Steve's Off the Beaten Track Safaris:
#2 The Wild West (Katavi & Mahale)

You fly west from Katavi to Mahale, so you go from this barren, stark, dry area with crocs living in caves and a massive pool of hippos. There’s only one source of water left, so you have probably one thousand hippos – and remember they’re territorial animals – having to co-exist in this big mud bath and they don’t look happy. They look as grumpy as they possibly can be and hippos in water look grumpy normally but, in mud under the baking October sun, not happy campers. And we found lions on that trip which had killed a baby hippo. It’s tough Africa. It’s incredibly beautiful, but it’s tough.

You fly west from Katavi and I can recall that, the first time I saw the mountains, it was almost like a scene from like a Vietnam movie or something when you’re flying along. I actually just said to the pilot – because the Mahale Mountains are very high mountains on the eastern shore of Lake Tanganyika – “Out of interest, we know that there are chimpanzees. It’s one of the best places to see chimpanzees, but I’ve always been fascinated by forest elephants and the species of elephant that actually live there aren’t actually forest elephants. They’re normal savannah elephant.” As I asked the pilot, it was like something from a Jurassic Park movie, the clouds parted and this herd of about twenty elephants bathed in this rich red mud walked up under an opening on this hill as we flew over. I just looked down and thought, “How is that even possible?”

So you go from this dry, barren, stark place to this intense green range of mist-shrouded mountains on the shores of Lake Tanganyika. Then the excitement really mounts because I remember the pilot then going and saying to us all – because I was with a group – “I don’t really like this landing.” So, if your pilot doesn’t really like this landing, we were all asking, “Well, what do you mean you don’t like the landing?” He said, “Well, because, on the one side, you’ve got the mountains and the landing strip goes from the mountains and it ends in the lake. So, if you get it wrong, you’ve got to dive down the mountains – depending on the wind – and land and stop before the lake” and I think we got that real adventure feeling even just sitting in the plane and the take-off from there was similar. We were pretty heavy because there were lots of us in the plane and kit and all that and – his name was Julian – he turned around and said, “Well, I hope we make this”. Again! I was like, “What do you mean you hope we make this?"

Anyway, that experience is not a Land Rover safari. As I said, we found lions which had killed hippo. It’s just – I can’t really put my finger on it – cruel is the word. It’s cruel but it’s got this attraction to it. It’s raw. That’s the word. It’s a raw, raw place to go to and, being under canvas adds to that raw experience. There are lots of other camps obviously but Chada’s the one I’ve been to – Chada Katavi. It’s on the main floodplain and it fills up with water quite a bit during the wet season and then the dry season, June to October, by the end of October, it’s just mayhem because the animals are weak, the lions are having a feast.

The birding there is incredible if you go from the end of November and that guide of mine was the best birding guide I’ve ever had. He was pointing at parrots over his shoulder while driving. I was like, “How did you see that? I mean, did you hear them?” It’s not bad. I just sat there going, “Jeepers, dude”.

One of the big things to do there is to go on walks. We went for a walk the one day and one of the ladies in our group asked to go to the loo. So, as the guide would do, he went and found a tree but he didn’t go and look at the tree properly. So she went behind the bush and she came out a bit meekly going, “I don’t think I can use that tree.” He said, “Why?” She said, “Come and look” and there was a four-metre Nile Crocodile lying in the tree and this is miles from water. So some of the crocs live in these huge caves. I think she was a female. I don’t know if she was trying to go somewhere but, because it’s so hot, they’ve got no energy so they just lie there. They probably haven’t had water. They probably haven’t fed. They go into an almost reverse hibernation because obviously hibernation is when it’s cold, but this is like a hot hibernation. You know what it’s like when it’s really hot and you’ve got no energy. So you’re like, “What on earth? There’s a croc under a tree. What?”

We then went to go and look at the croc caves and I’ve got this photograph which is in the Safari Life story of us standing over the cave. So the cave’s beneath us. It’s just a cave in the riverbank and there are monster crocodiles there. I think the bigger crocs dominate the caves. I don’t know if that’s true or not. Looking down in to the cave, some of the smaller crocs were looking up at me and I don’t know how crocs think, but I think the words in its eyes were, “Please crumble. Please, would you mind crumbling?” and he looked up and his eyes were this intense green. I just took a step back and just went, “No, that wouldn’t be fun – to fall into a pit of about ten crocs. Goodbye.” Anyway, so that’s the Katavi. I can say it’s raw and cruel, but I don’t know if Katavi’s a place I can really capture. I get goose bumps thinking about it. It’s partly excitement, but it’s partly a little bit of, “Whoa, okay” and it’s so far off. It’s a pretty difficult place to get to.

It’s crawling, teeming with stuff but the main attraction at Greystoke and the reason why people go there is to go and see the chimps. There’s a chimp research project going on there. Chimps are mad. I was about to say that they’re like humans without whatever it is that stops us from doing stuff, but we’ve probably done worse stuff than chimps. So you start off with this talk by one of the researchers and there’s a whole book on the chimp families and, you know, the alpha male killed his mom, raped his sister, killed his brother. You’re just reading thinking, “What on earth?” and they really are pretty excessive – again, by what standards, I’m not really sure, but they’re pretty intense animals.

The whole focus is you go on walks and you get given masks so you don’t give them any human diseases. You can hear them screaming and shouting in the trees. They tell you, when you see a chimp, put your eyes down and keep your hands next to you and don’t run because a chimp is small but it’s been doing pull-ups its entire life, so they are phenomenally strong. I’m not trying to scare people, but I’ve heard stories of them pulling people’s thumbs off. They are very, very strong. Don’t even think two ways about it. They might be up to your knee but they’re insanely strong.

So the first chimp we saw charged past us down the path almost screaming and what’s incredible to see, having read the book about chimps, is their different personalities. There was the old guy who was chilled and just looking at the world and they’re a phenomenal species to go and see. I would fly there just to go and see them. It’s just amazing watching them and how they interact and play. I guess it’s more intelligent baboons or hairier humans. I don’t know.

And then the shoes? Are there any particular shoes that you would recommend?

STEVE: Probably, for men, probably something like the Rufiji™ APU Combat Boots. Yeah, definitely take comfortable walking shoes!

Any final thoughts on the destination? Anything that you’d like to say as a closing remark?

STEVE: It’s one of those places where almost the best remark is just to have a distant look in your eyes, like a dreamy look if someone asks you what it’s like and just go, “Gee, I don’t know”. It’s incredible. I can’t really describe why and I think that almost sums it up. It would be easy to say, “Just go. Just do it” but go knowing what it’s like but also be prepared to be – not a little bit nervous – but be prepared to be blown away by the experience because it has a rawness to it.

It sounds off the beaten track, but it also sounds completely unusual. It doesn’t sound like anything else.

STEVE: No, it doesn’t and it’s weird because the environment is almost southern African in terms of it’s more open plains, but I’ve probably only had a similar feeling at Mombo in Botswana where there’s an intensity to it. Maybe that’s what it is. It’s like the intense west; not the wild west, although wild west probably would describe it if you imagine chimpanzees running around with holsters and a pistol. I think, if you had to ask someone why they wanted to go there and they just looked towards the horizon for a while with a half-smile on their face, if you could interpret that, then that’s exactly why you should go.