Call a Safari expert (USA)

Site directory

Service terms

Design your safari adventure

Botswana safari experience

Your Botswana safari catalog (2008)

ABOUT BOTSWANA

VIEW BOTSWANA SAFARIS

INTO BOTSWANA

SAFARI EXPERIENCE

This is where our favorite safari camps share their exciting field reports from Botswana's great wilderness regions, offering a sneak peek of the adventures that await you on safari. Grab a cup of hot coffee and sit back to enjoy the safari splendors of Botswana as an armchair safari traveler...

Select a region to read about:

Reports and text copyright of Wilderness Safaris.

Mombo & Little Mombo Newsletter - Feb 2006

23 February 2006
Mombo Newsletter - Feb 06

February in the heart of the Okavango Delta has been a month of sudden showers and spectacular sunsets, of stalking lions and stealthy leopards. The Mombo area is now so lush and green that it is hard to recall the dry golden stalks of grass rattling in the dusty October breezes, or the dust devils dancing across the bone-dry plains.

As the song says, the grass is "as high as an elephant's eye" and this spectacular growth has lent a whole new aspect to Mombo. It really does look as though the flood is already in ? and yet it hasn't even begun to reach us yet. Mombo and Little Mombo are all but surrounded by water now, and every night we are lulled to sleep by the delighted peeping of thousands of frogs, and the gentle splashing of buffalo as they amble contentedly through the shallows. Further off, the air shakes as hippo chuckle in the darkness.

The ubiquitous tall grass makes life interesting for some of our smaller neighbours, not least the warthogs who can now only keep track of each other by following the tips of their "radio antenna" tails, held proudly upright as they trot along.

The sun-baked dove-grey expanse of Suzi's Duckpond has become the most incredible natural amphitheatre, with a cast of thousands of zebra and impala, all sleek and healthy with so much sweet grass to graze on. The russet and honey flanks of the impalas glow like burnished bronze in the sunlight, but it is the multitudes of zebra that are the most striking sight with the myriad swirls of their stripes delighting and deceiving the eye all at once. There have probably never been this many zebra in the area before and the lions certainly aren't complaining.

February has also been a month of real contrasts: days of intense action, with the predators enjoying a glut of kills and the cover that the long grasses provide when stalking unsuspecting prey, and days of divine tranquillity with the rhythms of life coursing gently through the verdant scenery and the whispers in the grass sometimes the only sounds.

Many days have been cool and overcast, with the lower temperatures prompting even more animal activity. These are the days when we enjoy the most intense sunsets, with the last rays of the sinking sun picking out the billowing clouds in shades of orange and pink, and truly giving each cloud a silver lining. Other days have been much hotter, with the sun blazing down from clear blue skies - skies so blue in fact that you can lose yourself in their intense hue. The clear skies at night provide a black velvet backdrop for the most breathtaking display of stars with familiar constellations such as the Southern Cross and Orion almost lost amongst countless millions of other points of light.

Climate 
The amounts of rain we are receiving in northern Botswana this year continue to surprise us, and they are certain to make a significant contribution to this year's flood. In February we recorded 215mm (8½ inches) of rainfall at Mombo. Much of this has been at night or, if during the day, in the form of short, sharp showers. After the rain, the clarity of the light is stunning - perfect for capturing the drops of water sent flying when a male lion indignantly shakes the rain out of his mane. At least some rain fell on 12 days out of 28 this month.

Temperatures have been rather variable with daytime temperatures reaching up to 33°C (96°F) and an average of 29.5°C (89°F). Night time temperatures ranged from 20°C (70°F) down to 5°C (40°F) and with an average of 17¼°C (64.5°F).

Lions
February has seen a curious new trick being tried out by Mombo's lions: climbing trees. We are not entirely sure why they are doing this - possibly to avoid flies, or perhaps simply to keep their feet dry amidst all this water. At least one female of the Moporota pride seems to be seeking to avoid her maternal responsibilities. She has a litter of month-old cubs, and their persistent, mewing demands for milk seem to have rather exasperated her. However, and like all the other arboreal lions we have been seeing, she seems to be somewhat lacking in grace and poise once up in the branches. The fact that the lions are often choosing acacia trees means that the thorns add to their evident discomfort, and it is a strange experience to see lions, usually the monarchs of all they survey, forced into making tentative, uncertain movements.

