Category: Botswana

As I leave behind Botswana, in the spirit of this “travel blog” and to be consistent with my post on driving South Africa, I want to share with you a few observations of Botswana from behind the wheel.

On a trip like this, especially given the time I have spent touring, shopping and getting things fixed, it is easy to end up with a lot of observations on traveling in country. Again, these are things that don’t really matter that much other than the fact that they occupy the inquisitive mind while on the road. I want to share a few of these ponderings with you just for fun, and especially for those considering a similar road trip.

#1. Road hazards. One of the most challenging things about driving the roads in Botswana is the many and varied road hazards. South Africa had the abundant and often hidden deep potholes that can destroy the vehicle of the unattentive driver, but Botswana had animals of all kinds on the roadways that can torment the unsuspecting driver. Worse among these were the donkeys, who stand on the edge of the road with their head or butt protruding out into the road ,or sometimes they are just standing in the middle of the road like statues oblivious to their mortality. You can literally drive past them at speed inches from their heads without them showning any signs of recognition of their potential doom. It is quite unnerving as a driver, because you are never really sure whether they will suddenly decide to move a bit as you drive past. And in case you are wondering, using the horn on the vehicle has absolutely no affect whatsoever, nor, as I discovered, does yelling profanities at them out the window as you navigate past them.

Second on the list of offenders would have to be the cows that usually cross the road in herds of dozens to hundreds at seemingly random places and at random times. One second they are grazing on the road edge and then suddenly one decides to cross the road and the others dutifully follow – again, oblivious to the oncoming vehicles. SO, when you spot cows up ahead on the road it behooves you to slow down and be ready on the brake – defensive driving at its most.

Third on the list of offenders would have to be goats, which exist in great numbers and are often crossing the roads. However, in contrast to their mammalian brethren that have larger brains, goats seem particularly intelligent when it comes to road crossing protocols. They usually look both ways before crossing and will pause when they see an approaching vehicle. SO, trust in your goats, but NOT their brethren.

Last on the list of offenders would have to be elephants; not so much on the highways, but on the dirt track game drive roads. Needlesstosay, it can be startling to round the corner on a track and out of the bushes steps a 2-7 ton elephant, tusks and all. And you better be prepared to brake and reverse if it happens to be a mother with a baby at her side or, worse yet, a baby on the other side of the road. Hitting an elephant would be perhaps the worse thing in the world. Not only would you destroy your vehicle but you would injure one of the great creatures on this planet. SO, if you you going to drive in Botswana, especially if inside the Parks, beware of elephants at all times.

#2. Sand, sand and more sand! Botswana is almost entirely underlain by the sands of the Kalahari, which can be as much as several hundred feet deep. So, it is rather obvious and not unexpected that you would be driving on sand a lot of the time. What is not so obvious, however, is the highly variable sand conditions. One minute you are cruising along on a fairly hard-packed sand and then suddenly you hit a patch of soft, deep sand and the vehicle groans and moans at the suddenness of the change in surface friction. Driving on soft sand, and especially variable sand, takes some experience. The keys are to keep your mementum at all times, keep up your engine RPMs, and, if you have to downshift, do it quickly and early before you actually need to downshift. If you master this, driving the Kalahari sands can actuallly be quite fun.

#3. Purchasing supplies. On an extended overland trip such as mine, it is inevitable that you will need to resupply and ocassionally purchase vehicle repair items. One of the most mind-blowing inefficiencies in consumer purchasing of all times is what you have to go through to purchase a item from a building supply/hardware/auto supply store, or any such store. To purchase, say, a nut and bolt from a hardware store, here is what you must endure. First, you must get help from an agent in the section of the store that has the item you are looking for. Note, you cannot seek help from any other agent in the store as they each have their assigned section and apparently there are strict rules for not violating the territory of the other agents with the same store. Next, the agent must fill out a request form for the item you want to go along with the item itself. Then you must take the form and item to another counter agent who prepares an invoice for the item. Then you take the invoice and item to the cashier who accepts payment and types up and prints a receipt for the item. Then you must show the receipt and item to a security guard at the door who carefully reviews the receipt and compares it to the item purchased and signs the receipt, even counting the individual nuts and bolts, before you can leave the facility. Then you must show the receipt and item to a guard at the outer gate, who also carefully reviews the receipt and item and signs the receipt, before you can actually leave the premises with your item – a nut an bolt! Now, I am not an economist or efficiency expert, but this seems a bit inefficient economically speaking. Perhaps this is why there are so few customers in these places of business and why these businesses don’t stay in business very long. However, this is the way ALL the businesses in Botswana conduct their retail business. Is this paranoid redundant security simply a works program to employ more people? Is it entirely motivated by paranoia over theft by the employees and/or customers? This I ponder, but cannot explain.

