Botswana: My favorite country from the trip

BOTSWANA

Day 13:
After a delicious breakfast (Ben would have been in heaven with the endless buffet), we headed for the border of Namibia/ Botswana.  After crossing the border, we immediately started to see cows, goats, and donkeys roaming everywhere on both the side of the street and in the middle.  Botswana is a very rich country due to the amount of cattle owned by the villagers as well as the world's richest diamond mines that are located here.  Their currency (Pula) has a woman inspecting diamonds on some of the bills.  Botswana had now been independent since 1966 and has the foresight to invest in education and healthcare.  Botswana has the best economy in sub-Saharan Africa and strives to high economic standards without the racial issues that have plagued other countries.  The government has employed a strategy of high income with low impact on tourism.  They do this by limiting the number of tourists entering the country by charging a lot more than neighboring countries.  This makes it more restrictive for the low-budget traveler.  Our camp for the night was in the bush in the town of Ghanzi.  Melodi and I got to sleep in a hut made of straw and sticks!  There were two beds with mosquito nets hanging from the ceiling.  The hut was so short that I could not stand up fully in it unless I was directly in the middle.  I tried the mosquito net, but it made me very claustrophobic and slept without it.  Since it was the winter and the mosquitos were not as bad at night, it was okay.  After dinner we enjoyed traditional bushman (San people) dances around a fire.  The San people have lived here for over 30,000 years and survived living in harsh desert conditions while 'living in harmony with nature'.  It is estimated that there are only 55,000 San people left in Botswana, Namibia, and South Africa.  Their traditional lifestyle does not really exist anymore however, and they can be found on cattle farms or ravished by alcohol.  There were about 10 bush people (primarily women) who sat around a fire and sang while the men danced for us.  They interacted with the crowd as much as possible, with there being a strong language barrier present.  They were dressed in their traditional clothing, which had to be freezing cold.  You could tell they were in shape from all of the dancing as one of the older guys had his butt exposed and it was very in fit.  David and Andrew had to dance from our group and they basically were humping the ground, as the bush men showed them to do.  They then had to pick dance partners and I along with Alex (Andrew's girlfriend) were the lucky chosen ones.  We luckily did not have to hump the ground, but we did complicated foot movements.  It was a super intense workout.

Andrew doing frog-like motions. 

David humping the ground.

A dog that really liked me...

Day 14:
After driving to Maun, Botswana in the morning, we had lunch then walked down to the river for a short boat ride in crocodile and hippo infested waters to our horseback riding safari.  I had an old white horse who's name I forgot.  I called him Kahlua the whole time though and he seemed to respond to his new name (or he probably just went to get me to shut up and listened to me).  Lindsay, Melodi, Katie, Ally, and David all accompanied me on this safari.  While on the horses, we saw giraffes, ostriches, gemsbok, springbok, zebras, and antelope.  It was super cool being on the horses because we could get closer to the animals. The other animals didn't sense humans and just thought that there were horses around them.  After a two and a half hour ride, we went back on the rickety-ass boat and got uncomfortably close to several hippos.  After a delicious pork dinner, Katie and I chilled by the fire next to the woods with our driver Dingi.  We then crawled into our tents and went fast asleep.  About 15 minutes after we went to sleep, the bar at our campsite was robbed at gunpoint, just feet from our tent.  None of us in our particular tent woke up to this, even with all of the shouting, dry round shots, crying, and running.  It ended up being that the three robbers were waiting in the woods right next to the fire that we were relaxing by.  Dingi kept looking over into the woods thinking he heard someone, but he just ignored it.  It ended up being the robbers though, which is a little bone chilling.  No one was hurt though, thankfully.  This is Africa, expect the unexpected, I guess.

Katie^2 and David

Crickey, it's a croc!!!

Me and "Kahlua"

Katie^2, Mel, Ally, David, Linds

Hanging out with some giraffes!

The hippos we saw while in our super small boat on the way back from the safari. 

