Delta Camp Diaries - July 2007.
By Peter Sandenbergh
I'm writing this from a freezing but very sunny deck at Delta Camp. Elize's
Hoffman x 4 have just gone out for the day, after an early beakfast, with a
picnic lunch, the next guests don't arrive until lunchtime, so all is peace
and quiet. Maggie is singing in the kitchen and the hippo are grunting down
in the channel.
We've had good game recently, plenty of lion. Ken and Sheenah Sullivan,
fresh out from Ireland, spent 10 minutes raving about the wonderful sighting
of a Pels Fishing Owl they had on their afternoon walk, before remembering
that during their morning excursion they had been charged by six (yes, six)
lion, to a distance of 3 or 4 metres. They were completely unfazed. But the
owl.....!
Apart from that, just the usual - lions, hyaena, jackals, lechwe, impala,
wildebeest, tsessebe, zebra, giraffes, reedbuck (going through something of
a revival), warthog, monkeys, baboons, elephant, hippo, crocodile, plenty of
genet, great birding (including wattled cranes), a Pearl-Spotted Owl that
has taken to visiting during breakfast......no leopard for a week now.
At Delta Camp the new lights' installation starts today. It has taken our
supplier well over a year to get them right, and the new towels arrived in
Maun several days ago and await space on a plane. We have been so busy the
priority has been getting the food in fast enough. Lena is doing such a good
job here and getting such rave reviews that I'm forced to realise that not
only am I not indispensable, but that the less time I spend here the better.
Stone, our buyer extraordinaire, is back from a well-deserved 4-week break.
He is so quietly efficient that despite being our newest employee, he was
unanimously voted Man of the Year. He makes everyone else's life so easy. MD
took a break from Oddballs' and did an excellent job of covering for Stone
while he was away.
Delta Camp Diaries - early August 2007.
By Peter Sandenbergh
I'm writing this from Delta Camp again, and it's that time of year - the
camp full of elephant, shaking the palm trees night and day, and wandering
around like sheep. The guests are agog. Yesterday during lunch elephant,
giraffe and four magnificent kudu bulls all visible from the table, and a
family of otters porpoising down the channel. Leopard with up to three cubs
on the island, unusual number, and Fowler x 5 saw two lions feeding on a
young giraffe they killed last night, on their morning walk. Hippo grunting,
wattled cranes croaking, fish eagles fish eagling, the rattle of pots and
pans........business as usual.
The weather has turned perfect, cool nights, a little chilly in the morning
but soon warming to blissful days. Clear skies still, very few fires this
year (so far), and none of that noisome August wind we sometimes suffer, and
long may that last. A fantastic display of shooting stars the night before
last as we pass through, according to one of our guests, the tail of a
passing comet.
Lena taking a well-earned break, relieved by Shex, who was Binky's assistant
manager in the dark ages, and yours truly, so brace yourselves for
complaints. I'll try not to call anyone a bitch, my instincts
notwithstanding.
Some Delta Air news - we will, within a week or so, have added a G8 Airvan
to our fleet. The Airvan is the 'coming' bush plane, an Australian
concoction that has proved itself in this environment. It is a rather slow
single but has the advantage of having 7 passenger seats, which will make
scheduling easier and take the pressure off our existing fleet during this
busy time. It has large windows and excellent visibility, so those
passengers not concentrating on their air-sickness bags will have an
excellent view of the (slowly) passing scenery.
Delta Camp Diaries - August 2007.
By Peter Sandenbergh
To anyone who's worked in this industry - 'nuff said.
Holmes x 15 are delightful (ditto Sumray x 4). Almost makes me feel guilty
about charging them for their company. I said almost...
I've never understood why people who will sit meekly for hours in an international airport listening
to the lies coming over the PA system as to why they won't be going where
they thought they were, will behave like spoilt children when a small plane
is 15 minutes late for reasons which should be comprehensible even to spoilt
children.
