Author: kmcgee

After leaving Moremi Game Reserve and crossing through the Khwai Community Trust lands, we headed immediately to the abutting Chobe National Park and one of the most special places in all of Botswana – Savuti Marsh. The drive to Savuti was both “fun” and challenging as it traverses the Kalahari sands which in patches is deep and soft, and in some places makes for a great roller coaster ride – or an “African massage” as Mark and Kirsten declared – as shown here:

Moremi to Savuti – The “Good” road! (21 seconds)

Moremi to Savuti – The “Fun?” road! (17 seconds)

Chobe NP (4,570 sq. mi), established in 1967 and abutting the Okavango delta to the south, is the first national park and third largest in Botswana. More importantly, it is considered to have one of the greatest concentrations of wildlife in all of Africa, and is renowned for its large elephant population. Indeed, Chobe NP is probably best known for its spectacular elephant population of over 50,000 today, which is actually the highest elephant concentration in all of Africa. Most of these are probably part of the largest continuous surviving elephant population on earth. Elephants living here are Kalahari elephants, the largest in size of all known elephant populations.

Savuti constitutes the southwestern section of the park and is centered around a relic marsh from a large inland lake formed in what is known as the Mababe Depression, whose water supply was cut a long time ago by plate tectonics. Nowadays the “marsh” is fed by the erratic Savuti Channel, which runs for 62 miles from the Chobe River and dries up for long periods, then curiously flows again as a consequence of subtle tectonic activity in the area. The channel started flowing again sometime around 2008 and in January 2010 reached Savuti Marsh for the first time since 1982, but stopped flowing again in 2015. Consequently, the so-called “marsh” is really better described as a grassland plain as it is mostly dry grasslands most of the time. To give you a birds-eye view of what this unique “marsh” (or “swamp” as it is sometimes referred to) looks like when the channel is flowing and the marsh starts to form on the plain, here is a satellite image taken off the internet:

Here are a few pictures of what the Savuti plains look like today during the more typical dry periods when the channel is not flowing – and during the dry season. Note, there is probably enough rain each year during the rainy season to keep things pretty wet on the plain for long enough that woody vegetation doesn’t get established, maintaining the plain as a grassland:

As a result of the variable flow, there are hundreds of dead trees along the channel’s bank, given it an eerie appearance. The region is also covered with extensive woodland savannahs and rolling grasslands, as shown in these photos:

And let’s not forget about those odd but spectacular baobab trees. Savuti has a number of scattered baobabs and several groves. One special grove that we visited is called the “Gallery of Baobabs”. Here are a few shots of these magnificant trees:

One of the unique features of Savuti are the few isolated rocky outcrops or hills that stand out in stark contrast to the extensive Savuti plains, as shown here:

One of the rocky hills, aptly named “Bushman Painting Hill”, contains some ancient rock paintings left by the indigenous San (a.k.a. “Bushman”) some thousands of years ago. We managed a rare stretch of the legs and ascended the hill part way to see the small panel of rock paintings, as shown here:

What is most special to me about Savuti, aside from the wildlife concentrations – principally elephants and lions during the dry season – and the fascinating dynamics of the Savuti channel and “marsh”, is its remoteness. This is untrammeled Africa at its finest. Savuti is several hours drive on rugged soft sand tracks from any human settlements. Indeed, it is so remote and so challenging to drive to Savuti that the vast majority of visitors fly in to stay in one of the lodges. It is one of Africa’s last true wilderness areas – this makes it a very special place to me.

Before prefacing the composite video below, it is important to see our campsite at Savuti and the relaxed atmosphere of our party during our mid-day siestas:

And lets’ not forget that all important camp cuisine. Here is photo of some of the sauce options that we had on hand to “spice” up the dinner meals, which among other concoctions included a cauliflower cheese pie with grated potatoe and onion crust and, if you can believe this, a picture of some breakfast cinnamon rolls I made for one morning’s treat. Yes, that’s right, yeasted cinnamon rolls complete with cinnamon, craisons, and chopped apple, all oozing with a brown sugar–vanilla syrup! Nathan, you would be proud of your dad, even if they don’t compare to your “monkey balls”. But WOW, were these scrumptious!

WARNING, the composite video below is not for the faint-hearted! Without revealing the details, there is a 10-minute episode of yet another elephant encounter in our campsite. The video speaks for itself, but what I failed to say in my broken narrative was that the bull elephant showed NO signs of aggression or uneasiness in our presence despite the closeness of the encounter. SO, even though it looks like we could have been crushed at any moment, we were likely not in any danger by this truly “gentle giant”. That being said, I don’t think we will allow a repeat of this kind of an encounter ever again! As a follow-up, over the course of 2 full days, we had bull elephants come into our site probably 8-10 separate times, each time seeking the camelthorn acacia seedpods that must be like candy to them. On our last encounter, the morning before we left Savuti, we had 3 different bull elephants come in during the wee morning hours (still dark) to push the acacia tree with their huge bodies and feast on the seedpods that rained down. At one point, I was looking eye-to-eye with one of these giants from the roof-top loft atop the Green Dragon. In the breaking dawn light, I could make out the outline of the huge animal and could see the bright white tusks reflecting in the starlight – quite a sight and experience.

