Category: Botswana

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!

First, I have to correct a major mistake in my last post and composite video. You know that prize footage at the end of the very long video in which the “white rhino” came down to drink at the water hole, well, as my brother Mark pointed out, it was actually a “black rhino”. I think I was only expecting to see a white rhino so I just described it as such, even though my description of a white rhino (square muzzle, large shoulder hump, and pointyish ears) clearly wasn’t true for this animal. Now that I relook at the video it is clear that it was a black rhino. Chaulk it up to over excitment!

Second, I took a detour from my planned itinerary and drove all the up to Maun today to take the Green Dragon to yet another shop to try and resolve the frontend alignment issue that continues to plague me. Note, the vehicle is fine and in great working condition other than the alignment, and I am reassured by all the professionals (4 shops now and a 5th tomorrow) that I can drive the vehicle as is and it will get me where I want to go like few other vehicles could. I will let you know if and when this gets resolved, but regardless, I am in Maun for the next 2 days before heading to the Central Kalahari.

In case you were wondering about the landscape in the southern half of Botswana through which I have been travelling. Recall that Khama Rhino Sanctuary sits on the eastern edge of the Kalahari Desert, as does Maun. SO, between there and here it is pretty much a completely flat landscape with thornveld vegetation – a very boring landscape to drive through at 90 km/hour since it is so monotonous, but it can be a different story when driving slow on dirt roads while looking for wildlife. The biggest challenge of driving through this part of the country, other than falling asleep at the wheel (thank goodness for audible books and podcasts), is dodging cows, donkeys and goats on or crossing the road at frequent intervals.

Since I have nothing else to report, how about I simply go for some more anectodotal wildlife observations from the past couple of days.

“I feel pretty, oh, so pretty, I fee pretty and witty and bright!”

“I wish you would stop calling me Zazu, I never even saw that movie”

“I’m not having a bad hair day, this is just the way I look!”

“Life was actually “life” when there weren’t automobiles and roads”

“If I stay really still, I don’t think he will see me”

“Is that me that stinks?”

“We’re your friends, we’re your friends, to the bitter end (the bitter end)!”

My first stop in Botswana is the Khama Rhino Sanctuary, located near the town of Paje (near Serowe) on the southeastern edge of the great Kalahari Desert – more on this desert when I get to the Central Kalahari. The sanctuary (33 sq. mi), established in 1992 by the residents of Serowe, is a community-based wildlife project to assist in saving the vanishing rhinoceros, restore the historic wildlife populations and provide economic benefits to the local Botswana community through tourism and the sustainable use of natural resources. The sanctuary provides prime habitat for both white and black rhinos. The long-term goal of the Sanctuary is to let the rhinos safely breed within its borders and re-introduce them into their natural wild habitats. To date, the sanctuary has relocated more than 20 rhinos to different places within the country from a founder population of four animals, and the sanctuary currently has a population of more than 30 white (square-lipped) rhinos as well as the beginning of a small black (hooked-lipped) rhinos.

My campsite in Khama Rhino Sanctuary is called Mokongwa camp and it is my kind of setting. Each site (I think there are 13) are isolated by quite some distance from each other – I can’t see and can barely hear the other sites as they are probably 50 yards apart. Moreover, my site at least is situated under the spreading canopy of a mokongwa tree – which is the namesake of the campground. I love it!

As far as species of the day, how can I not make the white (square-lipped) rhino the chosen one. It is, I believe, the second largest land animal in Africa behind the elephant. The “white” rhino is not really white at all, but usually grey, and often takes on the color of the local dust and mud in which it frequently wallows. More distinctive is the somewhat squared-off muzzle that is adapted for grazzing on mostly grasses. This is in contrast to the so-called “black” rhino, which is also not black in color but dark grey (granted, often darker than the white rhino) and also generally takes on the color of the local dust and mud, that has a hooked-lipped or pointed upper lip that is well adapted to browsing on woody vegetation. Consequently, the white rhino, which is the larger of the two species, is more of a grassland savannah species whereas the black rhino is more of a woodland savannah species, but the two species do overlap in distribution so both can be found together in some places. Here is a borrowed internet picture of the white rhino:

