Botswana - 9Jump to page: Index PageBotswana 1 Botswana 2 Botswana 3 Botswana 4 Botswana 5 Botswana 6 Botswana 7 Botswana 8 Botswana 9 Botswana 10 Botswana 11 Botswana 12 Botswana 13 Botswana 14 Botswana 15 Botswana 16 Botswana 17 Botswana 18 Vermont 1 Vermont 2 Vermont 3 Vermont 4 Botswana 2 - 19 Botswana 2 - 20 Botswana 2 - 21 Botswana 2 - 22 Botswana 2 - 23 Botswana 2 - 24 Botswana 2 - 25 10/7/03 Wow! Here I am, less than a month away from the US (November 5th I get on the plane...). I'd say I can't believe how fast it's gone, but it hasn't. Instead - well - I can't believe it's almost over. I've got no idea what I'm going to do with myself once I get home! Wait - yes I do. Get stressed, go to interviews, etc. etc. etc. I'm good at that. Anyway - this weekend! I went to the Okavango Delta, in the far northwest of Botswana. Thursday morning, got up too damn early after a night of no sleep (damn insomnia) and got on a 6:30 AM bus to Francistown, which is a midway point between Gabs and.. everything else. Fell asleep until about 8:00 when it started to get hot... HOT.. HOTTER. Whew. Kept the window open, and fortunately had a pair of seats to myself for all but 2 of the 6 hours. In Francistown transferred to the Maun bus. Sat there for an hour.. and then another six hours moving. Except this time the woman behind me didn't want to get her weave messed up by the wind, so we were engaged in an epic battle over whether the window would be open or closed without ever exchanging a word. Too damn hot! I found out later that it 45 degrees C that day... which, for those of you who can't do the math - is 113 degrees F. Most of the way there - and the bus gets stopped on this long open stretch of highway through the Madkgadikgadi Salt Pans (which is a National Park - I'd been watching the ostriches run along the side of the road for the last hour) and we all have to pick up our bags and walk across a small barrier. They checked the bus, we got back on, and drove off. Turns out they're looking for MaZimbabwe who steal stuff on one side and drive to the other (at least - this is according to the bitchy school girl sitting next to me the whole way). Arrived in Maun at 7:30, decided to take a cab to Audi camp rather than a combi. Picked up Nandos (the one thing in Botswana that I will truly miss!) for dinner, and drove to Audi. Hit my bed by 8:30. Woken up by the roosters at about 5:00 (who was it that said they crow when the sun comes up? How about well before?) This huge truck picked us up. I went with a group of five, plus a cook, a guide, and a few Mokoro polers (I'll get to that). We got to the Mokoro station at about 10:00 (we got picked up at 7:30/8:00) and it was all driving through serious desert. The Mokoro station is where all the polers hang out with their Mokoros. Dugout canoes - basically. They pole them along rather than rowing. Two people per Mok, and off we went. One of the couples with me was from Berkeley - the wife is South African, the husband from Arizona (he just graduated law school) and they had absolutely the sweetest relationship I have ever seen. It made me feel a bit melancholy. But I've got a standing invitation to go out there and visit them! (Hope for the UCSF interview!) The other was from Holland, and were much quieter. The Berkeley pair brought their own cooler full of beer. Wow. So - got to our campsite and set everything up by about noon. It's well over 100 degrees at this point, and muggy, because we're in what basically amounts to swamp abutting desert. All you can do between 10 and 4 is lie very still and try to keep under the shade. And sweat. And sweat. And sweat. I'm sure you get the idea. 4:00 we went on our first game walk - nice to get out and just hike. I was attacked by a few thorns, but we did manage to see a pride of lions! Way off in the distance, and running away from us at the time, but looking over their shoulders to check us out at well. It was pretty cool. We tracked them for a little while, then saw them again just as we heard this trampling noise.. turns out an elephant was charging the lions to get rid of them. Really close to us. Whee! So... Went to bed pretty early (gets dark at around 7:00pm) but could hear elephants tramping around all night. Woke up at about 2am to hear the lions roaring... Nice way to wake up.. especially in a tent all by yourself, believe me. There's no way you're willing to go to the bathroom in the middle of the night in that setting! We went for a game walk the next morning - left at about 6am. Didn't see very much until we got back to camp, and over the horizon there is this huge herd of elephants, walking through the water, giving themselves dust baths, etc. etc. Very neat. There are pictures of these guys included. So we stayed around and watched them for a while, then headed into camp and had a nice brunch. This is the hot part of the day again... So we sat around. I played cards with the lawyer from Berkeley, and then the guides took over and started a variation on crazy eights. After a while Mark decided to go down to the water... and sees an elephant eating on the path to camp. Very close to us. So we all stand up and go over to watch him and take pictures. Over the course of the next half hour, he moves from about 30 feet away from camp to about 10 feet away. Then he notices us and decides he doesn't want us around. EEP! Charges the campsite. Half of our guides started running... the other half started yelling "Don't run! Don't