BY MIKE UNWIN - 05 August 2018
Head out on a sensory safari in Zimbabwe’s Mana Pools and view an abundance of game - Image: The Telegraph
“So, where else in nature do you find a spiral?” Rob Janisch, safari guide-cum-ecology tutor, holds aloft the shell of an African land snail.
For a moment he contemplates his find, like Hamlet with poor Yorick. Then he turns for our response. We shuffle uncomfortably, cogs whirring. Behind us, a passing warthog snorts its derision.
“A kudu’s horns?” I venture, recalling one of yesterday’s sightings. Somebody else suggests a millipede, pointing to the one trundling over my trainers. Now the ideas flow. Rob, scrawling with a stick in the sand, explains how a spiral offers the most efficient transport in nature, from blood flowing through a heart to nutrients through a tree.
The warthog trots away, reassured. Two days in Rob’s company and it has been a steep learning curve. But this is no air-conditioned lecture theatre. Our classroom is Mana Pools, Zimbabwe’s wildest national park. In the dust at my feet are the prints of a leopard. In peak dry season, this spectacular reserve, sandwiched between the Zambezi River and its rugged escarpment, is big game central. But now, with the late rains having dispersed the herds, it offers a chance to step back from the big five and look a little deeper.
Mana Pools is a beautiful place by night - Image: The Telegraph
And that’s the idea behind this brand- new, six-night Super Sensory Safari. In the company of expert guides, we are engaging both senses and brains as we peek and prod our way through the bush. Rob wants us to see the natural world in a different way. “How would nature make a chair?” he asks, as we search for somewhere to sit. Or, as we gather around a termite mound: “How would nature build a city?”
Rob’s passion is biomimicry: the concept of designing more sustainable products and systems for our human world by emulating those found in nature. “We need to tap into the genius of nature,” he entreats. “‘It’s our last resort for solving the problems of the planet.” Inspiration lies all around.Take this towering termite mound. Not only is it a marvel of engineering, complete with air-conditioning systems and nursery chambers: its sustainable construction also enriches the soil and provides homes for everything from mongooses to mambas. Rob suggests that our own urban edifices could, likewise, enhance rather than deplete their environments. “Cities could function like rainforests,” he explains. “We could be turning all that CO2 into oxygen.”
A leopard can be spotted at Mana Pools - Image: Istock
Our base for the first three nights is Kanga Camp, some 15 miles (24km) inland from the river, its tents and walkways smuggled into thick bush around a permanent lagoon. During down time, with freshly baked banana cake to stimulate our grey matter, Rob develops his theme.
He explains how natural forms and systems could be much better harnessed in technology, citing such recent examples as humpback whale fins inspiring Danish wind turbines and bacteria-resistant sharkskin offering advances in hospital hygiene.
As he talks, an elephant emerges at the back of the lagoon, trunk uncoiling to demonstrate just how nature invented the siphon. Mana Pools is renowned for its guided walking, so it is tailor-made for this very hands-on safari, in which vehicles are largely eschewed in favour of tramping the terrain on foot. Under Rob’s guidance, every detail prompts discussion. He explains, for example, how the brilliant blue of a glossy starling feather is a “structural” colour, its iridescence drawn from light refracted through tiny barbs.
Listen to the mechanical chirrup of an African scops owl; for half an hour the writer watched these endangered, tie-dyed canines sorting out their pack politics - Image: Istock
Could this offer an alternative to expensive, unsustainable oil pigments? An old weaverbird nest passed from hand to hand not only reveals extraordinary strength and elasticity, but will also break down into the soil. Houses that biodegrade into gardens, anyone?
Armed with Rob’s mantra, “What would nature do?”, we are soon planning a brave new world for our own beleaguered species. But while absorbed in ideas and minutiae, it is easy to forget that bigger beasts roam these parts. Thankfully our guides don’t: each walk starts with a safety briefing, and whenever Rob corrals us for a chat, I watch his companion, Lewis Mangaba, scrutinising our surroundings. One trail reveals the dew-fresh prints of a large male lion.
“He passed this way one hour ago,” says Lewis. , peering into the thickets.Lewis offers more than just security. A walking textbook of medicinal and nutritional wild plants, he takes the reins one afternoon to lead an ethnobotanical walk. Now we tick off more senses, sniffing the fragrance of basil and nibbling on sweet, nectar-bearing blooms. Raised in the Zambezi Valley, Lewis has a traditional take on biomimicry. He finds us wild jute, which in his village produces rope and soap; demonstrates how to set a bird trap from the runners of a spiny combretum; and crushes the leaves of a woolly caper bush to produce an infusion used to treat asthma.
