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Now for the fun stuff! We survived and thoroughy enjoyed our 8-night jaunt into the Botswana side of the KTP, much of which is vast wilderness – and I mean true wilderness, not just the ones on paper. The map below shows the overall route (from #4 to 5-9 and back to 10):
We left from the Nossob restcamp (#4), after a luxury overnight stay in one of the riverside cabins you might recall, and did a very long 8+ hour overland drive across the Khalahari to the far eastern area of the KTP in Botswana. This was no ordinary drive. The track was all sand, sometimes deep, and traversed up and down numerous rolling dunes. On occasion, we had to down-shift to first gear and grind our way up and over steep-sided, soft-sanded dunes, but most of the time we drove in Hi-4 wheel drive in second gear – pretty slow going to be sure. The worst of it was the bumps and humps and moguls that kept us and the vehicle bouncing up and down and rocking side to side, sometimes uncontrollably. Fortunately, these difficult stretches were usually short-lived and we worked our way through them relentlessly until we eventually reached our first destination campsite at one of the large salt-clay pans in the eastern part of the Park. Here’s a whole series of photos showing the landscape and the drive to and from our sites in the Botswana side of the KTP:
OK, did that series of photos seem a bit repetitive and, dare I say, monotonous? Well, the Khalahari is in fact rather monotonous in both terrain and vegetation, as the photos suggest, and for some it would be agonizing to drive more than a few hours across this semi-desert. But for others, like we four in our party, the terrain and vegetation was strikingly beautiful and intimately variable – but it’s not for everyone.
Our first campsite was located on the hillside above a large salt-clay pan called Bosobogolo (#5 on map). It was a delightful site overlooking the vast pan and afforded us a great chance to recover from the long overland drive. We spent the next full day in camp just enjoying the site and the views, watching animals come and go from the dry, mostly grassy, pan. I also took advantage of the down time to make – you might have guessed it if you know me well enough – cream cheese-apple-raisin filled yeasted cinnamon rolls. That’s right, no skimping on good food when car camping in the bush! Here are some pics:
Our second campsite was located right next to another huge pan called Mbua (shortened for convenience, and because none of us could actually pronounce the full name of the pan)(#6 on map). We had great views and great sightings of wildlife on and around the, once again, dry and partly grassy pan. The wind coming off the pan was troubling at first (see video below), but it eventually calmed down and the site became quite pleasant. The most exciting thing that happened at this site was a night-time visit by lions in our campsite. Around midnight, 3 lionesses came into camp, lapped up all the water in the bowl we had placed out for any and all critters, and then proceeded to stroll through our camp past our chairs and tables and directly beneath our vehicles, sniffing each item in turn, including the back door of the Green Dragon, and then moved off. We ran into one of these ladies the following day:
Later that night, a large male lion showed up, hot on the trail of the gals, and proceeded to roar directly beside our vehicle multiple times. The sound was deafening – the reverberations were so powerful that they sent shivers through our bodies. He lingered on the edge of our site, roaring periodically, for about an hour and then moved off in pursuite of the females – probably hoping they would make a kill so that he could steal a free meal, as is customary for the Pride leader.
The other awesome campsite visitor the following night was the elusive Cape Fox, a truly beautiful creature that had eluded me for 3 years. She scantered through our site, pausing here and there for our photos as if she new she was the star of the show and worth everyone’s admiration. Here’s a few pictures from this site.
Next, we moved to another pan called Mpaya (again, shortened for convenience)(#7 on map). We had a wonderful site located on a penninsular with great views of the entire pan, including the only maintained and functioning water hole in this part of the KTP. Nothing too dramatic to report on from this site other than to say we had some very nice local drives and some fun campsite visitors. Here’s a few pics:
I should bring to your attention, if I haven’t already, that we eat pretty darn good on these overland trips, even when we are deep in the wilderness. Nancy does a phenomenal job of planning and preparing dinners, and we enjoy the fruits of her labor, but I need to mention another player on this stage. Steve, the consumate scientist, brought his planning and organizational skills with him to Africa. Here’s a photo of our “bush menu” courtesy of Steve. Note, this photo depicts just some of the “bush recipe” cards that he made up prior to the trip, and each night that he and Ki were responsible for dinner, they carefully scrutinized their menu options and picked one for the occasion:
Next, we moved to a smaller pan called Khiding (#8 on map) in order to be close to our wilderness 4×4 drive back to Nossob starting the following day. Again, we had some fun campsite visitors, one of which we encouraged by chopping open some Tsamma melons (which are a critical desert food and water source for many of the animals during the dry season), and did I already say that the night skies were truly spectacular – never have we had better views of the Milky Way galaxy!