Day 15:

'The Okavango Delta is the world's largest inland delta, a labyrinth of lagoons, lakes, and hidden channels covering 17,000 square km.  It originates in Angola, where numerous tributaries join to form the Cubango RIver which then flows through Namibia, becoming the Kavango River and finally entering Botswana where it becomes the Okavango.  Tectonic activity and faulting interrupted the flow of the river and caused a back up and formed what is now the Okavango Delta.  This has created a unique system of waterways that supports a vast array of animal and plant life that would have otherwise been a dry Kalahari savannah.  There are an estimated 200 000 large mammals in and around the Okavango Delta.  On the mainland and among the islands in the delta, lions, elephants, hyenas, wild dog, buffalo, hippo and crocodiles congregate with a teeming variety of antelope and other smaller animals - warthog, mongoose, spotted genets, monkeys, bush babies and tree squirrels.  Notably The endangered African Wild Dog is present within the Okavango Delta, exhibiting one of the richest pack densities in Africa.  The delta also includes over 400 species of birds, including the African Fish Eagle.

Many of these animals live in the Delta but the majority pass through, migrating with the summer rains to find renewed fields for grazing. With the onset of winter the countryside dries up and they make their way back to the floodplains.  This leads to some of the most incredible sightings as large numbers of prey and predators are pushed together. Certain areas of the Delta provide some of the best predator action seen anywhere in the world.' (Taken from our Nomad Company itinerary) 

When we woke up, there was an open-air 1960's Mercedes truck waiting to take us to the world's largest delta in the heart of Botswana!  We spent two hours bundled up in our sleeping bags on this truck traveling to the  Okavango Delta.  Our truck is not equipped for muddy roads such as these.  People from the Delta greeted us with their Mokoro's (traditional canoes dug out from trees) and packed our bags and camping accessories into the canoes.  Mel and I shared a Mokoro and enjoyed a nice, relaxing hour and a half ride through the waterways of the Delta listening to the peaceful sound of nature, including hippos, and viewing elephants.  There are many resources in the Delta that makes it such a livable, but yet untouched area.  There are many animals to eat, fish, and edible plants/roots.  After relaxing for several hours, we went on a bush walk with a local expert guide around the particular island we were staying on.  We saw hippos playing in the water and cheetah paw prints in the dried river bed.  We saw a lone bull elephant and were way too close for comfort.  Our guide and Delta expert told us at first that if he gave us a thumbs up gesture over his shoulder motioning for us to go back, that meant we should slowly walk backwards.  If he did the gesture fast, then we were supposed to run like hell.  When we saw the elephant, we got so close that we had to crouch down in the grass.  He eventually gave us the gesture to walk back slowly.  The moon that was rising as we were getting back to camp from our walk was a brilliant shade of orange and appeared to look like a full, harvest moon.  After eating a chicken dinner, we heard hippos in the dark eating just meters from our campsite in the water.  Did I also mention that while we were here for two days, we had no running water which meant holes in the ground to go to the bathroom in? I once again, did survive.

Our super sweet Mercedes truck that we drove in and froze our butts off.

All of the Mokoro's lined up.

Melodi and myself in our Mokoro.

David and Ally in their Mokoro that was super close to flooding.

Enjoying this way too much.

The start of our walk into the Delta.

A tree that the elephants ate all of the bark off of. 

Cheetah paw prints! 

Young bull elephant-- way too close for comfort.

Having to walk back slowly. 

