The other face of Africa

We land on a strip near Khwai River Lodge. As one enters the camp enclosure, the entire staff comes out to sing, clapping hands and ululating in a display of welcome that is extraordinarily moving. When people do things like this in Botswana they usually mean it. That's the difference. In some other places this would be an act. Not here.

These luxury lodges are exactly as advertised. There is a tasteful African bush feel to them - thatched huts, tented accommodation, open fires to sit around and so on - yet this is hardly roughing it. My tent, if tent is the right word, has a heated pool, an elegant writing desk and the most astonishing open-air copper bath. You can, if you wish, lie in this bath and look at the monkeys swinging in the trees above but you must remember, you are asked, to take the bath salts inside to prevent the baboons from sticking inquisitive paws in the container.

The area is crawling with hippos, elephants and lions. After dark you cannot walk about the camp by yourself but must be accompanied by a member of the camp staff bearing a torch, just in case you bump into one of the elephants that like to walk through the camp at night. Or meet a lion.

That night, in the small hours, I am awoken in the comfort and, I'm hoping, security of my tent by the most almighty roar. It sounds as if it is coming from directly under the bed but when it is repeated a few minutes later I realise it is definitely outside.

I lie in the darkness and then, after a while, get up to peek through a crack in the tent door. There is something on the boarded veranda outside, something walking. It is either a squirrel or a lion, I decide. At the time I think it is almost certainly a lion but then I realise lions do not scrabble around quite like that. But it could have been.

After Khwai River Lodge I fly to another Orient-Express lodge, this one on Eagle Island in the delta itself. This follows the pattern of their other places but is distinguished by its capacity to take guests up in a helicopter, if they wish. My visit is being covered by a Swedish television crew, who have booked the helicopter to engage in a treetop sweep across the delta. I decline.

Helicopters are always coming down in an unscheduled way although this one is, of course, quite safe. The television crew go off on their jaunt while I stick to a small boat steered by our guide, Mighty. Off we go into the delta, following the channels of crystal-clear water. In the reeds along the banks are brilliantly coloured birds, including the most beautiful of kingfishers; tiny, perfect, like some enamelled ornament.

Mighty points to a small building in the heavy forest alongside the channel and explains that this is the camp of the baboon people. I gaze at it through my binoculars and then the penny drops. I have just finished reading a book called Baboon Metaphysics, a learned and rather obscure tome on the subject of how baboons see the world. This, I realise, is the camp of the scientists who wrote that book, the married couple, Professor Dorothy Cheney and Professor Robert Seyfarth.

Mighty takes some persuading to approach their rough landing jetty, quite rightly wanting to protect their privacy. But I explain that I really want to meet them and, as the boat noses across the channel, I call out, "Hello! I've just read Baboon Metaphysics!"

There is complete silence from the forest. Then a man appears under a tree and waves. "Come on in!" he replies.

As our boat draws up to the jetty, over which tower giant trees with swinging vines, Seyfarth, one of the world's greatest primatologists, stares at me and says, "And I've read The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency."

We have a highly enjoyable meeting. He and his wife have been studying baboons for 23 years. Soon they must leave their camp in this idyllic part of Botswana and the baboon families they have known for generations.

"I never thought that anybody would come up the river and say he's read our book," Seyfarth says. Cheney nods her agreement.

But that is, of course, what Africa is like. If you visit this beguiling continent, every day something interesting or amusing or moving will happen.

I leave the delta and return to Gaborone, which is in the south of the country. Here they are filming The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency and I am due to visit the film set. But even without that mission it would be a pleasure to be in this town, which I have come to know so well. I lived here in 1981, when I worked at the University of Botswana. I took to the place then and came back every year. I still like it, even if it has grown a great deal since then. The pace of life is comfortable, the people friendly; there are restaurants and shops and ordinary life.

The film's director is Anthony Minghella, who also made The English Patient and The Talented Mr Ripley. He is determined to convey the real atmosphere of Botswana. To this end a whole village has been constructed under Kgale Hill, the towering rocky hill that dominates the town.

Every building in the village is exact to the last detail. There is a hairdressing salon, complete with tongs and clips and potions; a general dealer's store, with bolts of cloth and balls of string; there are hawkers selling real oranges but not really selling them. Even the paint, which is new, is made to look old by patient rubbing and chipping.

The film is causing much excitement in Botswana, as Hollywood always does when it descends somewhere. I meet the actors, some of whom are African-American and some of whom are African, either local or from neighbouring countries.

Mma Ramotswe, the traditionally built heroine of the books, is being played by the American jazz singer, Jill Scott. She has been given a dialect coach, a local woman who is teaching her how to speak with an African accent - and she sounds very believable.

Mr J.L.B. Matekoni, Mma Ramotswe's quiet and dignified husband, is being played by Lucian Msamati, a Zimbabwean actor classically trained by the Royal Shakespeare Company. He seems exactly right for the part and I am happy to whisper in his ear the names behind Mr J.L.B. Matekoni's initials. He laughs.

The film will be optimistic in tone. The world usually sees a bleak side of sub-Saharan Africa. Can you name a single recent film set in Africa that does not deal with death, destruction or other forms of suffering? What we usually get is something like last year's thriller Blood Diamond. Nobody notes that Botswana's diamonds are utterly clean, every one of them coming from government-controlled mines.

And so we never hear very much about countries like this, with its heartbreaking beauty, its courteous and charming people and its tradition of kindness and respect. And yet it's here and it's real and it's waiting to be seen.

Alexander McCall Smith travelled courtesy of British Airways, Air Botswana and Carrier.

FAST FACTS

Getting there

Qantas flies from Sydney to Johannesburg non-stop from $1798 return. Melbourne passengers pay the same fare and have to fly via Perth or Sydney. Fares from Johannesburg to Gaborone start at $178 return and to Maun from $406. Return fares from Gaborone to Maun start at $146.

South African Airways flies to Gaborone via Johannesburg from Perth with Qantas connections from Sydney and Melbourne. Fares from both cities start at $2088. (All fares are low season and exclude tax.)

Visas are not required for Botswana or South Africa.

Staying there

Orient-Express Safaris operates three lodges in Botswana: Khwai River Lodge and Savute Elephant Camp, with rooms from $US911 ($1138) a person a night, and Eagle Island Camp, with rooms from $US1011 ($1263) a person a night. Rates include accommodation in luxury tents, all meals and game-viewing activities.

All camps are accessible by charter flights via Maun. Khwai River Lodge and Savute Elephant Camp are also accessible by four-wheel-drive. See http://www.orient-express-safaris.co.za.

For other safaris, see http://www.wilderness -safaris.com and http://www.botswana.co.za.