Elephants roam in Torra Conservancy in Namibia. The country’s conservancies give local communities a stake in conservation and development across the country, and a community in northwest Namibia formed a joint venture with a safari company to own and run Damaraland Camp in the Torra Conservancy.TORRA CONSERVANCY, Namibia – Before setting out on a game drive across ruggedly beautiful northwest Namibia, we tell the safari camp managers we are happy to take sandwiches. We are intent on finding the notoriously elusive desert elephant, and we don’t want to waste time returning to camp to eat.
“Lunch in the bush?'” food and beverage manager Alfonzo Langbooi asks with an enthusiasm we do not immediately understand.
We did find the elephants. After all, looking for wildlife – rhinos, lions, leopards, cheetahs, hyenas, giraffes, mountain zebras, antelopes, baboons – is the main reason to come here. The sight of an ostrich galloping across the semi-desert will charm even those who don’t consider themselves birders.
But we soon learned that a long game drive didn’t mean resorting to sack lunches. As our truck bounced along a dry riverbed and rounded a bend, we found Langbooi and staff beaming mischievously by a table set with glass, linen and silver. Another table offered a buffet including an artfully presented salad and, warming over a gas burner, chicken schnitzel.
“White wine or red?” asked Langbooi, whose earlier enthusiasm, it was now clear, had been in anticipation of this magical surprise.