My obsession with the Botswana wilderness began from very early on in my African dreams. I read the story of the legendary Cronje Wilmot in his Okavango Adventure in my formative years and decided that this was where I wanted to be. It is an obsession that took on new meaning after spending my long-collected savings on the book 'Okavango - Sea of Land, Land of Water' by Peter Johnson and Anthony Bannister. Here was the land of my dreams in full colour.My initial obsession was targeted at the Okavango Delta - at the time I considered the whole of northern Botswana as the Okavango - it was the book that showed me the different regions. Some of my abiding memories of the book were the images of the flooded Savuti channel and the Mababe Depression.It was in my late teens that I had the opportunity to experience northern Botswana for the first time. The Savuti Channel had stopped flowing, an event that held no great significance for me at the time. It was during the rainy season and the grass was green, animals were everywhere and we spent a great deal of time with a resident pride of lions. Savute was the wilderness I was looking for.It was to be a few more years before I experienced Savute again, this time in the dry season - a far cry from my first impressions. I have to admit to a tinge of surprise and disappointment at the experience. Then as a guide in Botswana I had the opportunity to visit Savute regularly - and I slowly developed a deep passion for the place.During ten years of guiding through northern Botswana Savute became the place I looked forward to seeing the most on each safari. I developed an unhealthy obsession with Savute and an intense excitement built in me each time I was due to visit the area, an excitement, I have to add, that was not shared by everyone.

Returning to Savute

A change in situation meant that I was not able to experience Savuti for almost six years - until an opportunity to spend time at a lodge in the area allowed me to share my passion with my wife.
When we got off the plane I looked around and took in a deep breath - it was as if time had stood still in Savute. The dust and the strong dry season scent of sage, and drying urine and dung, had not changed, and the elephants were still at the waterhole, just as they were six years ago when I was last there.We stayed for two nights. It was October and Savuti did not disappoint. This was the time of the elephant-killing lions, a pride 32 strong. When we arrived in Savute we were informed that the lions had not eaten for eleven days - and they were hungry. Our first night was filled with the sounds of elephants and lions in an unbelievable cacophony of squealing, roaring and shrieking.The lions were unsuccessful during the night and the next morning we watched some members of the pride catch a mongoose - which they killed and played with for almost two hours before discarding the carcass. That night the cacophony was even greater and the lions again missed out.

Ghosts of the past

One of the abiding images of Savute is the prevalence of dead trees on the marsh and along the channel. The trees grew during a dry spell and were drowned when the marsh was flooded again.

Then, in Savute's dry seasons, these dead trees enhanced the stark spirit of this wildernessI watched dawn breaking in a cloudless sky

Washing the eastern horizon

From a pale glow orange to a dust-smudged blue
As ghosts of the past

Not of the changing seasons

But of another time

They appear from the dust

Of the changing season
It was the dust of the season

In time

From where they grew

And in the settling of the dust

To where they goLone antelope on an old ant-mound.