was so dry that the green had now entirely disappeared and the landscape, with its mosaic of all shades of brown, more resembled the stretched skin of a giant giraffe than it did of anything to do with the delta. This was Arid-land, but Arid-land with a green surprise at its centre.

  First though, there was another airstrip, another “line in the sand” inscribed onto the surface of the wilderness and, like the airstrip where the Cessna had landed earlier, far too small for a Cessna landing. But it did land. Just as it had landed here probably a thousand times before – bumpily and disconcertingly, but still quite safely and with a dozen or so yards of airstrip to spare.

  And now it was the Wilderness with a capital W experience in earnest. For there, waiting at the side of the strip, were four safari Land Rovers. Two had aboard them the Cessna’s return contingent. One other was parked there for the two Americans – to transfer them to their lodge. And the last one was parked there to transfer Brian and Sandra to theirs – a place called Savuti Camp, a hostelry that they had visited twice before – albeit not in its present condition. Because when they had been there on two previous occasions, this camp had been one of the driest in Botswana. It sat on the side of the Savuti Channel, which had last seen any flowing water back in 1980. Since that date – due to the vagaries of rainfall in Angola and, more significantly, the shifting of those tectonic plates below the delta – it had been as dry as a dead dingo’s donger (just as the Boteti River had been back at Leroo La Tau in the late 1990s), and the only water in it had been that which the lodge had pumped to the surface (as in Leroo La Tau, for the benefit of the local animals – and its guests). But in 2008, as a consequence of higher rainfall and more shifting of those tectonic plates, a Leroo/Boteti type “redemption” had been triggered and the water returned. Without notice and without any puny human intervention, it had crept back up the channel – from the delta – and within just one year had converted one of the driest lodges in Botswana into one of its dampest and most
verdant.

  On the way from the airstrip, this magical conversion was difficult to believe. The sand-track to the lodge ran through a parched landscape populated only by mopane trees, all of which, without exception, had been cropped by elephants to within eight feet of the ground and all of which had not a single leaf about their branches. It looked like a scene from a post-nuclear holocaust, and one where all the water had been boiled off into space. So when Brian and Sandra’s driver (who answered to the name of Chaplain) began to explain to them how to deal with a hippo when one encounters one whilst swimming in the channel, it all sounded rather surreal. Not to say, completely irrelevant. There was as much chance of Brian having a meeting with a hippo whilst bathing in the Savuti River as there was of his having a meeting of minds with Piers Morgan whilst bathing in the reflected light of his über-smug smile.

  But then they arrived at the lodge. And although it looked just the same at its approach, when they were taken to their tent, it was only too clear how it had changed out of all recognition. Where before, the tent had overlooked a long, wide indentation in the land (the Savuti Channel), with a small, almost indiscernible waterhole in its centre by the lodge, it now overlooked a long, wide and very wet river. The tent was no longer on a ridge of a dry channel; it was on a river bank. And this was a real river, with reeds, water plants, water-birds and fish, running through a landscape that now bordered on the luxuriant. And all of this had arrived here since 2008. Just three years to convert an area of intense desiccation into a veritable hotspot for moisture. It was completely stunning, not to say completely implausible. But it just had to be plaused. Because it was here for real: a new environment and a host of new possibilities. So that when, for example, Sandra was asked by her new guide, Goodman, whether there was anything she particularly wanted to see – and she replied ‘wild dogs’ – Goodman was able to assure her that she would have sight of them no more than twenty minutes after she’d finished her tea. ‘Because the wildlife here is now more abundant than ever.’