Day 16:
After sleeping in and a late brunch, we laid under the hot Delta sun.  We then went to a nearby swimming hole in the Mokoro's where there were no leaches and crocodiles to get ahold of us.  Naturally, I stayed in the Mokoro while everyone else swam in the waters due to the fact that there are still fish in the waters.  Lindsay and I tried to steer the Mokoro's after the swim using the poles.  We ended up having more luck sitting down and paddling with our hands.  We ended up helping one of our guides wash his clothing in the Delta waters after we got stuck in the middle of the water in our boat.  After we were rescued, we went with another guide to dig for Water Lily tubers.  This was a very difficult task.  In order to get to the tuber, you need to reach down into the murky water and cut away all of the tough roots using a knife.  Since you can't see, you need to just touch around to feel for the roots and the tuber.  You need to do all of this while trying to keep a steady balance to not tip over the very unsteady Mokoro.  It is super difficult, but very rewarding when you get out the edible tuber that is generally the size potato and tastes of a bland, raw potato topped with river water.  Apparently they taste better after cooking them, but this can take up to 8 hours and "ain't no one got time for that!".  We then joined back up with the rest of our group for an afternoon Mokoro ride through the Delta.  After about 2 hours of riding in the boat, we came back by our campsite to watch the sunset over the water.  As you can see by what you have previously read, I have seen numerous African sunsets.  I think due to the fact that we were in one of the most beautiful places in the world though, the sunset was one of the most amazing I have ever seen.  After dinner, our Delta guides sang and danced for us.  Even though we could not understand them, it was hilarious.  They danced like frogs and the men dressed as pregnant women with large backsides.  We then in return sang all of the national anthems that represented our group.  The world out there was one of the most peaceful around.  Laying in your tent at night and hearing the animals frolicking around in the water was amazing and unlike anything I have ever experienced before.  Even though we had no toilets or running water out there, it was a hard place to leave.  It will always be one of my favorite places that I have visited.  Maybe I do like camping after all…

Tea time in the Mokoro.

Lindsay's and my lovely lilly pad leaf hats.

Delta sunset.

Sunset and an ellie just meters from our camp.

My tent mates and our tent! Katie^2 and Mandy.

Melodi and Katie dancing like frogs.

Sitting around the campfire, singing songs-- scenes straight out of a movie.

Day 17:
We packed up early to leave the Delta and go back to civilization.  It was another peaceful ride in the Mokoro that morning and I read and napped on the way back to our 1960's transit waiting for us.  After getting back to our campsite in Maun, I could not wait to shower.  The only bit of water I got though was in the men's bathroom and was about 35 degrees F.  I could have gotten better water pressure from a drizzle of rain, but it still felt amazing to be clean (or semi-clean) again.  After lunch, we then made our way to Planet Baobab in Gweta.  This area used to be the largest inland sea, Lake Makgadikgadi, in Africa thousands of years ago and is home to the massive Baobab trees, which look like gigantic upside down trees.  Some of these trees are 2,400 years or older.  They produce a fruit which you have to bang on hard to open.  You suck on the inside flesh, which is dry, and get a sweet strawberry like taste.

Day 18:
After traveling a long way to the Chobe national park, we bought wine, cheese, crackers, and guava pieces and made our way to a large boat (glorified pontoon in my mind) to enjoy a sunset cruise on the Chobe River.  This area is known for its large populations of elephants and buffalos, and we saw many of them.  At one point, there were well over 70 elephants in one area.  We also saw an abundance of hippos, crocodiles, and river lizards.  This river separated Namibia and Botswana, so we saw Namibia once again from the boat.  After the boat ride, we made our way back to our campsite.  We "raged" on our way back with a box of wine and "strobe lights".  It was dark outside, so one of the guys in our truck blinked the lights on and off while we had music blasting and drank straight from the box of wine. It was like Tollies (a club in Stellenbosch) up in there.  After dinner, we made our way to the bar where we partook in some card games.  When it got a little bit later, Lindsay and I took a brisk dip in the pool and froze our asses off.  The next morning, I had a lovely, large scrape on my leg from falling into the pool.  I will miss Botswana!!

Ally, Katie, Lindsay, Katie, and Melodi on top of the giant pontoon boat.

The whole group.

Super close to hippos! 

Elephants for miles and miles.

Elephants crossing the waters while holding their trunks to eat others tails.

Andrew and his bottles and cans. 

Once again, a beautiful sunset with no filter. 

I am currently in a hostel in Cape Town and have a horrible wi-fi connection.  Look back tomorrow for pictures to accompany this post.

PS: My parents and Benny are on their way to Africa today!!!

Hope you enjoyed and check back today for Zimbabwe!

xx,
kCl