When TTG met the world’s first all-female anti-poaching unit
A TTG Sustainable Travel Heroes adventure with Intrepid Travel saw agents share dinner around a campfire in Kruger National Park with South Africa’s Black Mambas and fall in love with safari holidays
“Women can keep secrets!” Felicia releases a high-pitched belly laugh that has her bent double in her camouflage military uniform. “Men like to drink, and sell their secrets,” she elaborates, now with an undertone of sadness.
We’re standing in a map-lined operations room at the Black Mambas headquarters in South Africa’s Greater Kruger National Park and I’ve just asked why this 36-strong group of women solely recruits females to keep the Olifants West Nature Reserve residents out of harm’s reach. A fact, by the way, that makes this the world’s first all-female anti-poaching unit.
The secrets sergeant Felicia and her fellow Black Mamba Bongane speak of include how to track animals, predict their behaviour and identify and report poacher presence in an area spanning 20,000 hectares – information which they pass on to youngsters using a pioneering Bush Babies programme.
AMBASSADORS’ ADVICE
“Visiting Kruger National Park means setting off before sunrise and/or coming back after sunset so prepare customers for a long day. They need to wrap up warm but know it gets hot quickly. Mother Nature can't guarantee sightings so prepare them for what they might or might not see, and consider the time of year – when there's foliage on the trees it's going to be more challenging to spot the game.”
Gareth Harding, Travelosophers by Gareth Harding
I listen intently alongside 10 travel agents – who are TTG Sustainable Travel Ambassadors in training – as the duo share how their gruelling military and survival training has enabled them to reduce snare finds from 200 to 10 a day. They tell us that since the Black Mambas’ inception in 2013 the reserve hasn’t lost a single rhino to poaching. What makes this all the more impressive, is that the women don’t carry guns. They say this makes them safer. How? Being weaponless means armed poachers don’t see the women as a threat – it’s a perfect example of mind over matter.
Intrepid added overnight stays at the Black Mambas HQ to its South Africa itineraries in November 2023 and is currently the only operator offering this once-in-a lifetime camping experience. As members of a not-for-profit organisation relying on tourism to enhance funds, the women are so happy we’re here.
Later in the heart of the bush, circled around a campfire used to cook a dinner we eat by torchlight, Felicia and Bongane regale us with stories of rare pangolin sightings and perilous elephant encounters as the Milky Way glitters in the starry night sky above. It’s such an extraordinary, enriching experience, many of us agree it’s one of the “best nights of our lives”.
Ambassadors' advice
“Sell the Black Mambas experience with confidence – it is one of the most incredible things I've ever done. I would be cautious of selling it to clients who are less mobile and it’s probably not for children, but it's not physically strenuous. The camping is really comfortable and everything's provided so all you have to do is bring yourself for a good time.”
Erin Neville, Trailfinders
ANIMAL KINGDOM
Around the same campfire close to 8am we’re tucking into a fry up when Fusion Holidays’ Jess Morton emerges from the bushes: “Guys, there’s a giraffe over here!” Sure enough, there’s a young female not 20 metres away munching on a nearby tree, and behind her, stands her inquisitive calf.
Just a day later we’re relaxing in the Kubu Safari Lodge pool when a dazzle of zebras arrives to drink from a nearby watering hole. Soon impala, nyala and kudu have joined them and it swiftly becomes our own private safari.
During our programmed game drives in Kruger National Park and Rietspruit Game Reserve every animal encounter emerges better than the last. We see more animals than we can count, including lions, hippos, elephants, ostriches, crocodiles, a family of white rhinos, a lone hyena, an elusive honey badger and even a rare hunting leopard; but the most extraordinary encounters occur when we least expect them.
Our discerning guide Bretton, who has an impressive 29 years of experience leading game drives, has to slam on the jeep’s brakes not two minutes after we enter the Kruger gates as two cheetahs bound without hesitation across the tarmac road. They move into the arid distance with such majesty that I’m lost for words. “Wow,” Bretton breathes. “You need to understand how rare that was – there are less than 400 cheetahs in Kruger, which is the same size as Israel, and I haven’t seen one in over a month.”
Ambassadors' advice
“Add on the Rietspruit Game Reserve safari. It’s such good value for money and customers have a really good chance of animal sightings given the smaller size of the reserve in comparison to Kruger. Highlight the incredibly knowledgeable guides – they really enriched the experience for us.”
Lewis Jones, Not Just Travel
CHANCE ENCOUNTERS
We thought crossing paths with these cheetahs, or laying eyes on three of the world’s 1,409 endangered African wild dogs in a Rietspruit repopulation programme, was going to be the most unlikely sighting of our safari experience. But no; it’s upon departing the parks that a passer by on foot maniacally gestures to our jeep to look right.
In the foreground of an archetypal African landscape comprising an ochre sun setting behind a silhouetted mountain, we can just about make out two medium-sized, dark and muscular animals skittishly turning on their heels and disappearing into the scrubland. We’re in disbelief: black rhinos. The WWF reports these shy and critically endangered animals are making a promising comeback after having their numbers globally reduced 98% to just 2,500, but today, their numbers are nearing 6,500.
It’s thanks to anti-poaching organisations like the Black Mambas that we can tell these success stories, which shows how important it is to travel with positive-impact operators who support wildlife conservation such as Intrepid. Felicia might be big on keeping secrets, but I won’t be hiding how humbling this life-changing experience has been – I’ll be telling anyone who will listen to visit South Africa with Intrepid, because they won’t regret it.
Book it: Intrepid’s 16-day Experience Southern Africa includes Kruger National Park, the Black Mambas HQ and Soweto on a wider itinerary also visiting Botswana and Zimbabwe. Prices start from £3,430pp, excluding flights; intrepidtravel.com
Learn more about responsible travel at ttgmedia.com/sustainabletravelheroes
INSIDE SOWETO
Intrepid itineraries with time in Johannesburg include a visit to Soweto – a large township created in the 1930s for the city’s Black residents during apartheid – to learn about its fraught history. On our tuktuk tour a characterful local guide named Tami leads us into an informal settlement he says was once a no-go area plagued with violence and crime.
The poverty here is shockingly extreme but men, women and children going about their daily lives wave at us with beaming smiles and are keen to interact as we pause beside a smoking braai. Tami tells us our presence is positive because we can tell others Soweto is safe to visit, plus, tourists spending money here helps improve the economy.
Tami’s tour ends poignantly at the Hector Pieterson Museum, where an emotional memorial remembers this 12-year-old schoolboy who was shot and killed in 1976 alongside an estimated 600 other students during the Soweto Uprising; this was a protest against the introduction of Afrikaans (thought of as the “language of the oppressor”) in schools. It’s a stark reminder of South Africa’s not-so-distant past and of humanity’s sometimes callous brutality.
Find out more about this experience at sowetobackpackers.com
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Madeleine Barber
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