Down on the ground, however, the lions are more than capable of reminding us of their hunting prowess. Guests on one drive witnessed the electrifying stalk and killing of a young wildebeest, a hunt which was carried out with such finesse that the hapless antelope probably never knew what hit him until it was too late.

Leopards
February has been a great month for leopard sightings, too. Mombo must be one of the very best places to see these fascinating felines, and to encounter leopards which are completely unconcerned by the presence of the game drive vehicles and go about their business undistracted, is an intense pleasure.

An evening sighting of one of our resident leopards, the Tortillis female, has prompted speculation that she may be pregnant, so we hope to catch up with her again over the next few days to see if we can confirm this in better light. In the meantime this is an intriguing and potentially joyful mystery for us to think on.

Rhino
Mombo's reintroduced rhino have been making their presence felt during February, to the delight of the many guests who have encountered them on game drives. A group of five is currently spending a lot of time in the superb habitat afforded them by the open acacia woodlands to the east of Mombo Camp. This group includes a one-year-old calf, Valentine, so named because he was seen for the first time in mid-February last year. He is now a very impressive chap, in superb condition and just starting to resemble Serondela, his father.

The "rhino soap opera" has a new twist now as we have also been seeing a lone sub-adult male rhino to the north of Mombo, and he is just reaching the age at which he will start to try and establish his territory. Indeed we have seen him starting to make territorial markings. So far he has kept out of Serondela's way, but the rainfall has prematurely flooded many areas and when the flood itself arrives, these two rhinos may well find themselves pushed much closer together and this could result in a true clash of the titans - watch this space!

Rhino, it seems, enjoy gentle rain, but not heavier downpours - on one occasion we were watching a group of them graze in the open, seemingly oblivious to the drizzle (as we were ? the sighting was far too absorbing to notice a little rain). Suddenly however the rain increased in intensity and as one, the four rhinos curled up their tails and trotted towards the nearest trees. Appropriately enough, they were umbrella thorns.

Reptiles
A lot of our guests ask us if we have snakes here, and of course we do - only we very rarely see them. They are generally so shy that they flee as soon as they feel the vibrations of approaching feet or vehicle wheels. The only snake we see often is the beautiful spotted bush snake, an entirely harmless species which seems to enjoy sunbathing on the wooden walkways in the Camp. It's a beautiful snake, with a metallic green head with black spots, fading to silver.

This month we have had some other interesting sightings: African rock pythons swimming; and a rhombic egg-eater near the laundry in Camp. This is a fascinating species which can crush an egg in its jaws, swallow the contents and spit out the flattened shell in one piece. This snake though would do well to avoid the ever-growing clan of banded mongooses which live under our store rooms. They don't like snakes at the best of times, and now that they are raising yet another litter of tiny (and impossibly cute!) youngsters are likely to be even less welcoming. Their last litter was eaten by a honey badger which tracked their scent back to their burrows, so we are all hoping that they are more successful this time round.

Camp and Guest Experience
February is of course the month of love, and we weren't going to let any minor rain shower dampen our ardour for Valentine's Day. Mombo and Little Mombo must be among the most romantic places on earth, and this year we really pushed the (love) boat out, by completely redesigning the dining room to feature a succession of tables for two - candle-lit of course - to create the perfect ambience for an intimate tête-à-tête. Each table was decorated with a long-stemmed red rose in a green glass bottle (evoking the romance of being a castaway on a desert island beach) and the flickering candlelight was reflected in the gleaming metal of the ice buckets and refracted in the ice cubes and streams of bubbles as the popping of corks heralded the start of a wonderful evening.

Meanwhile we had composed a suitably corny poem to (hopefully) raise a smile when the guests returned to their tents. Strangely enough, everyone went to bed early that night!

