Crossing Botswana december 10 - 20/2010

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"Give me your sunglasses", the young man says to Linda. We just passed the border between Namibia and Botswana. It took more than an hour, because a overlander was just before us and everyone has to be controlled thoroughly. Up to the smallest details of course. That takes time. Lenin said (or was it Stalin): "to trust someone is good, but control is better". Botswana likes to control.
Of course Linda does not give her glasses. We park our car in front of the petrol station, but there is no petrol. There is no one, apart from the young man and a police officer. "Is there an ATM", we ask. "I am the ATM", says the young man. The policeman grins. Botswanians are very friendly, we read in the Lonely Planet.

We take the A2 to the East. The road is fine. But every now and then there is a checkpoint, police or veterinary control. We are lucky, we may pass. But we saw a big queu, who came out of a bus and had to show their food. You may not transport animals or animalproducts in order to prevent food and mouth disease.
An other roadbloque are the animals themselves: horses, cows, goats, donkeys, sheep. It is a kind of gamedrive with a speed of about 100 km/h. They may move freely along the road (which is a big danger), meanwhile spreading out the diseases the veterinary roadbloques try to prevent. In Ghanzi we find a nice lodge for a night and then, next day, we continue -check, control, stop, halt, bloque- towards Maun. It looks like we are in Holland, the green trees along the road, the sky with clouds and a lot of water. For the landscape you do not have to come here. But the prices are the highest of all countries we passed. So there must be something. The Okavango Delta e.g.

Maun
We put our tent at the campsite of the Sedia Hotel between the trees not from the river. There is a fence near the river, probably to prevent crocs and hippo's coming in on the site. On the barbecue we bought in Capetown we prepare our favourite Dutch dinner: brown beans with speck. In the evening the frogs start their choir. It starts with one, then it stops and when it is completely dark all frogs are singing. I learned those are the males, who are singing. To attract the lady frogs. Because they sing together the sound is irresistable for the females. Biologists call it a supernormal stimulus. It is every evening the same rite. The male frogs begin to sing and the female frogs come out of their holes. 'Hey girls, let's come out, the boys begin to sing'. It continues all night. It is a sound which is always on the background. It is tranquilizing and it makes you asleep in your tent.
But next morning, when you awake, it has gone. Then you hear all kind of birds. Sometimes so strange and complex, that you wonder what kind of bird is producing it. The pigeons are always on the background. Not as simple as in Europe. No it is a special rhytm. It swings even. The pigeons swing! And between all those songs you hear now and then a monotonous song, short, sad, shy, just a bleep. Like a kid who just found out that he can make a whistling tone, when he rounds his lips and breath some air out. It is so tiny, that you ask yourself if it was ever there. But it was. It is the Black Cuckoo who makes clear what his territory his. To prevent intruders and to attract females. To be honest the sound is so so shy, you would expect the opposite: attract intruders and prevent females coming in. But she likes it. Of course she hears the songs of the other birds, far more complicated, far more interesting. But she chooses for him with his simple song. 'Oh Birdie, you have sung so beautifully today. You must be tired. Take a rest.' Actually it is a wonder. Million years of evolution passed by. Continents drifted apart. Mountains raised and disappeared. But this bird kept it simple. "Why to play so many notes, when you have to play only the most beautiful ones?", Miles Davis said already, when he found out the Cool Jazz.

The Okavango Delta is not far from Maun. A poler moves us around in his mogoro, like they do in Venice. "The mogoro is made of a Sausage tree", tells our poler. We drift in between the waterlilies and a kind of grass (Carex). It sweeps agains you head when you pass. Most people we meet lye down in the boat with their eyes shut. We sit right up and have our eyes wide open. We see the Eardrop plant with his yellow flowers. "You can squeeze them out in your eye, when you have eye problems", tells our poler/guide. We see Black Storks, White Egrets and the so called Jezuswalkers. It looks like these birds walk over the water, but they walk over the leaves of the waterlilies. Actually there is not so much more to see and the guide does not talk so much. When we go ashore on an island, he hardly tells something. We really have to push him. When he speaks he asks what time it is. It is the worst guide we have had while we paid more money for this trip then in any other country. Maybe the poler cannot help. We are afraid most of the money goes to the owner of the agency. It would be better when they invested some money in the education of the polers, so that they know how to guide and have enough knowlegde. Next day we left Maun and moved to -check, stop, control, bloque, - to Gweta.

