Text: Romi Boom. Photography: Hannes Lochner
Source: This article is from the September 2011 issue of Wild Spring Magazine.
In the unfenced wilderness camps in Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park, surrounded by space and silence, you become part of the veld.
The first night I was woken by the whoop whoop of the hyaenas. The second night, jackals wailed to make your heart ache, right outside the tent. The third night, it was a lion’s low, rumbling growl that roused me. I couldn’t be happier. I was in the Kalahari.
To be inside a place is to identify with it and belong to it. It’s a special state of being, you are suspended in time and nature. It is all about Looking. And Listening.
Driving from the very south to the remote north of the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park, the habitat often proved more moving than the animal sightings. There is no guarantee looked-for species will be seen. Day after day, I remained hopeful a cheetah would cross my path. Everyone I spoke to had seen several, often cubs too. Such are the frustrating pleasures of wildlife tourism: intangible, based on a mere promise, often unfulfilled, but with unexpected compensations too.
For me this was the trip of the spotted hyaenas. Nocturnal and a low-density species, I never expected to see one, let alone several, on various occasions. What a wonderful surprise to stumble upon a den, watch a mother suckling her still-black cubs.
Even more thrilling, to witness an altercation between two adults sunning themselves against a limestone ridge. One of the sunbathers rolled onto its back, half-asleep, and by doing so invaded the personal space of its mate. A moment later, hair was flying in all directions and another offspring, a fluffy juvenile, scrambled to get away from the scrap.
Shortly after sunrise the next morning, a lone hyaena approached my vehicle from the riverbed, coming steadily nearer and nearer, until eventually I could photograph the grains of sand on its nose and inside the rims of its eyes. Then I lowered the camera and saw the intense face barely three metres from mine. In a state of stunned shock, it was a huge relief to find I still had it in me to press the button that made the window screen me from a possible lurch.
Living in the Wilderness
Such deeply felt involvement with a place becomes almost spiritual. No better way to experience the Kalahari, one of Earth’s true wilderness places, than overnighting in the open, in the unfenced camps of the Kgalagadi. The setting in each instance is textbook perfect.
Like all the most desirable habitats, the views are open and allow good visibility of animals. The veld supports a number of watchable and interesting species, big and small. Animal activities are concentrated at waterholes at specific times. Each tent and cabin in the wilderness camps, only four to a camp, provides cover which obscures your presence from the animals. It is hardly possible to be in closer proximity to wildlife. At each of the five unfenced camps, a tourism assistant is happy to share his knowledge.
For Jacques Moss, who has lived at Kieliekrankie, the most elevated of the wilderness camps, for the past three years, it is about the neverending view, the sunsets, the stars. Jacques is a native of Welkom, a small farming community in the Mier area immediately south of the park, just like Pieter Kariseb, who mostly officiates at Urikaruus, where we spent our last night. Situated in the Auob river bed, between Mata-Mata and Twee Rivieren camps, Urikaruus is the most recently built of the unfenced camps. It is surrounded by camelthorn trees overlooking a waterhole and the split-level units are connected by a raised walkway, so humans can amble across to visit each other. This is big cat territory, and according to Pieter, the big raptors are also a familiar sight.
But above all it was Gharagab that stole my heart. A long trek north led to Union’s End, where the road proper also ends. The 4×4 track takes you deeper and deeper into the duneveld, a vast savannah dotted with large camelthorns, their size testament to the higher rainfall the area enjoys. It comes as a surprise when you eventually chance upon the hideaway camp.
Eric Bezuidenhout, the camp’s tourism assistant for the past four years, strolled over from the 360-degree viewing platform to welcome me, having just put his binoculars to good use looking for the yellow morph of the crimsonbreasted shrike. It is rare, but Eric has seen it, and I am envious, the obvious charms of the crimsonbreasted form almost forgotten.
“This is where people come to recharge their batteries,” said Eric, who has lived in all the wilderness camps. Although he is armed for protection, there is no vehicle and his days at Gharagab are solitary. “We are usually fully booked,” he admitted, “sometimes people stay as long as a week, and then I make good friends.” At night he switches on a spotlight over the waterhole, where two lionesses came to drink the morning of our arrival.
Less remote, slightly less detached from civilisation, is the Kalahari Tented Camp, which has 15 units all made of natural materials. Like all the unfenced camps, it has no shopping facilities, but caters for creature comforts with power and hot water. The camp is regularly visited by lion, their tracks a familiar sight amongst the tents. The waterhole sees giraffe, brown and spotted hyaena and cheetahs.
For tourism assistant Jan Neels, his home of six years is paradise. “They will have to drag me away in chains,” he said. “The tranquility of nature, the silence of the night, the animals sounds are addictive.”
The Kgalagadi is empty land yet home to an astonishing animal kingdom. One of the world’s great wilderness areas, the scale of its beauty reaches deep. When the sky lights up pink, gold and red, anything more would be too much.
The word wilderness derives from the Old English wildeornes, meaning place of wild beasts (wild + deor = beast, deer).
Wilderness Camps:
At five of the unfenced wilderness camps you’ll find four units with accommodation for two, fully equipped kitchen facilities and braai area. Solar panels provide light and gas geysers supply hot water. The sixth is Kalahari Tented Camp with 15 units sleeping two to four people, as well as a swimming pool. IXaus Lodge is run by a private concessionaire.
For more Information, go to http://www.sanparks.
org/docs/parks_kgalagadi/tourism/New_Wilderness_Camps_2004-11.pdf and download the brochure.