Guest Feedback
As ever, we will leave the final word on Mombo and Little Mombo in February to the guests who shared this wonderful area with us this month:
-          We spent a splendid time in Little Mombo, and we enjoyed a great team!
-          Thanks so much for making our 4th visit a treat. We enjoyed the staff very much, especially Lee and Tlamelo. We are grateful for the peace that Little Mombo offers? we go home nourished and with happy hearts.
-          Many of our friends will hear about Mombo ? the staff and the animals!
-          We will be back to this very special place run by very special people!
-          The staff were outstanding: polite, thoughtful, helpful. Malinga our guide was amazing and we loved seeing the lion in the tree!
-          Just perfect!
-          Thanks for an unbelievable, indelible experience!
-          The highlight was game drives with a "superguide" ? Alex.
-          Francis' lion spotting was amazing!
-          Brooks was the perfect, sharp-eyed guide; Craig is an A1 chef!

That's all from your Mombo and Little Mombo teams for February: Taps, Noreen, Tlamelo, Pete and Sharon, Craig, Kele, and Nick. See you next month!

Mombo & Little Mombo Newsletter - Jan 2006

The timeless beauty and wonderfully relaxed pace of life at Mombo makes it very easy to forget what day or date it is, and currently you could be forgiven for being mistaken as to the month, too. The view from Mombo is stunning - incredibly lush floodplains with buffalo wading in deep water and gorging themselves on the vegetation. It looks very much like an Okavango winter scene - there is so much water and the greenery is so prolific, that it seems as though the flood has already arrived. All this water however is due to the recent rains - we are still probably two months from the first floodwaters arriving.

Green remains the dominant colour in the landscape, with flaming sunsets contributing orange and copper tones. Nature's palette is further enriched with the pink of the cat's tail flowers, and the russet and white fur of the rapidly growing impala lambs. The greatest impact of the rains has been explosive plant growth, and some smaller animals are most easily spotted by the waves of grass moving around them as they go about their business. Luckily for the warthogs they can keep sight of each other following the erect tail tips above the grass.

Suzi's Duckpond is now not a pond but a sea of grass, green waves running before the breeze to break against the iconic, towering umbrella thorn trees... Adrift in this sea are hundreds of zebras, their white stripes blushing pink in the dawn light, and again at the going down of the sun. Smaller groups of wildebeest weave between the zebra, adding to the inimitable tapestry of life that is stitched together daily at Mombo.

The rainfall is often preceded by strong breezes, which make for delightfully cool evenings. With Mombo's unique location at the north-western tip of Chief's Island, on the variable boundary between the dry and wet habitats that make up the Okavango Delta, we often find ourselves in a rain shadow with storms taking place to the east and west of Mombo, and being pushed down each side of Chief's Island by the wind.

All of which means that we get to watch some spectacular electric storms taking place across the floodplains as we eat dinner, with the very brightest bolts lighting up the scene in a brilliant white light, revealing startled zebra and buffalo in a monochrome moment.

The second half of the month has been noticeably drier, although with some cloudy, breezy days. Average temperatures have been rising steadily, and the more familiar Botswana blue skies have been much more in evidence. Less cloud cover means starry nights with the celestial fairy-lights replacing the Christmas decorations we reluctantly took down in early January.

Leopards
The leopard we know best, Logadima, has again effortlessly stolen our hearts. It seems that she was not happy getting her feet wet, so she spent several days in the trees around Mombo. On one occasion she killed a young warthog and lodged it in the fork of an acacia tree above the walkway. Possibly she had moved closer to Camp again as she is being pressurised by her own mother, the Tortillis female, whose territory includes Mombo. This pressure may be due to Logadima coming into heat, ready to mate for the first time. We have eagerly followed Logadima's progress since she was only a few days old, and to see her having her own cub would complete a wonderful circle of life.

Wild Dogs
January also presented us with a sad mystery: our wild dog pack, which had managed to get a paw in the door as it were, has again been diminished. Tragically this time it is the adult female who has disappeared. She was the alpha female and the best hope for this pack. We can't know for certain that she is dead but with still more nomadic lions moving into Mombo - an area which exerts a compelling, magnetic pull on these big cats - the odds against the dogs are long indeed.

Magical Mombo Moments
Many of the best moments this month involved some of the species that are sometimes overlooked, whether the chance to siesta while watching weaver birds build their remarkable nests at the end of swaying acacia branches, or looking down on grazing hippos from the walkway after dinner.

