UnspecifiedCredit: Genevieve Swart
Instead of heading to the savannah, Genevieve Swart spots elephants and impala at close range on a houseboat safari.
It's 6pm on the Chobe River, all the day-trippers have left and passengers aboard the houseboat Ichobezi Mukwae are alone sipping sauvignon blanc in the wilderness. It has been a long, hot day of game viewing in Namibia and we're thirsty.
So are the elephants. I slip into the plunge pool on deck and watch, wine in one hand, binoculars in the other, as a herd of 40 grey giants come down to drink, then swim across the river, calves waving tiny trunks above water. The sun is a perfect red globe setting over the flood plain. A fish eagle's cry haunts the air. I am breathless, both at the beauty of the land and the decadence of my situation. This is not your standard safari.
Firstly, a houseboat is a novel form of transport; generally, game viewers are crammed into open-top Land Rovers. I am feeling very Hollywood film star - dark glasses, lounging in a deckchair, a breeze soothing sun-kissed skin (film stars don't get burnt) - and I have a sweeping view of the shore where all the animals come to drink, from impala delicately tripping forward to great snorting herds of buffalo.
Secondly, we are in the once-notorious Caprivi Strip, the narrow finger of north-east Namibia poking past Angola and Botswana towards Zambia that was a hotbed of guerilla activity for more than 30 years.
Various liberation movements and rebel groups used the Caprivi as a corridor between countries and it was of strategic military importance during the Angolan Civil War. The Ichobezi operates from Impalila Island, an apartheid-era base for the South African Defence Force. You can still see the tent-peg steps soldiers hammered into a 2000-year-old boab once used as a watchtower. For decades, no tourists came here. Then, in 2002, rival factions in Angola signed a ceasefire, ending 27 years of fighting.
Only in the past five years have tourists started to roll in, says my host, Dawn Oxenham. Still, the region is far from the madding crowds of the Serengeti and South Africa's Kruger Park and, with the focus turned to conservation, the wildlife population is starting to recover from poaching during the 1970s and '80s bush war.
Dawn and her husband, Ralph, started their Caprivi venture on land with Ichingo River Lodge on Impalila Island, at the confluence of the Chobe and the Zambezi rivers. Their first luxury houseboat, the Ichobezi Moli, launched in 2005 and its leisurely cruises past herds of buffalo, antelope and elephants were so popular they floated a second boat, the Ichobezi Mukwae, in July. At the time of writing they are the only houseboats in the area. It is, however, only a matter of time before entrepreneurs launch more. Visit soon.
Boats sail along the Chobe and Zambezi (hence "Ichobezi") and into Botswana's Chobe National Park, famous for its vast herds of elephants that show utter disrespect for national boundaries and swim back and forth to take advantage of greener flood-plain pastures. We see so many tuskers it takes something special - such as two young bulls hosing each other down - for wildlife watchers to lift a camera.
"There are very few things in the game-viewing world that you can guarantee, but elephants you can guarantee," Ralph says. "The Chobe National Park has 45,000 elephants, which is the biggest concentration of elephants anywhere in the world. You see them come down to bath and to play. It's a fantastic experience."
Dawn looks after guests on the houseboat; Ralph is a convivial host at the land lodge, where lively dinners, aided by skilful placing of guests from Germany, England, South Africa and the US, are held on a deck overlooking the river.
Ichingo Lodge deserves the title "tented camp" only in so far as canvas is an element in building materials. Nine spacious "tents" have ensuites - airy, thatched, concrete additions. Windows are not glass but mosquito nets. Guests wake to a tray of tea and biscuits on a balcony overlooking river rapids. Most people find the sound of the cascades soothing at night, except, Dawn says, one German couple fresh from their sound-proofed room in Frankfurt who complained that the river was too noisy.
Lovely though the lodge is, on the houseboat guests enjoy a greater sense of being at one with the wilderness. "It's very much part of nature," Ralph says. "You're right under the stars, you see the sun come up, the flood plain all around you, the animals come down to drink - you really are part of Africa. You can't duplicate it on the land."
Each houseboat accommodates eight guests, with four ensuite double cabins that have wall-to-wall sliding windows overlooking the water. I fall asleep to the sound of hippos grunting so close we could be sharing a pillow, and I wake to the splashes of fish jumping.
The on-board decor evokes the grandeur of colonial days, with 21st-century comforts such as refrigerators for the gin and tonic. Candlelit three-course dinners on the main deck are miraculous in their variety and freshness, considering many ingredients are sourced from afar - meat from a German butchery a day's journey away; strawberries from South Africa.
More than 400 bird species, including the rare African skimmer, malachite kingfisher and pels fishing owl, are seen in the area. Then there's the fishing. That many tourists come to Africa expecting to see tigers has long been a source of amusement to locals. At least here they won't go away entirely disappointed; there are tigers in the rivers. The black-and-silver-striped predatory fish has teeth as ferocious as its namesake - admittedly on a smaller scale but known to take a careless fisherman's finger. I meet a British brain surgeon who has used tiger fishing to bribe his teenage son into spending time with him. It works - they disappear together for hours and come back beaming, telling variations of "the one that got away" including "my wife won't let me bring home any more stuffed fish". Tiger fishing is popular even in the rainy season, when fish thrive in warmer waters.
The only fitting end to such an adventure is a trip to Victoria Falls, the huge, wild waterfall about 70 kilometres downriver that Scottish explorer David Livingstone became the first European to reach in 1855 and promptly named after his prim sovereign.
The natural wonder may be visited as a day trip or before flying out - as most Ichobezi guests do - from the nearby Zambian town of Livingstone. This sleepy spot has had a surge in popularity recently, partly due to the political and economic troubles that Zimbabwe's president, Robert Mugabe, has inflicted on his country. The once-thriving Zimbabwean tourist town of Victoria Falls used to be the place to stay; now travellers prefer to visit the falls from Livingstone, just across the border.
The spray rises hundreds of metres (wrap cameras in plastic) as the Zambezi plunges off the plateau into a chasm more than 100 metres deep. It is here you understand the superior logic of the falls' African name, Mosi-oa-Tunya: "the smoke that thunders". After a combination of houseboat and falls, it's clear why the river is often called "the mighty Zambezi". It's a force to be reckoned with.
Genevieve Swart stayed courtesy of Ichobezi River Lodges.
FAST FACTS
Getting there
Impalila Island is at the junction of four countries: Namibia, Zambia, Zimbabwe and Botswana. It forms the north-eastern tip of Namibia and is 70km west of Victoria Falls. The nearest international airport is Johannesburg, to which Qantas flies nonstop from Sydney. South African Airways flies nonstop from Perth. Both airlines have a fare for $1535. Melbourne passengers fly Qantas to Sydney; on the SAA fare Melbourne and Sydney passengers fly Qantas to Perth. (All fares are low-season return and do not include tax.) Fares from Johannesburg to Livingstone, Zambia, start at $118 one way and at $125 to Victoria Falls. Transfers from Livingstone airport to Impalila Island take about two hours and four modes of transport: bus, ferry, four-wheel-drive truck and speedboat. Have two blank pages in your passport for border crossings. Australian passport holders need a visa to enter Zambia but not South Africa, Namibia or Botswana.
Staying there
At Ichobezi River Lodges you can stay at the land lodges (Ichingo), on one of the houseboats or a combination of the two. The average stay lasts four to five days. The land lodge has nine luxury tents with private balcony and ensuites for $US360 ($400) a person a night, including all meals, drinks and activities. Houseboat stays are also from $US360 a person for two people sharing an ensuite cabin. See www.ichobezi.co.za.
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