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We left our camp at Sunday pan around 0630 for a leisurely drive out the park, game viewing on the way with not too much distance to cover to get to the Khumaga campsite in Makgadikgadi National Park.

 

The drive out was uneventful, but also I should mention that after leaving Deception valley and heading for Matswere gate and Rakops the road becomes endlessly undulating and monotonous. Of course it was the same as the way in, but guess the novelty of arrival made us take less notice. I suppose we have been spoiled by the variation and beauty of the tracks along the pans in the park.

 

We made our way to Rakops and again they had fuel for us, saving us a ~60km backtrack to Mopipi. A few other travelers arrived all at the same time, but it seemed there was plenty of diesel to go around. We ended up averaging 5.2 km/ltr in the reserve, not great. But fully burdened and in sand and four wheel drive I suppose one shouldn’t expect much better. For comparison we’ve been averaging around 6.5km/ltr or even a bit better while on tar and some good gravel roads. I expect if we didn’t have the drag of all the crap on the roof or we drove a bit slower we’d beat 7km/ltr without too much trouble, but for now that remains elusive.

 

We didn’t rush in Rakops, and bought some produce (oranges, tomato and rape greens) and generally checked around for what town had to offer should we need to provision more in the future. Certainly the stores were not stocked with premium goods but, rice, flour, maize, curry powder (important!), peanut butter, various sauces, canned fish and meat, oil, coffee, tea, cleaning supplies, bottled water, beans and more were all available.

 

I also found Rakops interesting for it’s sophistication, but I suspect that those who have been there may laugh at that word. On the surface Rakops is a dusty town with a mix of dirt and paved roads, little in urban planning in evidence and with cement buildings and traditional rondoval style bomas spread all over. It was windy and clouds of dust were blowing through the air, adding to a sort of backwater feel. Looking past that and we saw people on their smart phones checking the news and in the stores, though they may have partially bare shelves, they took credit cards and had computer based scanning and inventory just like a store you’d find at home. We saw an “Emergency Evacuation Meeting Point” sign and other indicators that this is a perfectly well organized place. On top of that people were all courteous and friendly to us, and as far as we could tell there was no price gouging even though we were clearly foreigners. This is the sort of thing I like when I look around, and the sort of thing I think some might assume Africa doesn’t have. So though things might be a little rough around the edges in parts, but if you look past the surface generally things are pretty together.

 

Not too far up the A13 tar road (1.5 hrs?) we turned off to the village of Khumaga and made our way the Boteti River and the ferry. The ferry is a modest craft, a small steel barge big enough for one of us and maybe a trailer or two small cars. It had two 10 hp outboard motors (one of which was a “Parsun” – never heard of one, but it was a four stroke), one on each end, and it facilitates the crossing of an equally modest river, maybe 50 meters across.

 

The road down to the ferry is deep sand, and there are donkeys and cows and shit all over the sand road to the ferry. And there was no ferry operator. We inquired with a woman siting in the shade of a tree on the bank of the river and she said the ferry operator was at lunch and would be back.

 

While waiting we did consider driving across. A cow was kind enough to make the crossing while we were watching and the water came up to it’s shoulder briefly, so about the height of the hood for us, but mostly would be wheel high or so. We have a snorkel, it’s a land cruiser, what’s the problem?

 

That is quite a deep water crossing, and one is always advised to check the crossing by walking it, not only to verify the depth but also to feel the bottom for traction. How firm is it? And to walk it we’d clearly be walking in a almost still river full of cow excrement. On top of that I don’t think I could handle the indignity (idiocy?) of getting the vehicle stuck in a water crossing while there is a perfectly good ferry 10 meters away. So, as I’m sure many other proud drivers of sturdy 4x4s, we meekly, and maybe wisely, waited for the ferryman.

 

After a lot of waiting (and me desperate to use the head) the ferry operators, two of them, finally arrived, possibly a little drunk. After an overly dramatic salute to Jenny that they were reporting for duty they hopped to it and we were across in no time. It was almost too fast, the ferry being hardly bigger than the land cruiser and listing quite a bit when Jenny drove aboard. It was a lot of fun. After the two minute crossing we splashed down the ramp and were across into the park.

