Two Other Blogs to See

We have had the pleasure to meet two other bloggers that we recommend you check out:

www.dumelafromgabs.blogspot.com

...is authored by a fellow ex-pat living down the street from us. She gives some great insight and perspective into Gaborone and Botswana. There is a good picture of Eden on the April 16th entry.

www.leatoto.blogspot.com

...is authored by James Butler. We met him on our recent trip to northern Botswana, Namibia and Zimbabwe (more on that later). He is working for World Teach in rural, rural Namibia (the country to the west and north of Botswana) after being a kindergarten teacher in inner-city Austin, Texas for six years. World Teach is a non-profit, non-governmental organization placing volunteer teachers in developing countries.

A desert???

So here is the rest of the story of our camping visit to the Kalahari desert. First detail (of interest to Ted and Todd),

The Trucks:

We were well equipped again with two (twice as many as last time) huge 4x4 diesel powered monsters. One even had a truck cap (called a 'canopy' here) to keep vicious, wild animals (or blankets and jugs of water) from escaping. We mowed down everything in our paths. Because of park rules, though, we were restrained to the roadways. So, we mowed down lots and lots and lots of sand. We did spend most of our time in 4L (meaning low 4 wheel drive).

Inside the park, the girls were given a nostalgic treat - riding in the back of a open pick-up truck. We wouldn't think of letting our kids bounce around urban streets but bouncing around the wild, rough pathways with blind turns and the constant threat of lions, hyenas, jackals, snakes and big-clawed falcons seemed within reason. Eden said she felt 'free'. Hope got a bump on her head after one surprise bounce. We kept Trey inside the cab with us (he is within the carrying capacity of some of the birds of prey).

The Landscape.

Even knowing it has been a very wet rainy season, we were surprised by the extent of vegetation. It looked more like harvest time in Kansas. The grass was at least 2 feet tall in most all areas concealing most animals (like the similarly colored lions).

Most pathways appeared as below.

The Kalahari covers 80% of Botswana and creeps into nearby Congo, Angola, Zambia, Namibia, Zimbabwe and South Africa. This part of Africa (millions of years ago) used to be dotted with lakes. These lake beds are now mostly dry and called 'pans'. Large concentrations of salt are sometimes found in the central areas of pans from past evaporation. The first picture below captures the edge of one of these prehistoric lake beds. The brush gives way to the salt tolerant grasses. Further out, the concentration of salt is even too much for scrub grass leaving white dust.

We stopped at the edge of one of the pans for drinks.

What staggers you when you stand there in these pans is the 'vastness'. There is nothing but solitude and silence for miles for the entire 360 degrees around you.

The Water Feature.

This was a 'good news' 'bad news' sort of thing. In an effort to quell foot and mouth disease as well as other cattle ailments, Botswana erected long fences across many parts of the Kalahari. This prevents the spread of disease but interrupts migration paths of wild animals to find water. As a result (and to prevent wide spread death of the wild populations), the Khutse Park had two boreholes (groundwater wells) installed to make sure two separate locations have a permanent watering source. Solar powered, cellular data sending and control, squirrel guards and posts to prevent a errant 4x4 from backing into them complete the unfortunate lifelines.

The Wildlife.

We really did not see much. Below is a lonely springbok (the Rugby mascot of the South African national team). A beautiful small gazelle with a porcelain white face. very shy.

Off on the far side of a random pan were a couple of ostrich and a gemsbok (also known as an oryx).

The gemsbok is quite stunning: a large, stately antelope that prefers the dry desert climate. The horns are more than 3 feet long and have been known to impale lions.

Ground squirrels here are tough. They live without drinking water and could break our North American brown or grey counterparts into pieces. They make underground borrows more than a football field in length. The Afrikaans word for them is: waaierstertgrondeekhoring. We will just call them squirrels.

The yellow hornbill is a smart bird featured as 'Zazu' in the Lion King. The golf-ball sized beetle can be seen first chasing Ted but then he saw our trucks and heads for the safety.

The Camp Site.

Below is pictured our campsite. Ted picked up a nick-name on this trip, "Sir Packs a Lot". [In my defense, I will state that we were prepared for anything.] We did not see any lions (or hyenas, jackals or any other predator) but at night we did hear the lions roaring. The first night they 'seemed' far away and we listened. The second night, they were noticeably closer and for some roars you could correspondingly feel the ground vibrate. There is not really a lot you can do when it is pitch black and you hear lions roaring but a lot goes through your mind. Our much discussed plan was to run to the pick-up trucks if anything happened. We all played dead instead. In the most hair-raising moment of our rather undramatic trip, one evening at dusk we heard a low growl on one side of the campsite. We all looked at each other and then went about our business. A few minutes later: same growl - other side of the campsite. At this point Amy was a bit freaked out - obviously something was walking quite close. Then, a few minutes later still: same growl - right behind the tents. That was enough for Amy and Deb to grab the children and head to the trucks, while Ted and Todd played 'find the creature'. They saw the grass moving as whatever it was walked through, but as noted above the grass was so tall we could not tell what it was. Probably a good thing.

The Park Warden knows how to get a message across. This sign is posted in the bathroom in front of the user. I felt compelled to build a couple of barns for the owls to nest in after reading through the information.


The girls noticed a curious 'White-browed Scrub-robin' hanging around our camp. They named him, 'Twitter'.

Sunsets were incredible and the stars were even better (but dont show up well in pictures). We could clearly make out a satellite as it trekked across the sky, saw a couple of shooting stars and pointed out several constellations rare to the northern skys like the Southern Cross.

Walking with the San.

We were excited to spend a couple hours with a San bushman on a walking safari where he showed us many things of his culture and way of life. The San once roamed over most of Africa. Archaeology finds in the Kalahari show their presence as far back as 30,000 years ago. Some linguists even credit them with the invention of human language. The San were nomadic hunter-gatherers who travelled in family groups. Decisions were reached by group consensus. Everything they needed for their daily existence they carried with them. (Note - San is not the name that this tribe refers to themselves as - there is some disagreement about how to refer them most respectfully. We use this term as it is a common reference to them.)

Botswana and Namibia are privileged to retain some of the only remnants of the San communities. It is a struggle though, much like that of the Native American, Innu of Canada and Aborigines of Australia. Most all are poor and alcohol is a problem. They have largely been discriminated against for a long time. They are a controversial political issue in Botswana, as the govt. has made some attempt to relocate them off of the Kalahari and 'resettle them'. Sadly, this has had a very bad impact on them and their way of life.

Our guide started by making a fire with nothing but two sticks of wood and his hunting knife. He then showed us how to build a bird trap (below in the video) and later how he gets water from an underground root of some sort.

Later, he showed us a typical home and some hunting techniques. Finally, he took three hemp leaves, stripped them down, made rope out of them, and created a bracelet for Hope. All this - start fire, set trap, find water, make rope, find food ('sandpaper raisins - not pictured), in less than an hour, with absolutely no disruption to the environment. Takes us that long to find what we need at Target! It really was a humbling experience, actually. Oh, and when we asked how long it takes to build one of these shelters, the answer was 'in about an hour if the rain is coming'. Amazing.

The outlook for the San is uncertain. It is a political 'hot potato' for Botswana and one of Africa's greatest dilemmas: How to preserve old cultures and traditions while accepting and adapting to the new.