Meanwhile, Derek Solomon, a renowned sound recordist and the third of our experts, has been working on our lugholes. “We’ve learned to filter out sounds; important sounds,” he announced on day one, “and we need to get our ears back.” During one drive, we turn off the engine and simply listen – not to anything in particular, just to the ambient soundscape. And the more we listen, the more we hear: from the territorial rhythm of countless doves, pulsing like a string orchestra, to the throaty rumble of a distant female elephant, trying to gather together its family. Back in camp, Derek explains the science of sound: the difference between a bird’s territorial song and its alarm call; how a lion draws down its larynx into its chest cavity to produce that thunderous resonance. Out in the bush, he uses a microphone to reveal sounds that we never knew existed, including even the hissing of Matabele ants. After dinner, as hippo grunts and lion moans punctuate the insect chorus, he picks out other sounds: the mechanical chirrup of an African scops owl; the whistled chorus of painted reed frogs.
After three days, we leave Derek and Rob and move on with Lewis to Zambezi Expeditions, Kanga’s sister camp on the Zambezi. Near the river, small parties of zebra, buffalo and elephant show that we’re approaching big game central. The camp itself is gloriously appointed: in front, a grand sweep of Zambezi, its languid progress periodically broken by the hydraulic hiss of surfacing hippos; out back, a parklike river terrace, the blue-greys of the distant escarpment smudged like smoke beneath its high browse line of statuesque winter-thorns. Guide Richard Yohane now joins Lewis to lead us around the floodplain. Lions are on the agenda, and each morning we head off in the direction of the roaring from the night before, setting our route from any tracks we find.
Focused on tracking, there’s now less chat than with Rob, but still we haven’t packed away our curiosity. Richard and Lewis gamely field questions about everything from dung beetles to meander loops – on one occasion, breaking off to shepherd us smartly into a dry river bed as a family herd of elephants swings past. Lions prove elusive. But more unexpected rewards arrive, including a rare crowned eagle in the branches of a fig tree and a hefty leopard tortoise crossing the trail. In one clearing, we meet a pack of 18 African wild dogs. Lewis leads us in a cautious approach,until we are within a stone’s throw. For half an hour, we watch these endangered, tie-dyed canines sorting out their pack politics, before they trot away into the trees.
Image: The Telegraph
And then there’s the river itself. One afternoon, we launch canoes upstream and drift back to camp, admiring stately Goliath herons and hovering pied kingfishers. Buffalo look up from their grazing to watch us pass, and we hug the bank when snorting hippos surface in the deeper channels, goggle-eyed with outrage. That night, a pathway of lanterns leads from the river bank to a dining table beneath the stars.
How to stay safe on safari
Malaria is the biggest health threat on a safari holiday – but antimalarial tablets reduce the risk by at least 90%.
- Antimalarials are unsuitable for under-fives, but Paediatric Malarone is available for children weighing 11-40kg.
- Avoid bites by wearing long trousers and long-sleeved shirts and using a DEET-based insect repellent. In the dry season there are fewer mosquitoes. Most malaria-free areas are in South Africa, including the Waterberg, Madikwe, Tswalu and Kwandwe. In Namibia, the Kaokoveld and the Skeleton Coast should also be safe.
- Make sure immunisations are up to date – for hepatitis A, typhoid, tetanus, diphtheria and yellow fever at masta-travel-health.com.
- The tropical sun is fierce, so always wear a hat, sunglasses and sun cream – and drink at least two bottles of water a day.
- If travelling to Kenya or Tanzania, sign up to Amref, Health Africa’s Flying Doctors service (flydoc.org) which provides evacuation in medical emergencies.
- Once you are in the bush, always listen to instructions from your guide.
- In camp, zip up your tent and never take food into it.
- On a game drive, remember that animals are used to vehicles; but don’t be noisy or make sudden movements.
- Stay inside the vehicle (ask your driver or guide if you need to make a “bush stop”).
- Don’t sit on the vehicle’s roof. In transit watch out for thorns and overhanging branches.
- If travelling on foot, don’t run. Only prey animals run!
- Obey the safety rules in your camp or lodge.
- Don’t walk around the camp at night. Carry a torch and make sure you are escorted back to your tent or room after dinner.
- Respect every animal’s private space – and never ask your guide to drive closer for a photo.
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