Chobe Savuti composite video (18 minutes)

From the Wildside:

Photo Gallery:

Our last stop in Moremi Game Reserve was Khwai River. Our campsite at Khwai was situated just across the river from the village of Khwai, which is a small community – I am guessing on the order of a couple hundred people – that administers the Khwai Community Trust. The Trust is a community-run entity that manages a large tract of land between the Moremi Game Reserve and Chobe National Park. The Trust has a few luxury safari lodges (but I suspect these are owned by outsiders, so most of the profit does not benefit the locals), a couple of community-run campsites, a couple of shops in the village that sell a few food items to desparate campers like us, and, most importantly, a soccer pitch (actually, a patch of uneven ground of dirt and grass clumps with goals on either end, and without lines) that is crowded with all the village young men and boys in the evenings. The only other excitement in the village that we witnessed was the pool table behind one of the shops that seemed to attract most of the young men at the end of the day.

Our campsite at Khwai was fairly typical, with some very nice large shade trees, fire ring, and brai, but no water tap. I suspect that elephants destroyed the water tap, and when things break here they generally stay broken. We did have the usual ablutions with hot shower and flush toilet, which is always appreciated. It was actually a nice campsite except for the loud music that could be heard coming from town on Saturday night. Here are a couple of shots of the campsite and Khwai River bridge at sunset:

The landscape in the vicinity of our campsite was a mixture of the Khwai River itself and the bordering marshy, grassy floodplains with scattered island clusters of trees and shrubs, giving way to upland woodlands dominated by the Mopane tree. The River itself is a narrow channel that regularly almost disappears in the marsh grasses as it meanders through the landscape. Remember, there is very little relief in this landscape – the Kalahari Desert – so it is often hard to discern where the river channel is in places. Also, we are here at a time when the Okavango Delta flood waters are just starting to arrive at Khwai, so the channel is just starting to flow and fill the pools and flood into the low-lying floodplain areas. A month from now there will be a lot more water in the river and floodplain. It is a beautiful landscape in its own unique way, but what makes it truly an exceptional place is the unique hydrologic regime of the Delta (i.e., flooding during the dry season):

The composite video below is on the long side again because of some exciting encounters with elphants (again), lions and spotted hyenas (plus a couple of other sitings for good measure). Hope you enjoy this, because we sure did!

Moremi Khwai River composite video (22 minutes)

Next stop, Chobe National Park and the remote Savuti region. See you there!

Photo Gallery:

For our second campgound in Moremi we moved about 20 km north to Xakanaxa. This was a truly spectacular site and setting, with several large shade trees providing ample shade over our site which was situated on a narrow strip of upland between the extensive delta marsh system on one side and a wetland/grassland complex on the other side, as these photos depict:

To get to Xakanaxa, however, we had to cross over 3rd bridge and then 4th bridge:

We did a number of wildlife drives from our campsite which took us through some beautiful and varied settings and resulted in some nice wildlife sightings (see photo gallery below), but none were quite as “productive” as just sitting in our campsite and letting the wildlife come to us. In the composite video below you will see a few of these lounge-chair observations, including an exciting close-encounter with a bull elephant, but read on after the video for an epilogue.

Xakanaxa composite video (11 minutes)

OK, that was fun! Now, what is NOT shown in the video is this: The bull elephant starring in the video above came back a little while later and gave us a little scare. We were all relaxing in our lounge chairs – although Mark was drawing at the table – and the bull came back to our site. He circled around the back of the Green Dragon, which we deemed a safe distance and, moreover, we had a solid object between us and this several-ton animal. Nancy and I were in our lounge chairs watching the bull walk by about 20-30 feet away on the other side of a large tree after he had cleared the Green Dragon, when suddenly he turned and came straight at us. I started to get out of my chair with the intent to bolt if he kept on coming, while Nancy remained seated with one leg drapped over the arm of the chair (what the hell was she thinking?), when I decided that it was too late to vacate the chair and risk riling this huge animal, so I just froze. Needless-to-say, it was a very, very tense several seconds – which seemed like eternity at the time – in which my underwear needed washing afterwards. To my good fortune – since I am still here writing this blog – the bull stopped about 6 feet from me, flared his ears and kicked the ground, just to let me and the others know that HE was the boss here. We don’t think he was feeling threatened by us; rather, he just want to reassure his physical superiority – which he did with distinction. Now, you don’t get that kind of adrenaline rush from watching elephants on TV.

