Maun, Botswana
Ahh, vacation. It's great to be here - wish my luggage was as well. It should arrive on the flight in to this frontier town tomorrow. Peter met me at the airport, we grabbed a quick bite then went for a spin in the Hilux. I LOVE THIS TRUCK!! I don't care about the price, this is going to be my next truck. We'll be in Maun for a few days before heading out on our trek through the Moremi game reserve in the Okavango Delta. Then we'll come back to Maun to refuel and resupply. Then we'll make our big one day push to Chobe game reserve, about 400 kilometers off road in one day. The itinerary has us in Chobe for two days then over the border to Zimbabwe and Victoria Falls before heading home. I'm hoping to at least pop into Zambia and add another stamp to the passport. Maybe try to hit Namibia and Angola as well. We'll just have to see where the trip takes us.
Another day older in Botswana, and another piece of luggage richer. Supposedly the other bag will be here tomorrow.
An exciting day of offroading - getting the bag was definitely not the highlight of the day. After breakfast and check out of our hotel we headed off to find a water hole in a nearby park that was supposed to have some good year round game viewing. Never found the water hole, but had a great time getting there. I feel like I really have a touch with the truck. After a day of driving I think I've been totally won over by the Toyota Hilux.
I will admit to our first flat tire today. I don't know what caused it. But it did take us a while to figure out the unfamiliar jack, and how to get the spare tire from underneath the truck. The worst part of it was the tires. Not so much the tires, but what was on them. See, animals love roads. In this part of Botswana, it's cows and donkeys. And, well, there is literally shit all over the roads. You try to avoid the big piles, but inevitably you run some down. So, you wind up with tires that are covered in a mix of dirt, mud, and shit. Lot's of fun. We decide to keep the spare in the back of the truck - easier to get to, less shit to deal with.
The land here continues to be very reminiscent of the upper midwest. I've gone from the rolling hills of the Transvaal, reminding me of home in Minnesota; to the utterly flat ancient lakebed of Botswana reminding me of North Dakota.
One of the other things I found interesting today was the people we saw and their way of life. Many of them really do live in a kraal of thatched huts. The main livestock seems to be goats and donkeys, with some herds of cattle here and there. The donkeys are everywhere. In fact, most of the animals just seem to wander around. There are no fences, but most of the animals are branded. Seems like a pretty lousy way of handling ones main assets in life. But it may be more of a reflection of the nature of the Batswana. They are some of the friendliest people I've ever met, and I'm told that they are exceedingly honest.
Another new thing for me was the “Veterinary Control Points.” There is, I'm told, a disease endemic to the native buffalo that is very deadly to domesticated cattle. Considering that cattle is the biggest export in Botswana, it is apparent why they have gone to such lengths to prevent the spread of the disease. THere is a massive network of fences across the country that supposedly keeps the cattle and the buffalo separated. The only places to cross the fence are at inspection stations. They are always looking for meat. I wonder what impact a bit of dead meat has when they seem to be trying to control live cattle. But the people are always friendly, and one of the inspectors looked on as we changed our first flat tire.
Before I forget, here's a rundown of a few of the villages and places we passed through today: Motepi, Kumaga, Makgadinkgadi game reserve. Peter tells me I need to slow down and chill out and get into vacation mode.
We are somewhere in Africa. I'm pretty sure about that. Exactly where is another matter!
Our destination was the Okavango Horse Safari camp. Most guests fly in on a light plane - we were taking the truck. Our first stop was their base just outside Maun. This took some doing, and about 5 stops to ask for directions. We kept passing this donkey road kill on the side of the road. As we kept trying to circle in on the base, that donkey kept serving as our landmark. No, keep going, we haven't passed the donkey yet. Ok last time we tried the first road after the donkey, now let's try the second. We eventually found it, and the wonderful Nina who was running the base and looking after her new brood of Rhodesian Ridgeback puppies. We had some coffee, and loaded up the truck with some supplies they asked us to bring up to the camp.
Then came time for directions to the camp. Directions without a real map can be a very subjective sort of thing. And there aren't any real maps for this part of the world. The best topo maps I could buy covered a full third of the country of Botswana, and were last updated sometime in the 70s. Not to mention the fact that somebody is always trying to blaze a better trail, cut a new path, find a new waterhole. So the directions went something like this. Go out of town. At the small white market, hang a right. This road will turn into a dirt road. Now the dirt road will split off into a thousand muddy tracks. Take whichever one grabs your fancy, they all head in the same direction. Eventually you'll come to the vet fence. You'll probably want to take a left on the road that runs along the fence to get to the crossing. But if you don't come to the crossing after a while, it probably means you came out on the left on the crossing, so you should turn around and head the other way. When you go through the crossing, there will be an immediate fork in the road. Go to the left. After about a quarter mile, there will be another fork - go to the left. Then about four miles later, there will be another fork, go to the left. Now, after a while, you'll find a fork and you can see a lone palm tree on the horizon. This time go to the right. After a little bit you'll see a game blind, which is close to the camp. Keep going and you'll come right into camp. Now, if you miss that right hand fork and go left instead, don't worry because that road eventually meanders around back to camp. Sort of makes a big circle. Good luck!