Finally, we started our permit-only, 1 party per day entry, overnight wilderness 4×4 route back to Nossob, with an overnight stay at a mid-size salt-clay pan called Mosomane, which was entirely a mineral salt-clay pan without any vegetation at all (#9 on map). The Gemsbok loved this pan as it provided essential mineral salts for them, and with Gemsbok comes desert lions! En route to this pan and campsite we encountered a lion pride in the dunes, including two adult golden-maned males (probably brothers and co-leaders of this pride), at least 3 lionesses with 2-3 very small cubs. We did a little off-road driving to get closer to the pride – the stuff that our Toyota Land Cruisers were built for – but they were extremely skiddish and kept moving away from our approach, clearly very weary of our machines and protective of the little cubs.
But this was not the end of the excitement. As we arrived at our wilderness campsite – no ammenities, just an empty space beneath a large umbrella acacia tree next to the pan – we noticed two adult male lions in our site, undoubtedly enjoying the shade of the large acacia treee and the soft sand beneath. As we approached, they willingly relinquished the site to us and slowly moved up under the bushes on the hillside above our campsite to find another patch of shade. They seemed quite content to remain in their shady patch while we cautiously established our camp about 100 feet away, but all the time keeping at least one eye on the brothers – nicked named the “nick brothers” by Ki because of the notched ears. They remained in their shady patch all afternoon, doing all the usual lion stuff during the heat of the day; in other, lying belly up and only occasionally rolling over or getting up to shift position and resume snoozing, but all the time keeping an eye on us as well, since neither of use were quite sure what the other might do. We spent the entire afternoon close behind our vehicles, which we arranged in a protective wall-like fashion between us and the lions – which of course wouldn’t have actually protected us if the lions wanted to get to us, but gave us a false sense of security nonetheless. We were hoping to follow the brothers on an evening hunt and were prepared to do so, even after dark, but the hunt never materialized. Instead, just after dark, they snuck off away from the campsite without us noticing. Later that night we heard them roaring from a long way off. Here’s a few pics:
Our last day in the Botswana side of the KTP had us driving 100 km back across the dune savannah to the Nossob riverbed and restcamp. It was an awesome wilderness track that we had entirely to ourselves. We passed by more small pans and over countless numbers of dunes before reaching the Nossob in pretty good shape. The track was one of the most enjoyable tracks I have driven on in Africa, except for perhaps the last 10-15 km, which was very bumpy. We crossed lots of soft sand dunes and on at least one occasion I had to make multiple attempts to get the Green Dragon up and over the hill. En route we saw lots of the 3 characteristic large animals of the Khalahari: Gemsbok (oryx), Springbok, and Ostrich. We also had some exciting sightings of some less comom species, such as the Eland (Africa’s largest antelope) and the beautiful but deadly Cape Cobra, and let’s not leave out the small but really cool Khalahari giant millepede. Here’s a few pics:
Lastly, here’s a short composite video of our KTP Botswana visit, with footage of our lion brothers that we shared our wilderness campsite with. Enjoy:
KTP Botswana video (5 minutes)
Ok, we are spending a night in a cabin – yes, that’s right, another treat for the gals – before heading down the Nossob to our last campsite in the KTP. See you there!
I’m always surprised by how much you are outside your vehicles especially around your campsite. When I was there it was scary enough to just stop in the middle of a wide open area and squat and pee next to the car and when we camped in the park we hired a guard to watch over our site while we slept. He would keep a bonfire going and sit with a rifle in his lap. Each morning he would tell us what animals tried to come into our campsite and how he would shoo them away. I think I would have pooped my pants to hear that lion roaring just outside your vehicle. Please don’t get eaten!