A few extra Skylar videos of some baby animals (4 minutes)

From the Wildside:

Photo Gallery:

Our first stop in Moremi was called 3^rd Bridge, so named because it is the 3^rd bridge you cross getting there from the South Gate (coming from Maun). By “bridge”, I really mean a stack of logs laid across beams, but raised above the channel and a railing or sorts to keep the faint-hearted feeling safe. Here are shots of Mark and Kirsten crossing 1^st and 2^nd bridges (note, our campsite was before the actual 3^rd bridge so I won’t show you that yet):

Our first night we camped in a site that was shaded by 3 or 4 huge sausage trees, so named for the huge 5-pound sausage-looking seedpods that hang from the branches periously waiting for the unsuspecting camper to place their tent or vehicle underneath, and then at any time they drop like bombs from a plane to obliterate the poor souls or vehicle below. Here’s a picture of the sausage tree and another with Nancy for perspective (note, Nancy uses these as dumbells to do curls):

Our second night we had to move over one site, which also had a couple nice sausage shade trees and a better view out over the marsh, but we were alert to the sausage tree ambush and parked our vehicles in the clear, as you can see in these photos:

This campground, like all the others in Moremi has modern ablution facilities with a flush toilet and hot shower (most of the time) and the sites have a water spicket, firering and brai. Despite our precautions against the sausage tree bombs and our vigilance against invading baboons and vervet monkeys – who are almost always in the vicinity and ready to exploit any complacency on the part of the camper – we were not quite ready for our after-dark campsite visitor who snuck in quietly and tried to steal our trash bag full of vegetable cuttings from dinner. Yes, a very bold Vegan spotted heyena – yes, I said Vegan – tried his or her best to get the vegetable trash in a bag on our table, but we were quick on our feet and forced it to drop the bag upon its hasty retreat. We decided that this heyena was a Vegan as it was keen to steal our vegetable left-overs. Who would have guessed that even amongst heyena’s there would be a Vegan?! Note, in our commitment to fend off this bold heyena on its repeated ambushes we forgot to take a picture or video – sorry!

Directly across the marsh from our campsite there was a reported lion kill from the night before. We didn’t see the lions on the kill or at the kill site, despite looking; however, we did see 3 very fat lionesses walking by our vehicle coming from that direction as we left our campsite the following morning, as you will see in the composie video below.

Our main focus at 3^rd bridge was to take a boat ride into the delta, which we did and enjoyed tremendously. The Delta, as you may recall, is an emmense, fan-shaped morass of channels and pools and small and large tree island embedded in a matrix of marshy grasslands. The Delta fan spreads out for miles and one can easily get lost in its maze of channels. So we did the smart thing and took a boat ride through a tiny piece of the delta wetlands with a very experienced guide at the helm who knew his way around the delta like the back of his hand, as you will see in the composite video below.

Moremi 3^rd Bridge composite video (9 minutes)

Photo Gallery:

Our party’s first destination is the Okavango Delta, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and Moremi Game Reserve, and then on to Chobe National Park. This overland journey will take us into some remote country and we will almost certainly be without cell service, and thus internet connection, for 14 days. SO, this will likely be the last you will here from me for at least 14 days. Once again, no we have not been trampled by a cape buffalo (the number one wildlife caused human fatality), chomped in half by an angry hippo (number two I think), or eaten by a hungry lion (perhaps number 3 but I doubt it), so rest easy, as we will certainly be resting easy and enjoying ourselves. However, since I won’t be back on this blog for at least 14 days, unless by some miricle there is wifi at Khwai Village along the way, I thought I would at least give you some background on the Delta before we go. That way, when I am back online I can focus on the campsites and our awesome cool wildlife experiences.

The Okavango Delta is the most outstanding feature of the Kalahari basin and Botswana’s premier wildlife safari attraction. The Okavango Delta is a huge low gradient alluvial fan or ‘Inland Delta’ located in northwestern Botswana. The Delta covers an area of more than 7,700 sq. mi. and includes a vast network of permanent and seasonally-flooded river channels, marshes, swamps, seasonally flooded grassland, riparian woodlands and wooded and grassland islands, big and small. The habitat complexity of the Delta is truly outstanding, and can really only be fully appreciated by seeing it from the air. I had the privilege on a previous trip to take a low-elevation flight over the delta to see this wonderous complexity. Although the following pictures are not my own, I took these off the internet to share with you so that you can get a sense of what I am trying to describe.

The Okavango Delta is one of a very few large inland delta systems in the world without an outlet to the sea, its waters drain instead into the desert sands of the Kalahari Basin. It is Africa’s third largest alluvial fan and the continent’s largest inland delta. Furthermore, it is in a near pristine state, being a largely untransformed wetland system – although it is currently being threatened by oil and water development, and as of yet unknown impacts of climate change. Perhaps the most interesting and important features of the Okavango is its hydrology; in particular, the timing of the flooding of the delta. The Okavango is produced by seasonal flooding. The Okavango River drains the summer (January–February) rainfall from the Angola highlands and the surge in the river begins to flow in around one month. The waters then gradually and slowly spread out over the delta over the next four months (March–June). The flood peaks between June and August, during Botswana’s dry winter months, when the delta swells to three times its permanent size, attracting animals from hundreds of miles around and creating one of Africa’s greatest concentrations of wildlife.

An interesting info-bit on the human side is the use of the Delta for agriculture by the local ethnic people. After the flooding season, the waters in the lower parts of the delta, near the base, recede, leaving moisture behind in the soil. This residual moisture is used for planting fodder and other crops that can thrive on it. This land is locally known as “molapo”.

We are visiting the Delta at the beginning of peak flooding when most of the channels are surging with water and the lagoons are full – creating a watery haven for all kinds of wildlife. More specifically, we are visiting the portion of the Delta protected as part of the Moremi Game Reserve. Moremi GR (1,900 square miles), established in 1963, combines mopane woodland and acacia forests, floodplains and lagoons. Only about 30% of the Reserve is mainland, with the bulk being within the Okavango Delta itself.

