Directory: Safaris in Southern Africa

Geographical, Jan, 2002

The very different countries of Southern Africa offer an unbeatable variety of terrains and ecosystems, combining prolific game with breathtaking landscapes, as well as distinctive cultural characteristics that flavour the experience. Here is a round-up of the top countries and the best game experiences on offer

ZAMBIA

The walking safari was pioneered in Zambia by bush legend Robin Pope, who continues to operate camps and walks in the Luangwa Valley. Mornings begin around the embers of an `African Aga' -- two pits in the ground with a fire on top -- which are stirred into life for a lavish bush breakfast. Then the travellers stride out with the sounds and smells of the bush all around. The tracks of lion and leopard are traced in the sandy ground, elephants looking cautiously on as a small chain of humans edge warily by. At the end of each day, bucket showers are hung over a branch to gush hot water before nights spent under canvas, lulled by the roar of lion and the distant, mournful serenade of hyena.

Walking pace is the best way to appreciate the smaller wonders of the bush and get a feel for the scale of the African environment. The two main national parks are Luangwa North and Luangwa South. A few operators still run trips to Kafue National Park. In the south, Zambia borders Zimbabwe along the Zambezi river, so the great river safari experiences -- rafting and body-boarding from below Victoria Falls and canoeing the lower Zambezi and the Mana Pools -- can all be easily undertaken from the Zambian side.

NAMIBIA

Namibia's desert landscapes are tracked by good, often tarmacked roads, making self-drive the best way to cover the huge distances involved. Many regions of the country are outstandingly beautiful -- the dry rolling dunes of the Kalahari, bright with the weird colours of unearthly desert plants; the towering postcard peaks of Sossusvlei; and the unearthly hues of the Huab Valley, with its desert-adapted elephant and fluttering birdlife. In the middle of the day, even Namibia's greatest sights can look flat, but the vistas take on a glorious array of colours in the clear light of the morning and afternoon.

For the full range of Africa's plains game, best head north to the Etosha region. As the weather dries from May to September, animals cluster round waterholes, drinking for their lives. The landscape is harsh and rain-showers can evaporate before they reach the ground. The Etosha Pan, taut as a drum, is a huge, ephemeral lake sometimes glazed with water and pinked with flamingo but usually dust-kickingly dry and disorientingly flat.

However, Etosha is a national park, and this means no night drives, no walking, and no exclusivity. Other sights include the shipwrecks of the Skeleton Coast, the Caprivi Strip between Bagani and Kongola and the Himba communities of the remote Kunene Valley.

ZIMBABWE

Canoeing the Mana Pools, as described in the feature above, is perhaps one of the greatest safari experiences Africa has to offer. Despite its problems, Zimbabwe continues to train the best guides on the continent, and has plenty of great national parks and private reserves where they can practise their bushcraft.

One of the best-known is Hwange National Park, where you can always guarantee seeing plenty of game, but the experience is somewhat spoiled by the fact that the game is so visible because it generally depends on pumped bore-holes that bring life to an otherwise inhospitable terrain.

More rewarding are Matusadona National Park, on the banks of the artificial Lake Kariba, or the magnificent, arid, bouldery landscapes, sheltering timeless rock art of the Rhodes Matopos National Park, to the south of Bulawayo.

BOTSWANA

The Okavango Delta is Botswana's undeniable highlight. In a flat, mainly desert landscape the delta is where Africa's second-largest river, fed by rains in distant Angola, fans out in a slow flood. This usually starts in the month of May, creating an inland ecosystem of a river delta that finally, slowly, dies among the endless sands of Southern Africa's great deserts.

Visitor numbers are kept down to a few, high-spending clients, making Botswana the envy of many African countries scrabbling to control increasing numbers of marauding tourists. However, this does bring problems; visitors, always rich, tend increasingly to be elderly, and are filtered by wealth rather than any genuine interest in wildlife. And the lodges offer ever-increasing standards of luxury to justify the high prices they charge, with air-conditioning even being fitted to tents, for example.

But the wildlife isn't affected. Strict government controls license only those camps that can be removed completely at the end of their term, and only the sentimental miss the wooden dug-out mokoro canoes which have -- to preserve trees -- been replaced with fibreglass models.

Beyond the delta, try Chobe National Park, famous for its elephants, the unearthly flatlands of Nxai Pan and Makgadikgadi Pans, or the Kalahari.

SOUTH AFRICA

When the first settlers arrived in Southern Africa they found plains teeming with game, where rhinos, hiding in thickets, would go off like unpredictable landmines, scattering the herds. With none of the glamour of the East African hunts, the settlers, for the next 200 years, dourly shot their way through their natural heritage. In some African countries you can expect to see the occasional animal by the side of the road; not here. Even in the northern, sub-tropical regions, South Africa's wildlife is now intensively managed, and only found in National Parks and private game reserves.