Botswana: How do loo paper and lemons get to a remote camp in the Okavango Delta?

Episode 13 - Botswana: How do loo paper and lemons get to a remote camp in the Okavango Delta?

[: 00:00:00

[00:00:08] André: Hello and welcome to a new episode of my podcast.

A visit to Botswana is on many bucket lists and there is a good reason for that. The safari experience and sightings of animals is absolutely phenomenal. I did a trip through Botswana a few years back with a group of travel agents and tour operators, and one of the participants was an awesome young woman from Australia, and this was her very first visit to Africa.

All the more experienced travel agents teased her on this trip, that she was starting with the very best safari destination, and that we were not sure how good of an idea that was. Today we're chatting to James Wilson, who works for Desert and Delta Safaris, and is in charge of their sales and marketing in the UK and Europe.

I've known James for about 20 years, I think, and I'm glad that he's able to join us today.

Hi James. Welcome to the podcast.

[: 00:00:58

[00:01:05] André: Botswana as a whole is not a cheap destination, which is one thing that puts some visitors off visiting, but there are good reasons for the high price tag of a Botswana holiday, and not everyone understands or realizes those.

Run us through some of those reasons

[: 00:01:19

[00:01:47] André: And then they discovered a diamond somewhere, didn't they?

[: 00:01:50

[00:02:02] André: Yeah.

[: 00:02:02

And you can almost feel like you're the only person there.

[: 00:02:27

[00:02:27] James: If you look at the Okavango Delta,

60 percent of it is, untouched and undeveloped. and then you've got the Kalahari, the Central Kalahari, the Makgadigadi, all these areas that comprise of game reserves and concessions and national parks. There are very few vehicles and boats when you're out in those places.

So yeah, that's, uh, in a nutshell, why it's, it has a higher price tag to it.

[: 00:02:53

And that, of course, is one reason why everything in, including toilet paper, I always say, needs to be flown into the camp on, on those little aeroplanes, which have, on average, 8 to 12 seats. Is that really the case that everything needs to be flown in? What are some of the challenges of running a camp in a remote location like that?

[: 00:03:18

So, it's hard and expensive, but a lot of the camps are on islands in the Delta, so when the water levels are up, then we need to go and meet a boat at a junction or a jetty, and then they have to be boated across the Delta to get there.

[: 00:03:47

[00:03:50] James: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. But then the fresh goods need to be flown in. You're correct. You know, so meat and fresh veggies. They were flying up some micro herbs for the wonderful salads that people get to have at lunch and trying to keep them from wilting in the October heat in the, in the belly part of the aircraft is some challenge.

And then the expectations on the ground in terms of waste management is very high, which is really good, right? When we first ran these camps in the 80s, there was much less attention paid towards waste management. So getting the waste out, it all needs to be taken out again, recycled.

And then of course you've got the cost of getting people, the staff in and out.

[: 00:04:29

[00:04:45] James: I've spoken to some of the management that have moved in from other companies, and they've told us that Desert and Delta is incredible when it comes to having very good stock control and systems in place for making sure that we've got enough food, for people, for the guests coming in. And particular person told me how they were in another camp and, they would just throw money at the problem.

[: 00:05:06

Because as you say, we've got a nine day meal cycle. So you know that you're going to get a different meal in each and every camp, because every camp has the same meal plan for those nine days.

So it varies as you hop along. And we have a report system in place, so there's like a whole report that gets sent to the. To the next camp...

[: 00:05:44

[00:05:55] James: Exactly. Exactly. You got it.

[: 00:05:57

[00:06:04] James: Well, it's a complicated one, but essentially, uh, born in Australia. My mom is South African and my father is British.

But I did finish my schooling in, South Africa, in KwaZulu Natal. There was a large contingent of kids from the Maun tourism community who went to this particular school.

So I, I learned a lot about Botswana and made lifelong friends there. And really always dreamed of living or working with Botswana.

[: 00:06:31

[00:06:31] James: I did university in the UK, and I got involved in the Australian travel industry, which is brilliant. But slowly, every time I went back to Africa and every time I went to Botswana on holiday, I felt like I needed to work in this destination.