Ok, that’s a little background on this truly amazing piece of the world. We’ll see you in a couple of weeks!

At long last Nancy joins the expedition, along with brother Mark and Kirsten! After my brief stay in Makgadikgadi National Park along the mostly dry Boteti River, I headed to Maun to reunite with family. Mark and Kirsten arrived a day before Nancy on a typical beautiful sunny warm day. Here is my baby bro coming out after a quick no-hastle and free pass through customs and immigration. Don’t you just love countries like this that aren’t paranoid about terrorisim!?

For some reason my picture of Mark and Kirsten together coming out from customs didn’t save (????) so I can’t show you Kirsten’s smiling face, but she was delighted to be here in Botswana as well. Mark and Kirsten have toured all over Kenya but have never visited Botswana, which was on their bucket list – so check! Our first order of business was to pick up their overland vehicle from the rental company (Bushlore). We spent a couple hours with the Bushlore representative going over all of the vehicles many incredible features. It is a Toyota Hilux truck with only a 2.8 Liter, 4 cyclinder engine, but you would never know it from all the features this vehicle has. It can comfortably sit and sleep 4 adults and has every amenity you can think of. The camping features on this vehicle kind of make the Green Dragon look like a poor man’s version.

Anyways, we are well equipped for our journey into the Okavango Delta (more on the Delta in my next post). After completing the vehicle review we headed downtown to see the hub of Maun.

Maun was founded in 1915 as the capital of the Batawana people (as the local people are called) and administrative center of Ngamiland, which is the northwest section of Botswana. It is located along the Thamalakane River, which is another river like the Boteti that receives its water from the excess floodwaters of the Okavango Delta later in the dry season. Consequently, like the Boteti, the Thamalakane River is dry this time of year and only supports scattered water holes or pools that intercept the water table. Unfortuntely, even these pools that provide an important water source for both domestic and wild animals are being pumped dry by the construction companies for use in mixing concrete.

Maun is considered the gateway to the Okavango Delta and, as such, has many lodges and businesses supporting the safari business. You can find just about anything needed for a safari here in Maun. Overall, Maun is a rather delightful city, with a population of ~60,000. It has a small but bustling downtown section extending for 1 block with businesses of all kinds and numerous streetside vendors selling produce, clothing and all sorts of stuff. The people are super friendly and I have never felt in any way threatened or concerned for my own safety or that of my vehicle and possessions. There are NOT thugs waiting to mug you and steel from you at every opportunity. I feel safer here for myself and my possessions than I would in any big city in the US. Here’s a picture of downtown Maun:

After a brief visit to downtown Maun we headed out of town to the Old Bridge Backpackers Lodge and Campsite where we set up camp and enjoyed a nice meal at the Lodge. Mook and I had spinnach-feta pizzas while Kirsten enjoyed a vegie burger and fries. Here’s a shot of Mark and Kirsten enjoying a drink at the Lodge before dinner.

Oh, and in fairness to the Green Dragon, I have to report that she is not the only vehicle that sometimes needs a little TLC. Here’s Mark and Kirstens Toyota Hilux in the shop after the first day with a squealing sound come from the front suspension. Unfortunately, the No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency was not around to help solve the puzzle, so we had to let the Bushlore mechanics figure it out. It turned out to be a minor dust in the wrong place issue which was easily and quickly resolved.

The more important concern of the day was how and where to get wine for the trip on a Sunday in Maun. None of the regular liquor stores are open on Sunday. Fortunately, Kirsten is an experienced African Expat and knows how things get done in Africa. She asked the mechanic if there was a way to get alchohol on a Sunday, and of course there was if you know where to go. We ended up at a bar/liquor store that was rather teeming with business, and they were more than happy to sell us the required – or should I say, desired – quantity of both red and white wine for the upcoming 14 day bush journey, and what’s that bottle of bourbon mixed in with our stuff (Mook!):

Finally, at long last, Nancy arrived and we ended up back at the lodge/campsite for a drink (or was it 2 or 3?) and another round of spinnach-feta pizzas:

OK, that’s it for our brief stay in Maun. It’s off to the Okavango Delta tomorrow and 14 straight days deep in the African bush. SO, that means no more blog posts for at least 14 days – I’m sure you are all ready for a break – unless by some crazy miricle there is wifi at Khwai Village along the way. Cheers!

