Blogs from South-East, Botswana, Africa - page 2

I got up early to bird around the hotel, which was quite successful. After breakfast, the 6 of us who arrived early took a 6.5 hour tour at Mokolodi Nature Preserve. After a brief rest, we then went to a long dinner with some faculty members of University of Botswana. The animals we saw at Mokolodi, excluding birds: Rhebok Giraffe Baboon Hippo Waterbuck Zebra Wildebeast Warthog Kudu Impala Red heart beast Water monitor Giant honking African rock python I've loaded my bird list twice and I keep having server errors, so I'll do the birds tomorrow. I will say that neither of the two serous birders saw the ostrich, but we're going back to Mokoldi later in the tour.... read more

M – After we left Vic Falls we took a couple of days to drive down through Botswana back to the border with South Africa. As I mentioned in an earlier block on the Okavango Panhandle, having already had a great Mokoro trip into the Delta from its North West corner we planned to avoid the touristy Maun and were able to make good time going south by avoiding the 300km detour westward that most tourists who visit the Delta from Maun have to make. The road from Kasane to the South through Francistown is a little pot holed but compared to some of the gravel roads in Namibia it was bliss! What did cause a little stress though were the Food Checkpoints! Just like the Red Line in Namibia, Botswana has Police/Agricultural checkpoints to prevent ... read more

Morokeni Vakwetu, (Good Day Friends-Rukwangali Language), Sunday, April 17/11 Blog#2 You will notice from the title of this blog that our Safari adventure was incredible. We arrived Mon. Apr. 11 after a seven hour drive North through South Africa from Johannesburg. The drive took us through many villages and cities with incredible scenery all around. We saw the diamond mines in the distance clustered amoungst 4 million year- old rocks and mountains. Upon arrival at the border to Botswana, we were met by the rangers from the Mashatu Game Reserve. We took cable cars across the river to the Toyota Land Cruisers awaiting us. After an hour’s bumpy but sunny drive we arrived at the Tent Camp and were orientated about the do’s and don’ts of living in this environment. The ‘tents’ were on platforms, very ... read more

Hi all, We are now in Gaborone and have a few minutes to update you on our last days in Namibia. But first, some of you have said that you enjoyed the monkey pictures so here are a few more including baboons for your enjoyment. After spending time in the desert we made our way to Swakopmund, on the coast of Namibia. The 300 km journey took us about 8 hours, on dirt roads of varying qualities, and through four or five different types of desert, and crossed the Tropic of Capricorn. While resting beside the road, biologist Steve picks up a cardboard box and out comes a snake moving towards Steve! Needless to say,as he walked away the snake decided to go the other direction. We have come to Namibia where much of the desert ... read more

Greetings from Gaborone! I was wondering what to write about. Should it be the unforgettable HIV message that Allan the Meerkat delivered today? Should I mention the three Spurs supporters who stopped watching (with tears in their eyes) after 30 minutes into the match only because they were losing 3-0 to Inter Milan? Or maybe the impossible heat in that we coached today? Perhaps I could write about the 120 children that showed up this afternoon after we coached some new and some ‘old faces’ teachers at Mochudi - Ramagotsi school. No, there will be lots of that in the following days, I am sure. Instead I decided to take the easy option and introduce our amazing team. Team Leader - Will has been sorting out our trip ever since... always. Being in Africa, nothing happens ... read more