And with that and another cup of coffee with Nina and the puppies, we headed out. Out of town, on to the thousand roads going to the same place, to the fence. Well, we got to the fence and decided to take a break and a picture. We opened up the back to find food all over the place. We had been told the best thing to do was to buy a couple of cheap styrofoam coolers, fill them with ice, and eat like a gourmet for the rest of the trip. Well, the styrofoam didn't hold up to the roads too well. Or maybe it was our driving. Anyhow, add a new real cooler to the list for the resupply in Maun. The next decision was left or right - which side of the fence crossing were we on. GPS time!!
Map in hand (the map did show the crossing we wanted to be at), this grid point and that grid point, Peter it looks like we need to travel about 600 meters to the left and the crossing should be right there. OK, quick picture and into the truck. Sure enough, 600 meters later we were at the crossing. Boy, this technology is great. This trip is going to be a cinch!
Ok, now first 3 forks left, fourth fork right, there's the camp. Right. First fork, ok. Second fork, ok. Third and forth fork, ok. We're driving. We're driving. We're driving. Where the hell is this place!? Ohh, look, giraffes! Our first game of the trip. Just standing there staring at us. And look, there's a baby with it. Wow, this is cool. Ok, time to keep driving, driving, driving, where the hell is this!
We come upon a camp in the woods. There are no horses so we know we aren't in the right place. The people there don't speak english, but seem to understand that we are looking for the horse camp. They point us in the direction we just came from. We turn around and start heading back.
A few minutes later, we spot a land rover bounding along about a half mile away. We chase it down. It is a guide with several guests from the camp we just visited. It turns out we are well past the horse camp. They look at our hand drawn map from the base camp, turn it over, and proceed to draw us a new map from where we are. It amounted to go on this road till it crosses another road and take a right. Then go to the first fork and go left. Go though the big sandy part which is right before a rise into a big grassy plain. Then we should see two big palm trees. Just after that we need to veer to the left. We should see a game blind and that is just outside the horse safari camp. Home free.
So we drive along and try to follow the directions as best we can. Except we keep coming upon palm trees, there is sand everywhere, and when there is not sand there is grass. And as we quickly found out before, there are more forks in the road than one can count.
Well, earlier on the way up I had spotted what might have been a fork in the road, but it was pretty faint. Just some old tracks veering off the main trail into the grassy plain. I had marked it on the GPS thinking it may be what we are looking for. Nina had told us that the last fork we wanted to take was pretty grassy, but we didn't think it would be that faint. We head off back the way we came, following the course already blazed on the GPS.
We are led back to the faint track going off to the right of the main trail. The sun is setting, and we can't really see any palm trees. We decide to blaze on through the grass. The worse that can happen is that we give up and sleep in the truck for the night. Peter and I push on. Peter driving, and me looking out for some sign of life, of human habitation in this wild grassy land of Okavango. There is a large, thick grove of trees off ahead and to the right. I see a flash of light.
In my mind I pass it off as lightening. What better time for a thunderstorm than after a long, hot, dusty day. I keep it to myself, and in my mind pit the beauty of an African storm against the image of lions crawling over the hood of the vehicle as Peter and I try to sleep in unfamiliar territory.
Peter sees the light now, too. And it isn't flashing. There are more of them - in fact there seems to be a camp behind there in the trees. The path we are on is hard to follow. Not only is the trail very faint and covered in grass almost as tall as the truck, but it is pitch black. This is night. Night that the wild only knows. That night right after day where everything is dark, but still awake and abuzz. The trail twists and turns, in the darkness we cannot see why. We just keep on driving. Then with little warning, we are in camp! And actually the right camp!
We are met by PJ and Barney, the owners of the camp, and Kirstin, who was to be our guide. The greetings aside, we are on to our first order of business: the bar. Rum and Coke has never tasted better. We sit around the fire and watch the last shades of the sun disappear below the grassland horizon. It is well past eight, and PJ and Barney have held off on dinner 'till our arrival. We have come during a few open days in their schedule, and are the only guests in camp. We have another round as Peter and I share our tales about our adventure finding the camp.
We move on to a wonderful dinner of pork chops, and food has rarely tasted better to us. A four course meal complete with a decent red wine from South Africa, all here in the middle of nowhere. Never in my wildest dreams could I have thought I would be living such a thing. PJ and Barney tell us about their operation here in the bush, and their backgrounds. PJ looks the part of the British explorer trapped in a time warp from 80 years ago. Smoking an aromatic pipe between is handlebar mustached lips, we discuss politics, especially the Clinton scandal currently rocking the world. Originally from Namibia, PJ has an agreeably conservative attitude about the world. His wife Barney, who is also the resident veterinarian, passes us some more wine.
We retire again to the fire with a round of after-dinner cocktails. Peter and I talk for a while with Kirstin, who will be our guide tomorrow. She first came to Botswana to visit her grandmother. Kirsten fell in love with the country and left her native Scotland to come and be a guide with PJ and Barney. A pretty amazing young woman. I was very tempted to stay for more than the day our itinerary allotted.
But all too soon it was time for bed. Trello, the camp foreman, would wake us around 4:45 in the morning. Coffee would be served around 5:00 and we would ride at sunrise. Sunrise and sunset are usually the best times to view game, as the animals take shelter from the heat of midday. Our horses would also need protection from the heat, so we would return to camp around 10:00 for breakfast and hot showers
