A new world opens for Batswana in Botswana
Boniface Keakabetse | Friday June 23, 2017 14:57
Many people in Botswana live and die without seeing the natural wonders citizens of other countries spend fortunes to experience. From the World Heritage Sites of Tsodilo Hills and the Okavango Delta, to the hundreds of historical and natural splendours, Batswana are largely unable to access these and not because of a lack of desire.
Tourism in the country is a US-dollar priced affair, targetted largely at US-dollar based source markets in the developed world, including a growing focus on China. The prices of a single night in the pristine wilderness camps of the Okavango can reach far beyond P25,000, in a country where a 2015 survey found that 90% of citizens earn less than P10,000 a month.
Wilderness Safaris, the country’s leading ecotourism group, with a pan-African reach across the region and beyond, is pioneering an effort to open up the tourism experience to citizens.
Under its Wilderness Safari Resident Programme, the group ensures signed up members are entitled to the very best available high and low season rates. Membership costs P4,500, offering exceptional and substantial benefits for members, their families and guests for two years, with an option to renew.
Members in the programme are guaranteed discounts of up to 50% on bookings made less than 30 days from date of travel, last minute discounts of over 50% for travel within 14 days of booking, access to all Wilderness-owned properties and other generous offers.
“We have realised that many locals are not aware of our affordable products,” says Wilderness Safaris’ marketing manager, Anthony Vasco.
“People do not know that we have affordable properties like Linyanti and Xigera which are family camps which can be afforded by locals.
“You pay almost the same cost you spend to visit Durban or Swakopmund.”
A group of six journalists were recently offered an opportunity to sample the programme and in doing so, take steps into a world long restricted to ordinary locals. As Vasco says, the trip is to shake off the impression that the Botswana wilderness experience is unaffordable to locals.
The motley crew from different backgrounds descended on the Okavango Delta with different expectations about the surprises that lay ahead. In total there were three journalists from Gaborone and two from Maun.
For the three lady journalists, the experience was their first venture into the wetlands, while the two men from Maun, including Yours Truly, had more experience in the Delta.
However, for me although I grew up in the Okavango and spent all my years here, this trip was all about the chance to see the one thing I really wanted to see: a hyena.
The Delta excitement begins where it always begins, in Maun, the getaway to the wetlands.
After a 45-minute flight from Maun Airport, Africa’s second busiest, we landed deep in the pristine Linyanti concession, which was our first stop. Our itinerary was a night at Linyanti tented camp and two nights at Xigera camp.
After landing, we began the bumpy three-hour drive to Linyanti camp during which we passed Kings Pool, another of Wilderness Safaris’ camps, which overlooks the Linyanti Channel. Before reaching Kings Pool however we had our first surprise as we came across a group of elephants blocking the road in front of us. The guide cut the engine for us to observe the spectacle.
All of a sudden, on the riverside another group of elephants came running, apparently scared. One of our hosts, Lesh Moiteelwa said he suspected the elephants were running from poachers on the Namibia side of the river channel.
“Linyanti is one of the poaching hotspots. It’s common for elephants to take refuge in Botswana as you can see,” he said.
After the excitement, we made it to Linyanti camp where the highlight was having dinner along the raised Boma area of the camp. The camp is located deep in the north-western corner of the Chobe National Park, on the river-border between Botswana and Namibia.
For me my excitement in the bush was more about wildlife and the environment. However, I was also amazed by how the Batswana hospitality staff go above and beyond to make visitors’ have a memorable stay. In addition, nearly all of the country’s tribes were represented amongst the safari workforce. Their different tribal accents as they patiently explained the secrets of the Botswana wild combined to make the visit a true Botswana experience.
Our guide in Linyanti, Ilaki Jagile explained by the bonfire how the Okavango originates in the Angolan highlands, almost 1,000 miles away and flows to form the famed river system known as the Okavango Delta.
Striking a sombre note in his trademark Kalanga accent, he described how emerging threats such as poaching were realities that the conservation efforts of the UNESCO World Heritage Site has to contend with. Sitting there listening to ‘Mlacos’ as Jagile is affectionately known, an elephant emerged from the river so close to me that I could hear its breath. It peacefully grazed on the vegetation very close by while we wined and dined in the Okavango occasionally disturbed by the assortment of bush sounds.
The next day we flew south westerly for a few nights at Xigera Camp, pronounced ‘Keejera’ in Wayeyi. Xigera lays amidst the lush Delta forest vegetation of the world acclaimed Moremi Game Reserve. Visitors to the camp can look forward to all sorts of wonders on offer such as boat cruising, wildlife sighting and sport fishing.
The first day we took to cruising along the multiple river channels and in the evening one of the journalists, Esther Mmolai, who had evidently overcome her fear of elephants, led the group in the singing dikhwaere by the fireplace. The next day our Xigera guide, Kitso Ledimo took us under a canopy of thick trees where we had lunch in the wilderness.
In the evening, camp manager, Question Maundo hosted a dinner by the Kgotla where he left the camp gathering including our group and other guests, in stitches. Maundo had a huge impact on me as he explained the Kgotla system to the visitors right there in the bush.
The trip was soon over and yes, I did see a hyena right in Xigera camp.
However it is the African bonfire and the people of the Okavango Delta who will have a lasting impression on me.