botswana is an amazing country- it has beautiful scenery and everything just works. while south africa is just a hop-skip around the corner, the tension and sensitivity to race and politics is left behind. botswana was a country that was never really a colony and while everyone around them was in civil war, they remained stable. when it was granted independence, there were a meager 12 kms of tarred road and not a single multi-story building. but now, it has buckets of money in the bank, good schools, and tourism is it's second-largest economy. and botswana is absolutely teaming with wildlife. the stern hand of the current president laid down a strict anti-poaching policy in the early 80s-pretty much shoot to kill the poachers- which stopped poaching in its tracks. but there's still fighting going on between conservationist and hunters, which get good ol' groups from america like the national rife association spend a lot of money to take away wildlife protection laws and open up hunting for animals like lions. i love the american way.
the day we left maun, the large frontier town on the bottom of the okavango delta, we drove until the road got flooded out and the sun set: leaving us in a little, tiny tiny place called etsha 13. there were no accessible campsites or places for us to stay, so we just pulled off the road into an empty grass plot in-between a couple homesteads. take a listen to etsha 13 at night.
i woke up to the sunrise, and i'll tell you what, it didn't even take till sunset to fall in love with the place. on an early morning wonder around 'town', i ran into a couple mokoro pole-ers, and got them to show up where we were camped to take us around the local waterways. we also met our neighbors, whom welcomed us full-heartily into their community and to their drop-toilet, both of which we were very thankful for.
mokoros are canoes, traditionally dug out logs, but now made of fiberglass and are powered and controlled by a 'poler' in the back. they are the only way to easily get from place to place where the waters might by too high to walk to but still too low for motor boats. it's a very quiet and relaxing way to get place to place, which is a nice change from the tourist's motorboats and fan-boats that were at maun. as we went down to river, we saw old men on their own old, wooden mokoros, families out doing laundry, and children playing all over. later in the day when i went swimming in the floodwaters with the girls, we found a whole group of boys playing and having fun in a deep area. for toys, they had aloe leaves and blown-up condoms! it was great- there certainly can't be any stigma of having condoms here, if the children grow up playing with them so much!
we headed out away from all the floodwaters to tsodilo hills, a world heritage site in the middle of nowhere. not only does it have 30,000yr-old bushmen rock art, but it is the tallest thing i've seen in botswana. 'bots' is absolutely flat, and to see these rocks shooting up above the tree line was something striking and refreshing. the rocks at tsodilo are covered with paintings and also with colors of salts that have been washed over the rocks by rain over the years. this has to also be the dryest place i have been to in my life (which is odd cause it use to be on the edge of a giant giant lake when the bushmen were here). it was a great, peaceful place to visit, but after two days, i needed to be a little closer to water and out of the dry heat.
keeping with the camping, we were cooking on the fire a lot. i loved it. rachel and i came up with a recipe where we cooked a soup inside of a pumpkin on the fire. first, we threw the pumpkin, upside-down, straight on the fire. then jack-o-lanterned the top, removed the seeds, inserted soup, returned the pumpkin right-side-up to the fire, and foil-packed roasted the pumpkin seeds next to it. amazing. it's like a bread-bowl soup except instead of bread its pumpkin. lauren, get on it. alli, help her make a fire.
back to the okavango river, but this time by boat. we had a great guide to freshwater fishing of southern africa, who just so happened to also have a houseboat. it was such a great afternoon and evening, heading out on the houseboat, relaxing, filming him fishing at sunset and having dinner on the boat as the stars came out full-force. after growing up in such a water-based community in southern maryland, it was nice to be back with someone i could see that in, and it reminded me to spend some more time on the chesapeake when i return.
this is not a happy elephant, fronting at and flaring out towards our vehicle- but this is not an uncommon experience in chobe national park because the ellies are everywhere. we would be driving along the dirt tracks, looking for wildlife and then turn a corner to be smack in the middle of a huge group of ellies. they were by far my favorite animal to watch: being so gentle and intelligent. the babies that were tiny and unfamiliar with the swinging trunk in front of their face, the old elephants that seemed wiser than any of us silly humans, and the group of ever-outstretched trunks being pointed in your direction (as they try to smell you out). camping for our night in the park, it was comforting to know that elephants actually tread around very lightly at night and are highly unlikely to just trample you. apparently, they even walk around guide ropes for tent stakes.
the wildlife at chobe np was amazing. jackal, baboons (cuter than when they are running through your kitchen), guinea fowl, and even wild dog! while they were all very cute, not all of them were very nice (of course) with the jackal above trying to attack a baby baboon to get it from it's mother, and with the wild dog tracking down frightened impala running in all directions. but the absolute best part of the park was that there are no fences; not a single one. which simply means, that the animals are here because they want to be.
our last stay in botswana was with peter and his wife, as we recorded peter for great guides and soaked up the last of our botswana for this adventure. staying in the cottage i talked about at the start of this post, i can see crocodile, hear hippo and elephant, and could count bird species all day long. i had spent one night at a brie with a bunch of the locals and some university students from america, and if any of you twitchers/birders are reading this, tell me how many birds are in my recording from maun.
kazungulu was a great place to spend a couple days at, just going out driving a couple times with peter to look for game along side of the zimbabwe border road. for almost being a south african divorce lawyer, peter is amazing in the bush (pictured checking elephant poo to see how the elephant's digestion is) and served as a constant reminder to do what you love, and that with a friendly smile, a firm handshake, and maybe a six pack of beer, you can meet the best people in the world wherever you are.
and an update : and if you didn't catch it in brad's blog, we are heading out on our own adventure through east africa, trying to get off the beaten path a little bit and see what east africa really has to offer. i will leave the great guides work in mid june (from malawi) and travel through northern zambia, up lake tanganyika, and to brad in burundi. from there we will head off together through rwanda, uganda, and kenya. all goes will, should be able to travel until mid-august, when i'll meet up with the great guides work again. once i am back to work with the family, we will head slowly south, getting back in south africa in the fall and i'll be home by 2011.
and in about twenty days, i'll be halfway through my african adventure. cheers!
hope all is well,
tbk
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