Gweta
We took a hut in the Planet Baobab Lodge. Gweta is situated at the border of the Makgadikgadi and Nxai pans National Park in the Kalahari. It is a beautiful lodge, but very expensive. On the site are some big Baobabs. The oldest is possibly 3500 years old. "It is difficult to assess the exact age of these trees, because they do not have yearrings", tells the manager. "Inside the tree it is spongy, where they store their water. You see those holes in the bark? These holes are made by the locals to put their pegs in, so that they can climb up in the tree to get their fruits and leaves. The holes are an indication for their age." The Baobabs look wonderful. Completely different than the ones we saw at Madagascar. They are full of leaves, flowers and fruits. Maybe it is because of the rainy reason. Sometimes it rains very hard. Now also the bullfrogs come out of their holes under the sand. They waited here for months, their heartbeat slowed down to a minimum. Once they are out they make a deafening sound, they mate and they duck under the sand again as soon as the water dries up. There they stay till the next rainy season. The bullfrogs attract snakes like the black mambo, the pofadder and the cobra. "You better cannot meet them", tells the manager. "Which hut do you have? Two? That one is open. They can come in. In number 7 we found already five times a black mambo, one of the poisoniest snakes of Africa."
At 6 in the morning we left for a trip to the saltpans. We see some villages of the Bushman, herds of Zebra's who begin to migrate now, Korhoens, who land like a helicopter and snake eagles, who really swallow complete snakes. And then of course the Surricates (meerkatten). Always looking around for possible danger. The best post is on an hill. But when there is no hill, you can also take an human, as Linda experienced. Not far from the Meerkat colony stands a enormous Baobab. "Male", is written in the trunk. Actually it should be "Mail", because this tree was used as a postoffice. The saltpans themselves we never saw. The guide/driver , who hardly gave any information, turned and drove back to the lodge. What is the matter with the guides here? Everywhere else in Africa we met good guides, but here their level is far too low (while the prices are far too high).
We like to leave Botswana. So we drove via Nata and Francistown to the Khama Rhino Sanctuary near Serove, not far from the border with South Africa. On our way we met a cloud of white butterflies. The cloud was more than 300 kilometers and lasted all day. They all move in the same direction (to the North). For the rest it is a boring road.

Serove
We put our tent about 3 kilometer inside the Khama Rhino Sanctuary Park under a Mokongwa tree. We are completely alone, apart from some birds like the Yellow billed Hornbill, who eats with his enormous beak the dead butterflies from the radiator of our car. In the park are rhino's and leopards. That is why we are not allowed to walk in the park. We cannot drive with our own car in the parc. You need a 4WD car here. So we are forced to take a guide again. Near the pan we see a lot of animals: wildebeests, impala's, Burchel zebra's, springboks, ostriches and giraffes. But we come for the rhino's. We have not seen them thus far. Because of poaching these animals have become rare. Here in the sanctuary are some white rhino's and a few black rhino's (which are even rarer). They come from other parts of Botswana, from South Africa and from Zimbabwe. We see only the white rhino's in the open fields. They are about at a distance of 50 meter. Closer you may not come, otherwise they will attack.
In the evening we make a fire to keep animals on a distance (if it works). It is full moon and windstill when we go to bed in our little tent. In your tent you are save. Exactly at midnight we awake, because there is a strong wind. We leave the tent to put water over the still glowing campfire. Not so long after we hear raindrops on our tent. In the far distance we hear thunder. It comes nearer. An hour later we are surrounded by continuous lightnings and torrential rains fall upon our tent. It will last all night. For our safety we sleep in our car.

At 5:30 it stops raining. We dry our belongings, pack them and leave. The sandroad has become a river. It is hard to drive across it with a normal car, but we make some speed, the mud splashes against the windows and we pass. It is about 180 kilometer to the border with South Africa. The road becomes worse. There are potholes, bushes grow up to the shoulders of the road and behind every bush stand a cow, a donkey or whatsoever. You may drive 120 km here. The nearer we come to the border the more checkpoints we meet. Check, stop, halt, bloque, control, but finally we pass the border without problems. We are happy we are back in South Africa.

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Comments

[Gré en ruud]

Hoi Linda en Andre, Zoals we uit jullie beschrijving kunnen opmaken hebben jullie de Kerst in Zuid-Afrika gevierd. Of misschien hebben jullie het helemaal niet gevierd. Onze gids in Zuid-Afrika ging zelf vaak op vakantie naar Botswana. Zij was dol op de natuur daar. Jullie ervaring is volgens ons heel anders. Misschien heeft jullie gids het verkeerde deel van Botswana laten zien. Wel jammer dat je zo afhankelijk bent van een gids. De foto met het stokstaartje is erg grappig. Is het een trucopname of staat hij echt op Linda's hoofd Een goeie jaarwisseling en tot schrijfs. Gré en Ruud

[Andre and Linda]

Hi Ruud en Gre, We denken dat we twee keer een slechte gids hebben gehad. Dat stokstaartje is echt. Echt!

[Patrik]

Nice New Year.
Dear Linda and Andre, happy new year to you and nice days in Rio De Janero. Furcania.