#4. Where are all the people? One of the notable things about Botswana is the comparative lack of people. Botswana only has a population of a couple million people spread out over a huge area, so I guess it is not too surprising that you don’t see many people except in the few villages and cities. Most of the driving in Botswana, at least outside the larger eastern cities of Gaborone and Francistown, is through vast uninhabited or very sparsely inhabitated landscapes. In part, this is because almost a third of the country is protected in Parks and Reserves, but it is also because the arid Kalahari landscape just can’t support high densities of humans. SO, if you like to be around people and developed places so that places of convenience and comfort are always close by, Botswana is probably not the place for you. On the other hand, if you like to drive through landscapes where you can spend more time looking off the road than at the road, then Botswana is an ideal place for you.

#5. Batswana friendliness. There aren’t that many Batswanans compared to other countries, but they are the friendliest people you could ever meet. Despite living in poverty, for many of them anyways, they always have a welcoming smile on their face and always seem pleased to meet you or just say hi. I haven’t met a Batswanan that wasn’t friendly and eager to welcome me. This is true for all the service people in the stores, camps, etc., as might be expected, but also for just random strangers passing on the street. And the children always have a big smile on their faces with bright white teeth – I’m so jealous. At no time do you ever feel threatened, unwanted, or resented because of our lucky draw in life. SO, don’t ever consider not coming to Botswana for fear or concern for your well being. They will certainly welcome you with open arms.

Overall, I really do love being “behind the wheel” in Botswana!

Our last stop in Botswana was the town of Kasane located on the Chobe River in the northeast corner of Botswana and the border with Namibia, Zambia and Zimbabwe (the only place in the world where 4 countries touch) and, of course, adjacent to Chobe National Park’s Serondela area. Kasane is the largest town in northern Botswana with a population of about 10,000 and is the countries northern gateway to Chobe NP and visits to Victoria Falls in neighboring Zimbabwe. Kasane is pretty much a safari gateway town as essentially all businesses and people are tied either directly or indirectly to the safari business. Here’s what Kasane looks like from the air, borrowed from the internet (thank you very much).

Kasane was a brief stop for a little R&R for us at Chobe River Cottages and an opportunity to resupply and get some minor vehicle issues taken care of. We did do a sunset boat ride on the Chobe, along with hundreds of other tourists. It was relaxing and it was nice to see hippo and elephant herds with babies up close in the water and marsh, but otherwise there is nothing else exciting to report. Here are a couple of photos from the sunset cruise:

One From the Wildside:

Next stop, Zimbabwe and Victoria Falls. See you there!

Our last stop in Chobe National Park was Serondela, or Chobe riverfront, located in the extreme Northeast of the park along the Chobe River and across the border from Namibia’s Caprivi Strip.

Getting to the Chobe riverfront involved driving over 100 km on a sand track road (hopefully you watched the video in the last post) that deters mosts people from making it up to the Linyanti section of the Park. In case you didn’t watch that video, here is a memorable shot of the sand track road:

En route to the riverfront you actually leave the Park for a while and pass through a few small villages before entering back into the Park to the riverfront section. We stopped in one village “tuck” shop, as they call them (small roadside shop with a few essential and some non-essential foods and drinks), and learned of a produce farm out back. We took advantage of the opportunity to stock up on some fresh farm produce.

Indeed, you can’t get any fresher, as the workers went out into the garden patches and picked our vegies, including a massive head of spinach (equal to probably 4 heads in the US stores), an equally massive head of rape (like kale), a bag of small tomatoes, and a small bag of onions. How much do you think this cost? 47 Pula, which translates to a little over 2 USD. Crazy! I gave her 100 Pula, which still seemed like a rediculous bargan. Meanwhile, while the gardeners were out picking the vegies, I gave a couple of colored pencils to a small child (perhaps 4-5 years old) of one of the workers, Mark donated a sheet of art paper, and Nancy offered some coloring instruction to the young, very appreciative pupil:

The obvious central feature of this section of the Park is the Chobe riverfront and adjacent woodlands. The Chobe River is a major watering spot for wildlife, especially in the dry season from May to October, with one of the densest wildlife concentrations in Africa, both on land and water. Being close to the town of Kasane and not far from Victoria Falls, which is situated just downstream from Kasane, this is Chobe’s most visited section. And while the high tourist density detracts from the appeal of the Chobe riverfront, even the large numbers of other safari vehicles and googling tourists can’t take away from the truly phenomenal wildlife spectacle of the Chobe riverfront during the dry season.