[: 00:06:45

[00:07:01] André: I think it's good to mention that you have your own podcast, called "Inspiring African Travel".

Tell us about that in two or three sentences.

[: 00:07:10

It's definitely a labour of love, but, um, really enjoy it.

[: 00:07:30

[00:07:43] André: But, back to Desert and Delta, who you work for. Give us a brief overview of the company, how old it is and where you operate camps and lodges.

[: 00:07:50

And, started by a Texan lady, back in the early eighties with camp Okavango, that was the very first camp and then Camp Moremi, shortly after that. And slowly, but surely over the years, the circuit grew, and today we've got nine lodges and safari camps from Chobe, in the North, all the way through the Okavango Delta, down to the Makgadigadi, a really, really solid circuit. And, I think what's nice about the company is that it's stayed honest, and maintained its identity ever since Jesse Neal, that American owner, sold it in the 90s. It's been a true Botswana company.

If you just look at some of the characters that are involved. If I go back to a guy, a legend,

[: 00:08:40

[00:08:46] André: No way.

[: 00:08:46

He stayed there at Camp Okavango all throughout his childhood, through his life.

He worked there. And, so his nephew, basically his son, MC Odumetse, or Lempheditse Odumetse, he's been with the company since the 90s, because his uncle John got him into it.

And he's moved his way up the company. And now he's the Managing Director of the whole holding company of the group. So, I really like, that it's done a full circle now. And the company really heavily invests in citizens and the upliftment of local people.

[: 00:09:38

How is that handled?

[: 00:09:39

I mean, look for starters, all guests must have travel medical insurance. That's absolutely important. Um, we have our own Medivac insurance.

So what happens is, as soon as there's an incident, we don't hesitate. We do whatever we've got to do, as quickly as possible, to get the guests into Maun, which is the gateway to the Okavango, or Kasane, closer to Chobe, to stabilize them. And simultaneously, we contact the agent and the travel insurance to inform them of what's going on.

So, you're never far away, from a helicopter that will come in as quickly as possible. And there's so many drills that have been done and we've had experience in the years that, it's a very, very safe and seamless operation.

[: 00:10:26

Um, just make sure you always have that in your hand luggage. When I worked for the airlines, there were too many people that didn't do that. And that, that does cause stress.

[: 00:10:53

[00:10:54] André: James, what else do you want guests to know before they travel?

[: 00:10:58

[00:10:59] André: 2 minutes. Yep. Yep. Yeah. Yeah.

[: 00:11:03

So, you know, when the water level is low, yes, the water level will be low, but then that comes with its advantages, of seeing certain game and behave in a certain way. Um, when the water level is high, it's obviously pretty spectacular. It just varies.

Let's talk specifically about the green season, the summer season, which is from December to March.

[: 00:11:48

But that's no longer the case, you know, photographic tourism has taken over and you can easily travel in that summer season.

It's beautiful. It's green and lush and the flowers come out. The young calves are bouncing around. Um, and obviously from a price point, it's much more affordable because it's a low season rate.

So, a long winded answer just to say, just embrace it. Like, just worry less about trying to plan every single element of what you want to experience.

[: 00:12:37

So just like you say, go with it and just experience it, because every month of the year has, has something very interesting.

[: 00:13:10

[00:13:13] André: Do you have a one or two funny , or heartwarming stories for us?

[: 00:13:16

I was up there with, one of our professional, specialist guides, a guy called Metal. And I remember walking around the camp, it's on an elevated boardwalk because the water comes right under the rooms. And, I saw all these, burrows and, I was thinking "we don't have warthogs here".

And anyway, I asked around, and it turns out that we had, Aardvarks, which is like the last place. You know, you more expect to see Aardvarks out in the dry parts of the Kalahari. So I was like, well, I mean, these are fresh tracks and fresh burrows. So I didn't think much of it, but, I was sharing a room with Metal, and I hadn't shared this with him and we went to sleep and, woke up in the middle of the night and heard this massive scratching noise.