 

We were camped at the Khumaga Campsite about 2km from the gate, but in retrospect I wish we had tried one of the more remote camps deeper into the park. The Khumaga campsite (we were in No. 3) was perfectly fine, but after the isolation of the CKGR it was quite different to be close enough to see your neighbors. The Khumaga campsite is run by a 3rd party operator, and as I understand it the camps deeper in the park are run by the Botswana Parks, so are booked differently and are less expensive.

 

However, there were showers! The ablutions (this is a feature of every South African/self drive safari report, the quality of the ablutions is always detailed. I will endeavor to follow suit, though maybe with less consistency) were impeccable. First, they had water, which is great. The CKGR is a long drop toilet or nothing, i.e. shovel, depending on your campsite. Here there was running water and solar hot water, so…hot water! There is no water available in the CKGR and we were uncertain what our consumption would be, so to play it safe we had only taken one very modest “shower” in that six days. So feeling a bit ripe we had luxurious hot showers, and only one insect came to shower with me, not bad for the bush.

 

Later on I used the toilet, and incongruously there was a motion activated soap dispenser in there. This stuck me as hilarious. There was a sign on the door that said “Keep door closed or snakes, insects and monkeys will enter” and already the the power had gone out while I was showering, monkeys had snuck into our food stores and we had just been looking at elephants and yet here was a motion activated soap dispenser. I hate those things, but unlike the ones you find in airport bathrooms this one actually worked, so that was nice. Africa is a funny place.

 

That night while cooking dinner we heard lions again. In case you’re wondering it didn’t produce the same result as last time. Maybe they were too far away? Regardless, now that we are “veterans of the bush” we responded somewhat differently. I said “I’m going to do some Lion Prep.” And Jenny responded “Cool, dinner is almost ready, can you pour me a glass of wine?” Lion prep consists of making sure the vehicle doors are unlocked, in case we need to rapidly alight to the safety of the cruiser, but also putting my book, camera, drinking water and a pee bottle up in the tent, in case we’re stranded by lions in the tent for some time. This is unlikely, but after reading a report of some people being stuck in their tent all day because a lion had decided to camp out right near the ladder of the tent a few minutes of preparation seemed appropriate.

 

I don’t think this blaséness is as foolish as it sounds. Lions are not common, it’s not like raccoons getting in your trash (that’s baboons and monkeys) and it seems that at night they often announce their presence while calling each other. Of course we must be cautious, but lion attacks are uncommon and particularly in a tightly grouped campsite the odds are in our favor.

 

The next day we went on morning and evening game drives. In this park we were advised that the game was all concentrated along the river, so that is were we focused our efforts. We managed a water crossing, but not too dramatic, maybe the height of the rims or maybe the tires at most. Still, fun times. The river valley was beautiful, and we were treated to a spectacular sunset with some big bull elephants that arrived almost as if directed and posed for the sunset. Staying along the river bank we unfortunately didn’t make it to the Makgadikgadi plains and salt pans proper, so we did miss out on this. I would like to check out the other camp sites and the salt pans on a future trip.

 

The drives in the river valleys had deep sand, and once or twice we did use low range to ensure a smooth passage across a few sections or up from the river onto the ridge road. We saw lots of elephant, giraffe, kudu, impala and a few hippos. Also a huge amount of birds, if only we knew what they were!

 

The Makgadikgadi proved a great stop, and after two nights we were on to Nxai Pan (pronoucned “Nai”, as we gather anyway). In the future I think I’d spend an extra day here to explore inland, but the staff seemed to think this was unnecessary, and probably they know that is best as far as game. We elected to drive to Nxai Pan out through the park instead of going back across the ferry. On our way out we had a brief sighting of 2 cheetah crossing the road, but they hung back about 100 meters in the bush and we lost sight of them. Onward to Nxai Pan.