The magic is magnified of course when different animal species interact. In this last week guests on game drives from Mombo had the immense privilege of being present at the birth of two zebra foals. An incredible experience to watch as a young foal gradually emerged into the bright summer sunlight, and stumbled around for a few minutes as it gradually figured out just what its legs were for, and took its first breaths of pure Botswana air.

At the same time, its eyes would have been overwhelmed by an immense array of colours and shapes. The first task for those eyes, more important even than trying to spot the flat tawny heads of lions in the long grass, was to imprint its mother's unique pattern of stripes and shadow-stripes, so that it would not lose her in the herd.

Young zebras are able to run alongside their mothers within minutes, but one young foal was still finding his feet when he faced a bizarre problem - a huge herd of buffalo marching straight towards him! Undaunted by this sea of horns and hooves, the mother zebra stood her ground, standing over her wide-eyed foal. The bovine tidal wave did not waver, did not change course, but simply parted like the Red Sea to move around the newly born zebra, sheltered beneath his mother, and surge on past them.

Sundowner drinks in the bush are of course a sacred safari ritual, but sometimes even rituals can be disturbed. One group of guests were enjoying the never-ending parade of impala and zebra when suddenly the impalas began sprinting, harsh abrupt alarm calls cutting through the still evening air - and just behind the slowest impalas, the flickering, snapping forms of wild dogs - an impala's worst nightmare!

The dogs were unsuccessful and peace slowly returned to the evening vista. A termite mound at the far side of the pan proved to be a male rhino, slowly making his way across the clearing. All eyes were on this prehistoric-looking beast when the commotion began again on the far side of the pan - the dogs were making a second attempt to secure a meal before nightfall Only this time they were foiled by an unexpected opponent, as the zebras rounded on them and the pursuers became the pursued as the angry "tiger horses" chased them away.

Camp and Guest Experience
Beautifully clean after all the recent rains, Mombo is sparkling in the summer sunshine - bedecked in silver jewellery in the mornings as the dew drops in the grass; dripping with rubies in the evening light. Every evening there are a few priceless moments of truly golden light and it is then that Mombo seems to come alive, to fully merge into its environment not as a manmade structure but an organic entity, a living breathing creature perfectly at one with its surroundings. The Leadwood and Palm tree trunks which are an integral part of the structure of the Camp seem to hum with energy, buzzing with stories of more amazing bush experiences, told nightly around the campfire.

New Year's Eve was a worthy successor to the spectacular Mombo celebrations of previous years. The centrepiece of the event (and New Year's Eve is always an event here!) was a carved African wooden bowl filled with ice - and perhaps a bottle of champagne or two. But the popping of corks to welcome in what will surely be another wonderful year in this African paradise could not compete with the jubilant frog chorus in their nightly celebration of the watery wonderland created by the rains.

And as if being at Mombo wasn't already enough of a buzz, we have just installed an espresso machine to produce perfect lattes and cappuccinos, and fire you up for that early morning game drive - a dawn caffeine fix to complement your game fix as you set off to explore one of Africa's prime wilderness areas, the "vente double fun" of game drives - definitely not a decaffeinated animal viewing experience!

Guest Feedback
As ever, we will leave the final word on Mombo and Little Mombo in January to the guests who shared this wonderful area with us this month:

* The highlights were the amazing staff, and being able to track leopard for the entire afternoon game drive...

* Excellent food - compliments to the chef!

* Everything was perfect - the staff was so welcoming!

* Keep doing what you're doing; it's fantastic. After three weeks in Africa, Mombo was the highlight!

* We saved the best Camp for last! Everything at Mombo was tops - game abundance, variety, facilities from room to dining and lounge areas...

* The people are spectacular!

* The peace and serenity, plus the excitement of being in the bush?

* Mombo magic!

That's all from your Mombo and Little Mombo teams for January: Brandon & Debs, Tlamelo, Steve, Thompson, Lee, Jene, Buang, Noreen and Nick. See you next month!

Home

Safari enquiry

Call a Botswana specialist (USA)

Site directory

Service terms