Tracking leopards

It’s not yet 7am and, after a good night’s sleep, I’m sitting in front of my very comfortable room at Ai Aiba Lodge enjoying the soft light on prehistoric boulders across the valley. The early morning silence is disturbed only by the creatures who live here, birds, baboons, giraffes and many that go unseen.

It’s now just two weeks since I boarded the flight from Heathrow to Cape Town- but that feels like a lifetime ago. Long days and a lack of easy internet access has meant little opportunity to write. When last I tried to put something together, I wrote:

‘It’s nearly 11pm and I’ve been up since 5am. Maybe that’s why I find it hard to believe that I’ve only been in Namibia for three days so far. This country is giving so much!

Arriving from Cape Town thinking I knew nobody, I happened to be behind the tour leader in the queue for immigration: a good opportunity to say hello. The trip organiser was waiting just beyond the ‘nothing to declare’ signs, transport to the ready to take us to the Olive Grove Guesthouse. Seemingly on the edge of the city the owners have made good use of limited space, providing very large rooms, a swimming pool and pleasant communal areas. Among their library of books to help tourists we found a well-used copy of the Bradt guide to Namibia.

This was a good place to get to know the other members of this small group of travellers before setting off the next morning for our first stop and our first animal tracking experience.

Early-ish, after a good breakfast we piled into ‘Denis’, the beige Land Cruiser for our journey north towards Etosha, renowned for its wildlife. To those who weren’t driving it felt like a never-ending straight road until we reached our first stop: the Okonjima Plains Camp, home to the Africat Foundation.

We very quickly became almost blase about giraffes on the road as well as zebras, a different breed from those in Kenya, I think this is a Burchell’s zebra

We were to see many more over the next few days.

The skill of our guide and his team will probably stay with all of us for the rest of our lives: on the first tracking activity we spent about three hours driving around the park over unmadeup roads to no avail, there were no leopards to be seen. Then it came, faint at first, then louder – the telemetry indicating a leopard somewhere nearby – until we spotted the park’s oldest, largest, male- Mawenze – emerging from the bushes and were able to follow him around, stopping to pause while he basked in the sun or found some shade. Fascinating! These animals move silently and steadily through their territory. They seem unafraid of these humans who ‘shoot’ but do no harm.

Needless to say, we were late for dinner which was delicious and served in beautiful surroundings. Relaxed and satisfied, we were ready for a good night’s sleep and an early start to see if we could find another leopard in the morning.

There was a drama, though – a mobile phone had dropped out of the open vehicle as we travelled through the bush. Containing the whole of someone’s life and the means of contact with home, we were all keen it should be found, but that seemed impossible. Would ‘Find my phone’ work? It produced a location, but we couldn’t be certain. The owner and our guide followed the app and went back in the pitch black to look for it. No joy! ‘We’ll look again in the morning before our other activity. I’m sure we can find it,’ said the guide confidently…..the sceptics were less sure.

So our second full day in Namibia began with a search. The guide drove confidently to the place which had been searched by torchlight the previous night and he began to slow down. Both he and our tour operator said, ‘There’s something there!’ And he jumped out. The owner of the phone was still oblivious to the possibility that he and his phone might be reunited. And then a squeal of delight as the offending item was held up for all to see and share the excitement: technology and human skill came together that morning: success!

To top it all, we found a female leopard and her female cub with two very recent ‘kills’.

It’s hard to marry the pussy cat likeness of these animals at rest or play with the viciousness of the kill. We’d see that in the days ahead when a cheetah spotted and caught a small impala almost in front of us. That took me back to Kenya.

On to Etosha now we were aiming to reach Namutoni in time to be at a waterhole for sunset. And we were! Just! And nearly got locked out of the Camp because Denis’s clock was slow. Once again we made it – just!’