havecarryonwilltravel

Temperature

After relatively nice temperatures in Tanzania we arrive to sweltering temperatures in Botswana. Kasane, a small town in the north, our safari starting point is 35C and rising.  There is no breeze and the heat is suffocating. We walk all morning at a slow pace and there is no shade. Back at the hotel it is all we can do to remain upright while we waste away the afternoon in the shade.

We leave early in the morning to avoid the heat of the day. It is maybe only 30C when we start. As we travel on the highway in our no sides, no windows, safari vehicle the temperature rises quickly. The hot air that blows by us only exasperates the problem. We try to drink because it is not only the heat but the wind that sucks us dry.

In the afternoon it rains a bit and the temperature moderates. The next couple of days in Chobe National Park are again hot with small amounts of afternoon rain to keep things livable.

Heading south-west to Khwai Conservation Area and the clouds roll in. It is nice to be protected from the glaring sun and the cover keeps the temperatures nice enough for a t-shirt and we do not sweat too much.  We get to camp around noon and the thunder starts.

By the 4pm game drive it is pouring. Debbie dons an extra layer, I put on my jacket, we both hunker under our rain ponchos and for 3 hours the rain comes down in buckets. The temperature drops to about 20C and with the nature’s wind and the breeze of being in an open moving vehicle is it chilly. We are again officially warm weather wiennies.

Thunder

We run into the first rain that amounts to anything in Botswana. The thunder is a low throated rolling rumble. Unlike the prairies where there is a sudden very loud clap, loud enough to knock you out of your chair. The noise here is more like you hear on the shoreline of an ocean. It’s loud enough but it starts with a low grumbly kind of boom, gets louder and then rolls across the landscape, the sound decaying over quite a long span of time. Thunder is another interesting aspect of the constant audio sound track that is being played out constantly as the safari movie plays on.

Clouds

The clouds here provide another sort of visual drama. For the most part, they are similar to the clouds that form across our prairies, but they provide the backdrop for spectacular sunsets almost every evening, orange, red, yellow, purple, with the sun streaking through like a bible picture. They are of every shape and colour and we wish our photos could capture their drama. The colours are not quite so vivid with the sunrises but the clouds help with the drama there too and they are worth a stop in the routine for a look. We are starting to read the clouds, from which direction they come and which ones bring rain.

The weather this morn, chilly. I have to wear a jacket to stay warm while we ply the trails looking for whatever the wilderness will cough up. Since there is not the abundance of animals we have been use to, here in Khwai, our guide has resorted to tracking. Debbie sits on the same side of the Toyota as the guide and she has been learning to identify the different tracks and to tell how recently they have been made. She has got quite good at finding hippo tracks and we think maybe she could open her own guide shop specializing in all things hippo. I’m sure there is a market for such just waiting to be tapped.

Today our pray is the African Wild Dog. There is a pack of these creatures that roams these parts and we set out to find them. African Wild Dogs are very rare and to see them is akin to spotting a Yeti, yet Pat thinks we can find them so we try. Luck is with us, there are tracks and they were made last night. We are able to follow them for a ways because often the animals use the car paths to move about and the dogs are no different in that respect. We come upon an area where the dogs have ‘played’ for a while. There are 4 adults and 6 pups in this pack so there is a lot of rough and tumble being acted out. It is hard to find which direction the dogs went from there but Pat feels they would go north, a fisherman’s instinct, so we head north. We drive aimlessly, left on this road and right on that one. A few impala here and there, suddenly, with the words ‘honey badger’ emerging from Pat’s mouth, he again jumps into action, we are chasing alongside a very fast and agile honey badger. The whole time we were in Tanzania with L&R, L wanted to run into a honey badger, but they are for the most part nocturnal and we did not find one. Today we see one during the daylight hours. He is very fast and good at keeping distance and the thickets between us and him. The pictures I tried to take consist mostly of blurred leaves and branches. So L will just have to believe that we saw, however briefly, a honey badger.

Pat is sure the wild dogs are near so via radio he commandeers Pula, our cook, into assisting with the hunt. Pula talks to a self-drive tourist who spotted the dogs a while before but lost the trail. He did provide Pula with the location of where he had seen the dogs.  Pula plies that area, soon we get a call stating he has found a kill and the vultures are having a feast. The dogs had hunted and killed an impala, feasted and left the rest for the scavengers. When we arrived there were a dozen or so vultures squabbling and eating the carrion. These birds have absolutely no table manners. They fight and squawk and push their way to the front of the food line with absolutely no regard for the others.

After watching the birds pick everything but the bones, this took only about 20 mins. emphasizing what pigs they are, we head out to continue our search. Changing our tactic we go west but stay in the north part of the conservation area. As we pause by the river to photo some grazing reed bucks another vehicle passes by and as always the guide stops to exchange the day’s news. One of the vehicles from his company has located the dogs. They are sleeping about 500 meters from where we were searching earlier. Zoom! We are on our way. Spotting the ubiquitous gathering of 4WD’s at any sighting, we knew we had found our morning’s prey. Unlike most of the animal kingdom we were only there to steal images. The dogs, which are usually skittish, are just lying there with full bellies. An animal’s life here can be cruel but most of the time it does not appear to be overly stressful.