I suppose international travel is so institutionalised and impersonal that you know instinctively that any overt display of temper will
only earn you a seat next to the lavatory if they allow you on at all, if
and when the damned thing goes anywhere. The brunt of a slightly delayed charter flight was borne, to everyone's amusement, by some entirely innocent passing pilot who landed to drop some people off but not to pick up these particular guests. He jumped out the aircraft with a big smile on his face, answered a question in the negative, stood there stunned while he spittle and vitriol cascading all over him, and departed with his tail between his legs. I'm always telling them they an integral part of the tourism industry, and one of them at least now understands this.
The lion that killed the giraffe have been returning to the carcass for
nearly a week now, so we have had good value from the unfortunate creature.
We also have a pack of wild dog in the area which is causing a bit of a
stir. Our elephant continue to perform, cascading palm nuts onto the kitchen
roof and gazing balefully at the guests from a few metres away. And lion in
camp a couple of nights ago, great excitement in all but two ladies,
seconded to us from another camp, who lodged a complaint.
We are very pleased to have been chosen as a location for the filming of a
couple of scenes for the (first?) film of 'The #1 Ladies Detective
Agency'/MaRamotswe series. We have already earned enormous capital from the worldwide popularity of these books, so the film can only be good for us and the industry and country as a whole. However both camps fully booked for a week by a film crew and cast (guess who will be staying where) will no doubt test us. We rely on our friends in the animal kingdom to test them back.
Some other exciting news in the pipeline but I think I'll wait for the
chicken to emerge fully before spilling the beans on that one, so in the
meantime, have a nice day.
Delta Camp Diaries - September 2007.
By Peter Sandenbergh
It is not unusual for summer to take us by surprise, but this year the
change in the seasons has been dramatic - from perpetual cold to savage
heat, in the space of several days. But it's not just that. The sky has gone
white, the air is heavy with the honey-scent of the flowering Garcinias
(there is one above me dripping tiny inflorescences onto my keyboard), the
Kigelias are in full bloom, the Diospyros and Mophane leaves have turned,
the birds sing different songs, the air is alive with insects, and the
ghastly Coke Lites are no longer bursting all over the bar fridge.
The first of the season's Yellow-billed kites arrived today, to the horror of the
rodents and reptiles emerging into the summer sun. I think I have never
heard the concentration of bees, so early and so prolific, as I did this
morning, at very first light, the still dawn air positively thrumming with a
million wing-beats per second.
And your esteemed clients, ladies and gentlemen, the 'reason for our
existence', indeed. I know, I know, the customer is always right, and when
I'm the customer I feel my rectitude strong upon me, believe me,
but........which customer, exactly, when there are two, and one thinks this
and the other that? We are standing on the path, halfway between the rooms
and the dining room. 'Why, why? Why did you come here?' I really
want to know. He is whimpering with fear. It is the middle of the day. He
needs to be fetched for lunch. Nothing bigger than a squirrel has been in
camp in the 18 hours he's been here. His eyes dart frantically around - he
knows he cannot detect the tooth and claw lurking behind every bush without
running the risk of standing on any one of the many venomous snakes writhing
on the path, thereby giving it the justification is doesn't need to sink its
fangs into his tender calf.
The film crew has come and just about gone - a great success from every
point of view. They got their work done in half the allotted time, and spent
the rest of their time with us having a ball. I didn't join them. Too hot
for hangovers. The Big Man had his elephant experience and is now a convert.
This is a BBC pilot and if it works will become a 13-part series. I feel a
price increase coming on.
The six male lion that revved up the Irish some time ago are back. This
promises some excitement on walks and some great orchestral performances as
they go into mating mode. First they'll cruising all over the area at night,
roaring for females, primping themselves and strutting, and then of course
when the action starts they will not take kindly to your esteemed etc
wandering around picking daisies. The guides will hold them if they decide
to elsewhere.
It starting to quieten down and we could do with some more business.
Thank you.