Next stop, Makgadikgadi Pans National Park, located northeast of the Central Kalahari Game Reserve and southeast of the Okavango Delta (my next destination). Makgadikgadi Pans NP (1,892 sq. mi.), established in 1992, is one of the largest salt flats in the world. The pan, actually many separate pans with sandy desert thornveld in between, is all that remains of the formerly enormous Lake Makgadikgadi, which once covered an area larger than Switzerland, but dried up tens of thousands of years ago. The Park covers only a small portion of ancestral Lake Makgadikgadi and its vast pans which are all part of the Kalahari Desert basin. As the ancestral Lake shrank, it left relic shorelines, which are still evident in the southwestern part of the basin, and numerous smaller lakes formed with progressively smaller shorelines. The pans themselves are salty desert whose only plant life is a thin layer of blue-green algae. However, the fringes of the pan are salt marshes and further out these are circled by grassland and then shrubby savanna. The prominent baobab trees found in the area function as local landmarks – and one tree is said to be 5,300 years old! Here is a photo from the internet to show you the salt pans viewed from a small island with baobab trees:

The sheets of water that cover the pans during the first few months of wetter years during the “wet” season (November to March) attract a phenomenal marvel of water birds and large herds of mammals. The arrival of this water stimulates the birth of millions of tiny shrimps and other crustaceans otherwise lying dormant below the white salt crust. Greater and Lesser flamingos arrive in the tens of thousands, even journeying from as far off as the Great Rift Valley in East Africa to partake in one of Africa’s largest avian feasts. Unfortunately, I am visiting in early June in the middle of the “dry” season, so the water-covered pans and flocks of water birds are not to be seen this time of year. Moreover, my location on the western edge of the Park on the Boteti River, whose source is the Okavango Delta (more on this later), is not about the pans themselves but rather about the attraction of the thirsty desert wildlife to this source of water during the dry season, as many of the larger animals migrate to the western part of the Park and the Boteti river’s riparian fringe during this time of year. Consequently, I won’t be able to show you the great salt pans since I am not visiting them on this trip. I have seen the fringes of these pans and I can say with confidence that they put the salt flats of the Great Salt Lake basin in Utah completely to shame.

My public campsite is Khumaga, situated on the eastern bank of the Boteti River on the western edge of the Park. Note, as you will see in the video, the Boteti is not an actual river with flowing water most of the year or even in most years. Instead, it is a dry river bed with scattered water holes. So, it sounds nice that my campsite is on the banks of the river, but actually I can’t really even see the river bed, nor is there any water. Nothing terribly remarkable about this campsite as it is much like the others. I have a nice acacia shade tree that is dropping seed pod bombs on me and the Green Dragon every so often, fire pit and brai, and there are some relatively new ablution facilities. The sites are fairly close together though, so I can see and hear neigbors. However, as has been typical, there are only a few other campers and we are well spaced out, so it feels relatively private. Here are a couple of photos of the site and ablutions:

And here is a picture of my half-eaten dinner one day, which was a grilled cheese, avacado and asparagus sandwhich – yummy!

Update on my campsite situation. The circus has arrived! My second night, I returned to camp to find it vacant – the other two parties having left in the morning. Sweet solitude! After dark, I started a fire and sat down in my lounge chair and started playing my flute and was having a wonderful time composing a song, when a convoy of 8 vehicles pulling camper trailers pulled into the campground. Now, I am in site #1 and there are 9 other sites. So where do you think they ended up – that’s right, site #2 directly across from me, leaving the rest of the campground empty. This circus of German-speaking humans spent 30 minutes circling up their vehicles and campers in one site – I didn’t think that was even possible but they managed it – as if they expected to be defending themselves against raiding indians. And get this, uring the entire 30 minutes of camp setup they left the last vehicle with their headlights on glaring right at me in my lounge chair. Can you believe it? Some people just have no consideration for others. My peaceful night turned into a background cacophony of german voices getting louder and louder as they each tried to talk over the rising din of voices. This went on well into the night. I’m tempted to start playing my flute really, really loud, but I doubt they would even notice over the din of their own voices. Those of you that have camped in public campgrounds know that it can be a crap shoot. Sometimes it is great and other times, well, it is …?!

As usual, I will omit a description of my drives through the landscape and wildlife observations and let my composite video “do the talking”. Hope you enjoy (even though the video quality sucks):

Makgadikgadi composite video (17 minutes)

And one for Skylar too:

Skylar composite video (5 minutes)

From the Wildside – anectdotal wildlife observations to keep things on the lighter side:

Photo Gallery: I will finish with some of my better photos for those of you that like seeing pictures:

For the past 5 nights and 6 days I have been in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR) >100 km from the nearest road and settlement. Driving into the CKGR was a bit surreal, as I was driving steadily for 3 hours on a sand track through Kalahari thornveld – you remember, that thorny, scrubby, woodland vegetation comprised of grassland mixed with a variety of mostly acacia trees and shrubs on deep sandy soil – getting farther and farther from “civilization” with each mile. Here a couple of shots to give you a visual of the drive into the Reserve:

It’s interesting that no matter how confident you are in your self-reliance to get yourself out of most any problem situation, it’s impossible not to ponder in the back of the mind – even just a little bit – how it would really suck to have a vehicle breakdown this far from everything. And with each passing mile, you can’t help but ponder it a little bit more. Of course, you know that eventually someone would come by for the rescue, but it could be quite a while and the waiting and wondering would be torture. However, my Green Dragon is a self-contained house on wheels and I can live out of that vehicle for many days, weeks perhaps, if necessary. Knowing this provides a peace of mind that is very reassuring.