And normally at night, that sort of time of night, you'd think probably be in a porcupine. That's like the most common thing to have scratching around your tent. So anyway, I woke up Metal, "I think there's an aardvark under our room". So he woke up and he's like, "no, James, that's most definitely a porcupine".

I was like, "no, no, no. Metal. I think this is an aardvark". So okay, he said, "all right, let's go.

[: 00:14:51

[00:14:53] James: yeah. So we both went outside to the front of the patio, and try to like peer out under the deck, could hear it moving and it was scuttling to the other side. So we got out, to the front of the room.

Now, bear in mind, Metal's obviously really, really dark, but he's also bald. I'm really, really white. And we're both walking around in our jocks with a torch. And, then we went to the front and sure enough, at the end of the boardwalk, he just froze, this Aardvark. And Metal looked at me and he was like, "wow".

I said like "Metal, this is the first time I'm seeing an Aardvark. This is unbelievable". And we both, um, we both just looked at each other and went, "wow, this is, this is beautiful". And I mean, what, what, what a sighting.

And anyway, we, we got back into bed and we just said, "can you imagine like somebody had a GoPro or, one of those fly on the walls. And they saw these two guys you know, one black guy, one white guy, both bald, in their jocks, creeping around the boardwalk,

[: 00:15:52

[00:15:53] James: And I did play along for a while. Metal was like, you know, he's been guiding for years.

He's like, "but James, how did you know that was an aardvark"? I'm like, "Metal, when you know you know, you know, you just got the gift".

I did come clean, though.

[: 00:16:08

What's your favourite animal?

[: 00:16:19

And the reason why I'm talking about them now is this last trip to Chobe, we saw flocks of Pratincoles there, that I've never witnessed before in all my years of living there.

It was amazing. So, they often come at the time when the flying ants, the flying termites, come out of their burrows. and then they just follow these flying termites. And it was, yeah, thousands and thousands of them flying in these flocks. And it's really beautiful to see.

[: 00:17:10

[00:17:19] James: And my other experience was with, a Black Bellied Bustard or Black Bellied Korhaan, it was quite interesting because I was with a guest. And we stopped at this Bustard. And he just had no interest in birds whatsoever, but we saw this Black Bellied Bustard do its call on top of a termite mound. And it's quite a unique bird. If you Google it, um, I just, I just loved seeing somebody who is just interested in seeing big cats, be completely captivated by this bird, because it just sits, it stands up and it makes this like high pitched sort of whistle. And then it sounds like a champagne cork popping, pop.

[: 00:17:58

What is your favourite spot in Botswana? I know it's a difficult question.

[: 00:18:10

And, this place completely captivates me, because it takes us back to what we were talking about that, everybody comes to Botswana for this sort of pure wilderness experience where, you won't see any villages, you won't see any people, communities living out there.

So it's a real interesting place now where you can witness this intersection between modern and traditional, ancient civilization and the beauty of the wilderness.

Tsodilo Hills is just a complete and utter gem. And it's been completely sidelined in Botswana, because everybody's focused on wildlife and safari. I mean, it's a UNESCO world heritage site, it has got the highest concentration of ancient rock art than anywhere else in Africa.

[: 00:19:11

The whole place is just fascinating, and then you go out the next day and climb the mountain if you want to, or just do a hike around to see the paintings.

Totally different, compared to anything else in Botswana.

[: 00:19:44

[00:20:00] James: I hope that, in the years to come, that it's somewhere where most people in Botswana coming on Safari will be adding on to their list. Cause it's just a must see.

[: 00:20:09

[00:20:20] James: You're most welcome. Thanks for having me, and well done for doing the podcast, it's really good.

[: 00:20:25

Thanks a million for your time today, James. This was fun, and I think it was helpful for the listeners too. James told us about running a camp in the middle of nowhere in Botswana and explained why the country is maybe a little bit more expensive than some other destinations and how that's actually a good thing.

We heard about the cultural offerings in Botswana in Tsodilo Hills, I'll put that in the show notes, and about some of James' favourite birds and the artwork. I found today's episode very interesting and I hope that you did too. If you have any questions, comments or suggestions, please send me an email on podcast at africawithandre.com.

Until next time.