run!" We all half backed away and looked at each other. The elephant trumpeted.. and stopped about two feet away from a tent. Then started eating and just eyeing us. Definitely giving the "I don't care about you" treatment. So the guides started banging things together to scare him off and eventually he just walked away. Talk about an adrenaline rush! Then - we go for a mokoro ride - and as we walk out to the mokoros, there's an elephant drinking right next to them. And she doesn't want to leave. So what do we do? Make as much noise as we can to draw her attention. Somehow.. it didn't quite feel like the best idea to me. Anyone surprised by this? She walked off though... straight through camp. So we took the Mokoros north into the Delta. I got to pole mine for a while! It's really tough. You push on one side and it goes to the other... so you switch to the other side to push... and it goes the same way. I didn't capsize us, but only barely. I'm impressed that they can do this so well! We went north for about an hour, and stopped at this sandy wide part of the stream with a grassy bank. There were a whole bunch of elephants a little in from us, just eating and swimming around. Which is what we started doing (yeah, yeah, I know, schisto, but I could take drugs and swimming is very necessary in that heat!) We sat there to watch the sunset and the elephants. It was completely surreal. Headed back for camp, same routine as the night before, all sorts of noises in the dark... Got up early to go out for our last game walk, in which we saw some monkeys and nothing else. Got back to camp, ate a quick breakfast, and packed all our stuff up. Then got in the Moks and headed back for the pickup station. We got there to find that the group that was supposed to be taken out before us had not been... Their truck was broken down somewhere in the desert between Maun and the Delta. Fortunately our truck arrived (we were a smaller group so we could take the small truck, they couldn't). We later found out that they had arrived at the pickup point at 10, and didn't get back to Maun until about 6:30 at night. Ouch We got in... extremely bruised by the trip, but no problem. Took showers, and stayed in the pool for the rest of the day. Then Mark and Karen (the people from Berkeley) and I decided to do a scenic flight over the Delta. 900 Pula (about $60 apiece) for the plane. The pilot was a young Afrikaans guy (24) who is a complete metal head (which I found out later after we invited him for drinks at Audi camp) and when he realized that none of us were going to get airsick (or tell on him) flew at about 400 feet above the ground, which is completely illegal (500 feet minimum) and took us on all these great dips and spins... the kind where your stomach stays behind. Whee!!! We saw huge herd of buffalo and zebra... Giraffes dipping their heads to drink, elephants play-fighting... It was amazing. Totally worth the cost. :) I was sitting in the front seat... being very careful not to move too much so I didn't knock any controls. As we were returning, and over the desert (no more animals) Cobus (the pilot) turns to me and points at the controls. Just picture how much I shook my head. So he grinned, put his hands up, and just sat back. Just told me to keep it level with the horizon. Which is surprisingly difficult... But I was less nervous than poling the mokoro (where I could have tipped over and destroyed my video camera) because if I fucked up he could fix it easily. So I got to pilot until we got to the airstrip! Really cool. We invited him out for a few drinks afterwards.. which turned into A LOT of drinks, and no dinner (we were chatting and missed it when they served). I now have Cobus' cell number, and any time Moremi Air (the charter company he works for) has an extra seat he's going to call me so I can get the space (FOR FREE!). In return I promised to burn him copies of my Dark Tranquility cds... (He had actually heard of them and was profoundly jealous that I got to see them in concert). Very fun guy. And a great contact to have here. Got up at 5:30 the next morning to leave with Mark and Karen. They were driving around the Trans-Kalahari Highway to get to Karen's parents' house in South Africa, and could drop me off in Lobatse (1 hour away from Gabs) so I could cut 11 hours off my bus ride. Dull trip.. lots of stupid looking ostriches along the sides of the roads, animals walking around on the highway (we didn't kill any, although we came close with one goat). Got to Lobatse, dropped off, and hopped on the bus home. Into Gabs, walked home from the bus stop (should've taken a cab, but didn't), arrived at 6:30 and completely crashed. And that was my weekend... Exciting, huh?
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From the Mokoro
Mokoros are hollowed out logs that they have traditionally used in the Okavango to get around the Delta. They have to be poled rather than rowed because of the thick grass and muck in the water. |
Elephants with the Mokoros
We had to use these Mokoros to get around - when this guy came over to hang out we couldn't do anything! This is the same elephant that features on the next page. |
Okavango Sunset
This is in the evening after our first game walk. All of the Okavango is a desert - until you see water. The sand is amazing - very fine and soft. But too hot to walk around on bare foot! The palm trees are a little surreal when taken in conjunction with the rest of the scenery. |