Of course, it is a certainty that on the main roads into and throughout the CKGR eventually you will cross paths with others; thus, rescue in the case of a vehicle breakdown is virtually guaranteed within a day or two at most. However, once you get off the beaten track on some of the less used roads, I’m not sure a rescue would be coming anytime soon. Check out this series of photos of a 3 hour loop drive I did that got progressively less and less road-like, and eventually there was no evidence of any recent vehicle use. Of course, the Green Dragon was made for this kind of overland travel, so no worries – into the wild I go!

I want to comment on the gestalt of this place before going any further. In the entire 6 days of being in the Reserve I saw a total of perhaps 6-8 other vehicles. Actually, for the first 4 days I saw only 1 other vehicle each day, but on day 5 at a water hole I saw I think 6 vehicles, but 3 or 4 of them were the same ones I had already seen days before. The point being that there aren’t many people out here in the central Kalahari.That, combined with the expansive, seemingly never-ending landscape, and star-lit skies spanning 180 degrees from one horizon to the other combine to create the ultimate feeling of solitude. Not loneliness or remoteness, but solitude – that feeling of being truly alone in nature. For me, there is simply nothing like this feeling of being completely disconnected from the rest of the world. No phones, no social media, no TV, no shopping, no people; no nothing, just me and the natural world. Sublime! Although I suspect this kind of desert solitude would not be comforting for some people, I also think that it would do most people a lot of good to disconnect in this manner every so often.

My first public campsite in the CKGR is in Deception Valley adjacent to Deception Pan at the public campsite called Kori. This isn’t really a campgound in the typical sense as there are just 4 sites and they are separated by hundreds of meters, so each site is essentially its own camp. My site consists of patch of bare ground with an Umbrella Acacia tree for shade and rudimentary ablutions, including a “drop” toilet in which the stuff that comes out of you “drops” into a pit (we would call this a “pit” toilet) and a “bucket” shower in which you fill a 5 liter plastic jug with water, raise it up overhead and pour it on yourself – but you have to sacrifice some of your own precious water for this purpose – NOT LIKELY! Oh, there is a fire ring as well. So, if you like a hot shower, flush toilet and picnic table at your campsite, this ain’t the place for you! You may be wondering how I can stay reasonably clean without a shower after several days; well, you take a cloth or sponge and wet it down with just a little bit of that precious water and wipe yourself clean – good as new! Here a few shots of the site and facilities:

At the Kori campsite, my evening serenade for about 2 hours beginning almost exact at sunset was not the usual cast of characters, but this critter. Can you guess what it is? If you can, you win the title of “Master of the Kalahari” and my admiration:

Is it bird, mammal, reptile, amphibian or perhaps an insect? Shall I tell you or shall I make you wait until the next post to ponder and perhaps lose sleep over? First clue: it is a reptile! Second clue: it lives in an underground burrow and comes out of its hole at dusk to serenade the world – actually to advertise its territory and attract a mate – but I prefer to think it is serenading me. OK, you give up, so I will tell you. It is a Barking Gecko. Yes, that’s right, a gecko. I was surrounded by hundreds – I’m not exagerating, truly – of these scaly creatures calling from every direction and distance – a cacophony of gecko “barks”. Since I will never get a decent picture of these guys, here’s what they look like from a borrowed internet picture:

Another exciting incident at my Kori campsite occurred on my last morning. I woke to the roar of a male lion to the east of me, probably on the Pan a couple hundred meters away – but it is exceedingly difficult to judge distances with the roar of a lion – so the estimate should be plus or minus a couple hundred meters! I am in an unfenced campsite by myself with nobody else around for many miles, but no worries, we have a mutual understanding – I don’t hurt them and they don’t eat me! All is good, so I get out of the Green Dragon to fix some breakfast and break camp, but still in the dark as I want to get going by first light to look for those twilight species. Still hearing the lion roaring to the east of me – good, got a tab on that one – when I hear another lion roaring to the west of me, probably a couple hundred meters away, plus or minus a couple hundred meters. Yikes, I am positioned between two roaring lions and it’s still dark so I can’t see very far. Are these territorial lions and I am in the middle on the boundary between the two? Or perhaps they are brothers and jointly oversee a pride – that happens quite frequently. Either way, I’m not sure how I feel about being between these lions without knowing where they are exactly, or where the lionesses are if they have a pride. So, with a little uneasiness and extra alertness I finished eating and broke camp. Felt a little more relaxed once I was in the Green Dragon on my way. You can’t buy experiences like this – well, actually you can.

I stayed at the Kori campsite for 3 nights and then moved ~30 km north to another public campsite adjacent to Sunday Pan for my last 2 nights. Pretty much the same kind of setup as Kori – patch of bare ground, shade trees, fire ring, and rudimentary ablutions. However, this site was much sweeter than my last. Not only was the site delightful, having some great shade trees, the site was situated on a “hill” overlooking Sunday Pan, and I was only a few hundred meters from the water hole where I spent considerable time. Here’s a picture of site:

Here is a very long composite video – sorry, but it’s 6 days worth of stuff – that I made of some of my observations in the GKGR, including a description of the landscape and some of the wildlife observations that I was able to capture adequately on video. Note, this 40-minute long video contains two long segments on lions that amount to about 26 minutes:

CKGR composite video (40 minutes)