The Chobe River itself this time of year is in a receding flood stage, so the channel itself is still full and the adjacent flooplains are a mosaic of flooded side channels, pools and marshes interspersed with grasslands and the ocassional island of trees. A month from now the waters will have receded enough that only the main channel and a few of the major side channels will have water. But for our visit, it was a water wonderland, as shown here:

The Chobe riverfront isn’t all just about the River itself; rather, it is the adjacent uplands that host the large numbers of wildlife that sleep and eat on land and simply come to the river for a drink every so often. So, much of the “action” so-to-speak is in the zone immediately adjacent to the river. We spent most of our time driving up and down the River in this riverfront zone. The closer you are to the River, the more “beat down” the vegetation is from all the overbrowsing of the concentrated animals. In places it even looks like a dead zone, but believe it or not these plants will mostly bounce right back with the onset of the wet season in November. As you move farther away from the River into the uplands the woodlands take on a very different look and become much denser. It is worth noting, as I was reminded, that historically the Chobe riverfront hosted a forest of teak and ebony trees, but most of these trees were logged out years ago before the area became a national park and the high concentration of browsing animals today keeps the forest from reestablishing. Here is a series of photos to show the varied uplands and transition to “greener pastures” as you move farther away from the river:

We camped in the public campsite at Ihaha right along the riverfront. Once again, we had the usual campsite accommodations, but this time with a view over the river, as shown here:

One of the outstanding wildlife observations we had along the riverfront was an encounter with a pair of elusive and secretive leopards that graced us with their presence on open ground and in daylight. The encounter was all to brief and a bit frenzied, but nonetheless a great sighting to see these most beautiful creatures. Here are the only 2 good shots I got of them:

The only downside to this event was the rush of safari vehicles that converged on the site out of nowhere, making it a less than private experience. It never ceases to amaze me how we are driving along, seeing either no other vehicles or the ocassional safari vehicle and then, upon the sighting of any of the big cats, out of nowhere and within a minute or two a dozen safari vehicles descend on the location. Of course, all the safari guides are in communication with each other, so as soon as any one of them spots a big cat they instantly communicate their location – I just can’t figure how they all get there so fast when they are nowhere in sight. Of course, they share these sightings with each other so that they can all almost guarantee their customers that they will see the big cats.

One of the outstanding “negative” wildlife encounters we had along the riverfront was the invasion of our camp by a troop of very nasty baboons. We left the Green Dragon in camp and went for our usual evening drive together in Mark and Kirtsten’s vehicle. Even though we had seen the baboons near our campsite before leaving, we didn’t think it a problem to leave our rooftop tent up and our drop-down table in the down position. We left no food outside or anything else that you would think could attract the baboons. We left our metal table and lounge chairs out as usual. Well, when we returned from our drive, we found that the Green Dragon had been vandalized by the baboons. They bent over the side mirrors and radio antennae, broke the wire supports for the drop-down table (they must have been jumping up and down on it to break the wires), tore up the rain fly awning of the tent, and, worst of all, shit all over everything. There was baboon shit smeared on every surface of the vehicle and the lounge chairs. It was as if they were pissed off because they couldn’t get into the vehicle to steal the food so they crapped all over it instead in an act of vengeance. Lesson learned – don’t leave anything at all out or exposed!

On the positive side, the Chobe riverfront has an amazing number and variety of animals. Perhaps most noteworthy was the huge number of greater Kudo and giraffes that we saw. But perhaps the most memorable wildlife observation of all was the elephant population. Along the riverfront there were dozens and dozens of elphant herds, mostly organized into matriarchal units with an amazing number of baby elephants. The “big boys”, as we would call them, were present as well but in low numbers, and we figured that they must have been kept extremely busy to produce as many babies as we saw. The photo gallery below has some of the better pictures of the wildlife, but here is the ultimate out-of-Africa shot to sum up the amazing elephant experience on the Chobe riverfront:

Here is a composite video of some of our Chobe riverfront observations. Hope you enjoy it:

Chobe riverfront composite video (15 minutes)

Photo Gallery:

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!