You are probably aware of this, but just in case you are not, it is worth repeating. Both rhino species have had their populations and distributions drastically reduced over the past decades due to poaching for their horns, which are prized in the Far East (yes, I am talking about China) for their supposed medicinal properties – mainly as an aphrodesiac under the belief that it increases male virility and libido, for which there is absolutely no scientific basis – and to a lesser extent for dagger handles for the tribesman of the Arabic peninsular (mainly Yemen and Oman). The poaching problem continues to be the biggest threat to the species’ survival. The “horns” by the way, are not made of bone but rather of matted, hair-like filaments that are attached to the skin and not the skull.

The landscape in the sanctuary is dominated by two distinct environments: the “pans”, which are the centerpiece of the sanctuary, and the “thornveld”. I discuss the pans in the composite video so I won’t repeat that description here. The thornveld comprises most of the acreage of the sanctuary and is pretty much what it soundsl like: scrubby, thorny bushes and small trees, including an amazing diversity of species. However, this is the kind of vegetation you really don’t want to have to walk through, unless you are wearing rip-stop clothing. Here are a couple of shots of what it looks like:

I will finish with another composite video, since this seems to be a nice way to let you get a more realistic feel of what I am observing. However, I have to forewarn you, this one is super long because I have a lot to share from today’s observations and I had a very special visitor that warranted extra long footage. So, in case you get anxious or bored and stop watching before the end, be aware that the prize observation is at the very end – so skip to the last 5 minutes if you want to just watch the prize.

Khama rhino sanctuary composite video (17 minutes)

Until next time, cheers!

My 2^nd country on this overland trip is Botswana, and once again, it is worth sharing a few factoids about this country to put things in better context and to educate myself (and you, if interested) a little about this corner of the world. But before doing so, let me briefly report that crossing the border into Botswana was a 5-minute out, 5-minute in no-hastles ordeal. There was only one other vehicle leaving SA while I was there. Of course, I chose one of the most remote border posts in the country, with 50 km of corregated dirt/gravel road on each side of the boder, so almost no one uses this border crossing so far as I can tell. Here’s proof of my no-hastles crossing:

• As you can see in the map above, Botswana is a land-locked country bordering South Africa, Namibia and Zimbabwe, centered on the Tropic of Capricorn located between the latitudes 18-26 degrees south, which in terms of distance from the equator is the southern hemisphere equivalent to, say, the Bahamas and central Mexico in the northern hemisphere.
• Roughly the same size as Texas.
• Roughly 2.3 million people, compared to ~332 million in the U.S..
• 2 official languages: English and Setswana (Tswana).
• Government is a parliamentary republic similar to South Africa that I described previously.
• Currency is the Pula.
• Major exports include gems (diamonds, comprising 60% of exports!) and precious metals (gold, copper and nickel), and beef.
• Roughly 3% of the population identifies as belonging to indigenous groups, including the San (known in Botswana as the Basarwa), the Balala, and the Nama. It is estimated that there are only about 300 San bushman today that still live a traditional hunter-gatherer life.
• Like most African countries, Botswana suffered European colonization, but fortunately was never totally subjugated by the colonials like in South Africa. The British colonized the land of the Batswana people known as Bechuanaland in 1885 as a way of blocking possible alliance between the Dutch Boers in South Africa and the Germans to the north and west (Namibia). The British called the territory Bechuanaland Protectorate. So, Botswana has always been semi-autonomous and achieved full independence from the British in 1966.
• Botswana is Africa’s oldest continuous Democracy – way to go!
• Has the highest concentration of elephants in Africa!
• Has ~29% of its total land area devoted to national parks, reserves and wildlife management areas – what a fantastic accomplishment and legacy for future generations!