This next section is primarily for my birder friends; in particular, those that have been to Africa before, but the rest of you may enjoy seeing the pictures of these birds as well. Lounge-chair birding from the campsite can be fairly productive. Here are some of the birds I saw literally from my lounge chair. – I kid you not! I only have usuabe pictures for a few of the species, but I included a few pictures borrowed from the internet for a few of the more colorful species to show the variety of beautiful birds visiting my campsite. Note, at the end there will be a quiz:

Here’s the rest of the birds seen, but without pictures:

• kalahari scrub robin
• red-billed quelea
• bronze mannikin
• cape glossy starling
• fork-tailed drongo
• acadia pied barbet
• black-chested prania
• long-billed crombec
• western barn owl
• tawny eagle
• bateleur
• pririt batis

Not bad hey, for just lying back in my lounge chair in camp? Now, here is the quiz. Which of the species above do you think is calling and singing in this not-so-great audio recording?

Did you guess the crimson-breasted shrike? Is so, you would be wrong. How about one of the cute little manakins? Wrong again! Here’s a clue to help you out. The species in the recording made the nests in this photo:

That gave it away. It was the white-browed sparrow-weaver. These guys are abudant and ubiquitous in this landscape as judged by all the nesting colony trees I saw on my wildlife drives, and they were very busy around both of my campsites.

This section is for Skylar – I hope you are watching! I made a video just for you that asks you lots of questions about the animals I saw while I was on safari for the past several days. Watch this with mommy or daddy, or both, and see if you can become a junior wildlife ranger by getting most of the questions right. Good luck, and let me know how you do.

Sklar video (10 minutes)

This last section is just some miscellaneous photos of the landscape and wildlife that I happened to like and thought I would share for those of you that like to look at pictures:

For those of you that are following my travel posts closely, I am giving you a vacation from me and my travel blog for the next 6 days. I am heading into the very remote Central Kalahari Game Reserve (CKGR) for the next 5 nights and 6 days and this is going to be dark sky country, and I mean really dark sky country as there will be zero, and I mean zero, light polution and of course no cellular service. So, no I haven’t forgotten you and no I haven’t been eaten by a lion or trampled by an elephant – I hope – I am just out in the middle of the desert.

I’m sure that I am going to have a lot to say and show you when I come out of the CKGR so I am going give you the overview of the CKGR in this post. I have wanted to visit the CKGR ever since reading “Cry of the Kalahari” by Mark and Delia Owens, published in 1992. The Kalahari desert is the second largest desert in Africa, after the Sahara, and occupies almost all of Botswana and parts of Namibia and South Africa. The GKGR, established in 1961 is absolutely huge (20,368 sq. mi.), and covers a large portion of south-central Botswana. I believe it is the 2^nd largest reserve in the world and by far the most remote reserve in southern Africa, and it is home to rhino, black-maned lion and desert-adapted elephants among other striking desert-adapted species.

The land is mostly flat, and gently undulating covered with large open grasslands and semi-arid shrub savannah and scrub covering sand dunes, and scattered areas of acacia and Terminalia trees. The Kalahari is essentially a huge basin of sand as much as 200 feet deep in most areas, hence all the sparse precipitation percolates into the sandy substrate, leaving no surface waters, excepted in isolated pans. Despite the sandy soils, much of the surface is covered with desert-adapted vegetation – so don’t think Sahara sand dunes, except in the far western portion of the Kalahari in Namibia where the precipitation rate is much lower. Many of the river valleys are fossilized with salt pans, including Deception Valley where I will be camping for the next 5 nights. These fossil riverbeds mark the positions of rivers which once drained into ancient Lake Makgadikgadi (more on this at my next destination). Pans and shallow depressions periodically containing water are widespread in the CKGR. These pans often appear “white” due to the salts that accumulate over time on the surface. If the water cannot drain into the ground fast enough, which happens in deserts where the evaporation rate exceeds the precipitation rate, it remains on the surface until it evaporates, leaving behind minerals precipitated from the salt ions dissolved in the water. Over thousands of years, the minerals (usually salts) accumulate on the surface. These minerals reflect the sun’s rays (through radiation) and often appear as white areas. Note, during the wet season these pans typically contain water and are important feeding areas for lots of birds and other wildlife.

In addition, the Kalahari is home to the San people (or “Bushman”), an ancient hunter-gatherer society that have transcended the ages with their excellent hunting skills and ability to adapt to the harsh environmental challenges presented by this enormous desert. The San, have inhabited the lands for thousands of years since they roamed the area as nomadic hunters. Unfortunately, the San have suffered the fate of so many indigenous peoples around the world. Since the mid-1990s the Botswana government has tried to relocate the San from the CKGR, claiming they were a drain on financial resources despite revenues from tourism. In 1997, three quarters of the entire San population were relocated from the Reserve, and in October 2005 the government had resumed the forced relocation into resettlement camps outside of the park leaving only about 250 permanent occupiers. In 2006, a Botswana court proclaimed the eviction illegal and affirmed the Bushmen’s right to return to living in the Reserve. However, as of 2015 most Bushmen are blocked from access to their traditional lands in the Reserve. A nationwide ban on hunting made it illegal for the Bushmen to practice their traditional hunter-gatherer lifestyle, despite allowing private game ranches to provide hunting opportunities for tourists. Is the displacement of the San driven by economic interests of the private and government-owned corporations? Coincidentally, in 2014, a diamond mine called Ghaghoo operated by Gem Diamonds opened in the southeast portion of the reserve. The company estimated that the mine could yield $4.9 billion worth of diamonds. So, the ancestral rights of the native San people to live as they choose, or diamonds? Sound familiar?