Our first stop in the late afternoon was a return visit to the wild dogs. As it has been the case for this part of our journey, we are the only vehicle there. We watch for a short time and the adult dogs appear to be restless. Soon, one by one, in single file they saunter off north towards the river. The pups follow the adults. Pat says let’s follow them, they may be going for a drink of water. We are using the 4WD for what it is meant for – we are off road now. It’s hard to follow the dogs through the thicket, but we manage to track them to the river. On the opposite bank of the river there is a troupe of baboons intently observing the movement of the dogs. On our side of the river, the adult dogs are not fearful, but the puppies keep their distance as baboons can be dangerous to them. The puppies depart on their own, soon followed by the adults, all without taking a drink. We loose track of the dogs in the thicket. The puppies return to the spot where we initially found them.

There is commotion in the trees and the adults are on the hunt. Impala are running and leaping every which way. One of the adults returns to the puppies with a piece of meat which they greedily devour. They understand that they are supposed to follow the adult back to the kill site. We dutifully join the end of the line. As we are watching the puppies eat the remainder of a baby impala, there is another disturbance in the trees. Two impala fly by at top speed with two wild dogs chasing. We are on the move too. In no time, one impala is brought down and the feasting begins anew. These dogs are fast. The adults had eaten most of the first kill, so they leave the second one for the pups. The impala is quickly consumed.

We are on a “night game drive”, so we stay out past sundown. Once it turns dark, Pat uses a flashlight to locate the eyes of the animals. We are looking for red or orange eyes of cats and predators. Blue eyes are impala (day time creatures) and we do not focus on those as we do not want to show the predators where they are.

We see hippos, their great grey bulk shining in the flashlight beam, munching grass close to the water channel. When we are almost back to camp we spot a python gliding over the ground. It doesn’t oscillate as it moves forward but travels in a straight line.

The day, which started off cool, heated up and has cooled off again. We are back in our jackets as we dine in the outdoors.

We are camping, safari camping, not North American mountain camping. We have a tent just large enough to fit two cots and two small tables. Our cots have sheets, pillows and comforters on them. The tables have African motif cloths over them. Out the back door of the tent, is an enclosed space with a pit toilet and a bucket with a shower head, referred to in the literature as an ‘ensuite’ . Sort of indoor outdoor plumbing. Water is heated, poured into the bucket and the shower is ready.  It was raining the other day, and we had warm showers outside in the rain.

We have a tent porch where I am sitting right now typing. Two chairs, wash basins and a gorgeous view.

There is a dining tent where we eat all our meals. The walls of the tent are removable so we may enjoy the view. The tent is large enough for a dining table (foldable) and a serving table and space to move around in.

The kitchen is a similar sized tent with tables, stove and firepit. Pula, the chef, and Dunega, camphand 1, toil away to create different gourmet meals each day. Murray is in heaven each day there is fresh baked bread and if you can imagine there is peanut butter in Africa. Pula’s dome tent is right behind the kitchen. Dunega, and Mosh (the waiter) share a dome tent which is placed a little way beside the kitchen.  Pat’s tent is on the other side of the camp, about 50 paces away. There is an enclosed toilet tucked in behind some trees for the staff to use.

Pula comes to announce supper and always gives us a description of what is being served. He is accommodating my food issues with no problem and serves me tasty inventive dishes. I had potato and sweet potato “lasagna” today. He says he is going to teach me how to bake bread with rice flour and potato flour. It is very hard not to overeat!

Mosh serves us our meals and stands ready to fulfill our wishes. He told Murray that his job is to get us what we want before we even ask for it. He is a friendly fellow and Murray enjoys chatting with him. He plans on going to guide school next year after he has saved enough money.

We don’t see Dunega too much. He is the camp helper and works mostly behind the scenes helping Pula and doing chores. Pat says he is very shy so doesn’t say much.

I imagine that colonial life was much like this. Servants, no cooking, no work. This safari camping is a different life.

Murray’s insert

Today is we have a mokoro ride scheduled. The mokoro is a dugout canoe that has been used as transportation on the delta for eons. The people were using too many trees to build mokoro so a few years ago the government developed a fibreglass version that is used today. We ride in a fibreglass model.  The driver poles the moroko while standing at the stern similar to a Venation gondolier. We sit right in the bottom of the boat like the cargo in a North American Indian canoe.

As we move along the river the silence is deafening. The poler makes no noise when he dips the pole; the slight splash along the side of the boat is hypnotizing.  We pass a herd of elephants along the channel bank and can only hear the slosh of their footsteps as the move from patch of grass to patch of grass. It is midday so even the birds are relatively quiet; we hear only individual calls instead for the regular symphony that plays in the mornings and evenings. The tranquility and serenity is almost enough to lull us to sleep. Two hours later we are back on shore and on the road to find more animals.

Fifty meters off the main road there is a small ‘bachelor’ herd of elephants, four males of varying age and size. One of the almost adults and a full grown adult seem to having some sort of disagreement and are eying each other up. Without much warning they are butting heads and using their tusks to twist each other. It looks like a wrestling match. They break, but only for moment and then butt heads again, this time with much fervor. We hear the ivory of their tusks clack as contact is made. We are all madly snapping pictures. The tussle continues for a minute or two and the combatants part. The oldest male, who until now has been on the sideline munching grass, moves between the other two. He has obviously had words with the fighting two because the three stand head to head and intertwine trunks. I think the wise old elephant sensed when things were about to get out of hand and put a stop to it. It is too bad that the governments of the world cannot learn from the animal kingdom.

Botswana has not provided us with the abundance of animal sightings the Serengeti has, but the things we have seen here are very unusual. Luck follows Debbie and me on most of our adventures and this one seems to be not much different. Most that come here do not see lions kill a baby elephant, they will not witness two elephants tussling, to come upon an impala having trouble with child birth is unusual even to our guide, these things are the ways of the wild and we have happen upon more than our share.