Sunday Times May 2013

(Central Kalahari Game Reserve)

The earth beneath me is far away, I can touch her and yet I am enclosed, this is a retinal experience, visually sensuous, no sound but the engine, no smell but perspiration, no taste but salt, 5500 feet above the ground and I look out. Arid semi desert below me, blue sky surrounds; an uneven landscape, small hills that are shrubs, bumpy green, and the sky, an uneven blue; hills in the sky, scatterings of cloud.
We fly close to the Tau Pan Camp, six elephants walk over the dune scrub, there are no elephants in the Central Kalahari Game Park, these elephants are buildings. The roofs are made of thatch, the walls are grey, elephants in the Kalahari that remain in the same space and do not move.
I look for the landing strip, a windsock blows and six Oryx walk on the warm gravel, bask in the reflection of stone rays. We fly over them, they do not move but look upwards at this humming bird, then they walk away, they watch us as we land.
An open topped land rover drives towards us,” we are late, have you been waiting, the head office told us that you would be here only at 12?”
“No, you are not late, we left early.”
We drive two kilometres to the elephants that were in the sky but are now firmly grounded, elegant buildings of a modern design, open to the vast plains. The manager of the camp sits with us, he is a Botswanan, it is the policy of Kwando to employ people who are Botswanan, allow them to develop in whatever way they choose and then to become part of the organisation. We sit on a wide veranda, it is shaded over with a thatch canopy and watch six kudu come to the waterhole to drink, one male and five females.
“Hi my name is Chris, we met at the airstrip, I will be your guide. I have been a guide for seven years and can tell you something about this area. Birds, I know about birds, but probable you know more.”
The allure of floating in the air, what is it to be able to move your feet from the ground and take to the sky? This is why I fly, I want to be a bird, I envy birds that run in the sky as I must walk on the earth. Icarus flew with wings of feathers glued together with wax; yet he flew to close to the sun as he died to fly.
“Look slightly to the right, the violet eared waxbill, of the seed eaters he is very colourful; he has violet cheeks, a red bill, a blue rump and a chestnut body.”
The violet eared waxbill does not fly to close to the sun, he sits in front of me on a Camel Thorn tree, the wind blows the feathers of his tail, his feathers are blue, as blue as the sky in which he flies. A black chested snake eagle hovers; he comes in to land on a brown sand strip close to the waterhole and follows a mouse with his beak. He can fly as high as I can, does he too look at the ground as I look at the ground, searching for an elephant, a landing strip, a dry river bed?
Chris raises the binoculars to his eyes. “And that is the black chested snake eagle, listen to his call.”
I wish I was a bird.
“We made the waterhole, there is little water here so we have to keep pumping it from our boreholes, the wild animals come here rather than go to the agricultural lands that surround the park.”
The lodge is open, there are no fences around it, during the day animals are visible, at night they hide in the dark.
“The lodge is fine to walk about during the day but at night we accompany guests to the rooms, sometimes lions walk through the camp, only yesterday I found their spoor on that path,” Chris points to the path we walk on, he laughs, “the best sighting that I have had is a leopard drinking at the swimming pool, the rains had not yet come, he was thirsty.”
The room is not cold despite it being winter, and in the summer months, when the temperature is 40C, it is cool. There are two beds in its centre, they are covered in a white feather quilt and materials of an indigenous design, the beds are metallic, high and elegantly draped in mosquito netting. The bathroom has two showers, one that is inside and, for the brave, one outside.
“Tau means lion.”
In the afternoon we drive towards Tau Pan, the white flickers in the fading sun.
“There is hardly ever any water here, they are dry pans, the water lies deep under the ground this is why there is vegetation, and this is why a lot of animals come here in the evening, it is warm.“
A Pale Chanting Goshawk flies, she circles the Kalahari Apple Leaf tree, pink legs brace themselves for the landing, she lands, her legs do not waver, she is elegant, she does not need the co-ordinates of the tree for any tree is a landing strip. She has the freedom of the air, freedom to fly where she wants to fly; she watches the earth from the sky with grace and knowledge.
“I think that you get the Dark Chanting in South Africa, they look similar, this one is bigger and paler than the dark one, it must be that it lives in the desert.”
I wonder what it is like to fly with feathered wings.
“And there is the Black Fronted Waxbill; look at the black mask across his face, his rump is dark crimson, and the Martial eagle, the largest of the eagles, his breast is white and his legs are feathered, the king of the birds.”
Chris looks at the bushman tracker, who sits next to him. ”Scupper, can you hear the sound?”
“The spoor is lion spoor, we have a resident pride in this area, there are nine of them, two females, one male and six cubs.”
We hold our breath. Two yellow females walk towards us, the male waits behind a low bush, the cubs jump and scramble, two springbok, their hind quarters quivering, watch as the lions walk past, the springbok are safe for now, tomorrow they may become food.
The male lion gets up from behind the bush and walks after the lionesses, he walks slowly, regal.
“Look at the blackness of his mane, a Black Maned Kalahari lion, other lions generally have tawny manes, he is the real king of Africa.”
We watch for a long time, seven giraffe walk ahead of us, they’re all male, a gang of adolescent gangsters.
Later, in the dark, I watch the sky. I hear a Pearl Spotted Owl, he plays an arpeggio, the notes rise upwards, then they fall. I sit and watch imaginary black and white falcons fly across the treeless space; the earth fades to pale in the shadow. The moon rises; it traces a path of ancient silver. I hold out my hands in a salutation, I salute my aeroplane for I too can fly, the wings of the falcons purr past my face as the lions purrs.