OK, that’s a little background on the central Kalahari and the CKGR so that you can ponder the desert expanse that I will be in for the next 6 days. It should be wild! See you in a week!

First, some business to take care of. Nancy brought to my attention that when I reply to your submitted blog comments you are not getting a notification. Consequently, most of you probably don’t realize that I replied to almost every comment entered, but you would have to go back to the post that you commented on and expand on the comments to see the comments and my replies. This sucks, because most of you probably don’t want to have to go back to the post to see if I replied and what I said. You probably all thought I was just blowing you off, which is NOT the case. I absolutely love getting the comments and replying! I am going to look into a solution for getting a notification when I reply but I am not optimistic. Sorry, I guess my website is just not that sophisticated – or perhaps it is me that is not!

Now for important stuff. For those of you that are following my travels and travails closely, you know that I am in Maun, Botswana, pursing the “Case of the Frontend Alignment Gone Awry”. With 3 alignment shops in Cape Town and now 2 more shops (including a big Toyota Dealer that works a lot on Land Cruisers) in Maun behind me, the mystery of the frontend alignment continues, and to make matters worse, a “jingle” or “rattle” in the back wheel somewhere has been troubling me in the background since the beginning of the journey. Now, I have exhausted all reasonable efforts to resolve this case, right? Well, just about when I was ready to give up, I remembered that I was in Botswana, and you know who is here, don’t you? The No. 1 Ladies Detective Agency! So, I sought out the No. 1 Lady Detective, Precious Ramotswe, and put her on the case. In case you don’t believe me, here is a photo of her hot on the case pondering what or who could be sabotaging the Green Dragon:

And, of course, it didn’t take Precious long to solve part of the mystery, as this photo shows:

I am certain with a few more hours, or at most another day, Precious will have solved the case, as she is, after all, the No. 1 detective in Botswana.

OK, for those of you that don’t know what the hell I am talking about, The No. 1 Ladies Dective Agency is a really popular mystery series (22 novels and turned into a TV series) written by Alexander McCall Smith between 1998 and 2022, and Precious is the main character. The lady in the photo is, of course, not Precious, but rather Ona, who is the business manager/admin person for the speciality shop I was in and she reminded me of Precious from the series – really, the spitting image. By the way, Ona knew the book series and loved that she was going to represent Precious in my blog.

The front end alignment is unresolved and will remain as such at least for the duration of this trip, because 20-30 experts have all looked it, poked and stabbed at it, tried this and that, and all failed to find anything wrong that could be causing the problem. But all, to a one, said the vehicle was otherwise in great shape and the perfect vehicle for my journey – so that’s good, right? We did find and fix the “rattle”, which turned out to be a bracket that had fallen off leaving two bolt to rattle around against the suspension. And guess who found the problem, not the mechanics and “experts”, but little old me. Chaulk one up for my team!

Since this is a get to know the locals post, sort of, that some have asked for, I want to tell you about another local that I met and talked to for quite some time. He is a 63 year old man from Maun, married with 5 childen ranging in age from 30 something to 16, and he has a 40 acre farm outside Maun in which he grows potatoes and maize on 20 cleared acres. All of his kids except the youngest one are grown and don’t live at home anymore. NONE of the kids want to be farmers or even help on the farm, so he does ALL the work himself – and he really isn’t the strongest or fittest looking individual to be honest. He desparately wants to expand his farming operation but lacks the labor and financial resources to do so. The country has more or less closed off imports of most produce in an effort to encourage the Batswana people to produce what they need in country. They claim to have funds available to help farmers get going but they require 50% matching funds. This man cannot come up with that kind of money, and even if he did, he might not be able to find any younger person willing to work on the farm. He says that he is the typical case of the rest of the Batswana. Consequently, the produce is not being produced and the import ban or extreme tariffs are in still in place and there are now major shortages of produce. In one example, he said that the local KFC (that’s the really popular fast food joint in Botswana) couldn’t even serve “chips” with their main dishes because of the lack of potatoes (which are grown locally). He says it is a dire situation and he worries for the future. Anyways, I thought you might enjoy this story. I’m only sorry that I forgot to get his photograph.

To finish this post I a want to let you know that I am living the life of luxury tonight. I’m staying at the Old Bridge Backpackers Lodge and Campsite. I am still camping, and have that to myself, but I am writing this post while eating a PIZZA and watching a hippo pool below me that has a hug crocodile on the bank and a big hippo swimming around, snorting, grunting and doing all the crazy things hippos do in pools. Unfortunately, my camera battery died (again) and thus I can’t show pictures of the pool and critters, but I can show you a litle slice of my pool-side accommodations:

I’m off to bed. Cheers all!