Dedication

I want to dedicate this post to Stan Weakley, who sadly passed away recently. Stan was a fellow traveler and wrote an extensive blog, Slow Donkey, about his 2015 overland trip to East Africa with his wife Anne. He also wrote of numerous other trips and his enthusiasm for African travel was infectious. Stan and Anne’s travels inspired many to undertake trips of their own and he is greatly missed. Lala salama my friend. Stan’s reports can be found here and here.

To Maun

My last post (it was a while ago) finished in Windhoek, which lies at 1650 meters elevation and made for a chilly morning as we started our day in Urbancamp. Readying ourselves to begin the drive to Botswana we stopped at Deluxe Coffworks on the way out of town to spoil ourselves with delicious coffee and croissants. After all, we had just got the car cleaned so one must break it in by getting flakey pastry crumbs all over the place.

The road east to the border is easy going and the kilometers slipped passed our windows. The dry scrub land and rolling hills that got flatter and flatter as we headed to the border. The Buitepos border crossing is straightforward and we passed through quickly. This border isfrequently used by tourists and the authorities are unfazed by self drive foreigners like ourselves.

Just past the border into Botswana is a weigh bridge, normally used to verify the big lorries are not overladen. On a vehicle like ours overloading one’s vehicle is bad on all fronts, hard on the chassis, suspension, the canopy, fuel economy, and potentially dangerous as it affects stability and braking. Like anyone else we hesitate, cringe a bit and step on the scale once in a while and see how we’re doing. 

I received permission from a somewhat confused attendant who looked on while Jenny drove the Cruiser onto the scale. I went to the booth to check our weight. 3460 kgs. That is a heavy Cruiser and no amount of resisting dessert will solve the problem. More on vehicle weight in the Nitty Gritty.

Some sort of madness came over us on this day and instead of stopping to camp outside Ghanzi as planned we drove all the way to Maun. This gave us a couple low pressure days in Maun before our friends flew in to meet us. I made a “trailer” of our trip, to get you excited.

Maun

Gerry and Ronda are friends from California who had never been to Africa before. Against sound judgement they had entrusted us to plan the safari for them, we would be their “guides” in the loosest sense of the word. They rented a Land Cruiser Bushcamper from Bushlore and we would travel in tandem through the Moremi Game Reserve and Chobe National Park, finishing in Kasane. 

Although we’ve been to Moremi and Chobe before, the crème de la crème of Botswana’s wilderness, we had not been in the prime season. This time we’d be hitting the season just right and we were really looking forward to it.

Before Gerry and Ronda arrived we took a stab at fixing our passenger side window. For weeks (months?) this window had only responded to the command to go up under protest, and even then not consistently. Sometimes we physically push the glass around to get it unjammed. Happily we had obtained the long sought after part, the regulator mechanism, in Windhoek, from Auto Repairs Etzold. Incidentally they now source all their parts from Toyota Japan, as they were having too much trouble with parts availability from Toyota SA. 

Taking the door apart only takes a minute, and we are champs at this, having dismantled the door dozens of times before to try to fix either the window switch (on the driver side a few years ago), unjam the glass or find an unrelenting rattle a while back.

We carry a copy of the Haynes repair manual for the 70 series cruiser, which doesn’t cover our engine, but does cover every other aspect of the vehicle. This handy manual gave us easy to follow instructions on replacing the regulator, though frankly it is pretty simple and I think we could have managed it without the book. About 30 minutes later, voila! A buttery smooth fully functioning window. Luxury and a sense of accomplishment.

With our various looping around Botswana this was my fifth time in Maun since May. Though Maun has a certain dusty charm to it, I was getting a little tired of it and I was antsy to get into the bush. Town was positively bustling compared to when I drove through in May where hardly a tourist was about. Now it was peak tourist season and this being the first year of the pandemic that international travel was really practical people appeared to be making up for lost time.

We did enjoy the excellent food here, with delicious breakfast at the Duck, amazing healthy lunch bowls at the Dusty Donkey and an upmarket dinner at Marc’s. These cafes really stand out, offering a standard that is normally only found in parts of South Africa. Their fresh food and great menus would compete easily with hip cafes in California but are happily much less expensive.

Gerry and Ronda arrived as scheduled. The next day we picked up their vehicle from Bushlore, getting the full orientation on how to use the 4×4 and all the features of the camper. Including a water heater for showers! Gerry is a very experienced driver who has done a lot of amateur racing and he was excited to get off-road.

Provisioning is easy in Maun, and with two vehicles to share some of the load we went a bit crazy stocking up on all the goodies. In one episode we stopped at the butcher to get eggs, much better quality than at the supermarket. When we came out to the Cruiser our hands were full and Jenny set the carton of eggs on the spare tire to free up a hand to unlock the car. We loaded the rest of our stuff inside and just drove away. 

After pulling into traffic we shuddered over a few potholes and a look of panic flashed across Jenny’s face, followed by “Stop!” She remembered she’d left the eggs on the spare tire. To the annoyance of our the drivers behind us we halted in the busy Maun traffic and hopped out of the car to see if by some miracle the eggs had survived balancing on the spare tire. They had! When the driver behind us saw what I retrieved his face went from annoyance to astonishment and then a big smile. 

Before leaving town we took a scenic flight over the delta. I had asked the company a while back about flights and they said just call the day before we want to go. We did this, and they told us they were fully booked, leaving us with only the more expensive helicopter flight option. We discussed with the team and made the splurge.

This was fantastic. Their regular helicopters were all out in the Delta dropping off clients at exclusive lodges and this meant they took us up in the Okavango Air Rescue helicopter which has the doors taken off. Flying in a helo is a very different sensation than an airplane, a slightly wobbly floating feeling, and with the doors off we felt like a bird gazing down upon the wilderness.

From up high the delta looked wet. The pilot had been working here for several years and confirmed that this was about as wet as he’d ever seen it. Later in camp pondered this information soberly as we imagined our fate over the next days exploring the tracks in Moremi, notorious for water crossings. Every year many a vehicle is lost or damaged to a failed water crossing in Moremi.

The view from the air is stunning, it was really wonderful to see huge herds of buffalo grazing in the flood planes, and I particularly enjoyed seeing hippos congregating on shore, nestled together like a handful of grey peanuts. The Okavango is mostly inaccessible wetland and really the only way to see what makes up the majority of the delta is from the air. It really helped put the next days of safari in perspective, where really we would just be nibbling around the edges.

That night Gerry and Ronda got to try their hand at camping in the easy confines of Audi Camp, just north of Maun. Ronda confessed that they hadn’t been camping in decades and there was some trepidation about signing up for this adventure, so a ‘practice’ night before being in the bush was welcomed. 

In the morning they pronounced themselves very happy with their camping setup, it was much nicer than they had anticipated. It was time to head into the bush. 

Into Moremi

To orient the unfamiliar, the Okavango river comes into Botswana from the northwest, originating from a watershed in Angola, passing briefly through Namibia and eventually flowing into Botswana. It is the largest of the very few rivers in the world that never reaches lake nor ocean, instead spreading into the Kalahari desert to form an enormous wetland.

The Okavango Delta is unique in this sense and forms a habitat for large numbers of megafauna. A large part of the Delta is protected, called the Moremi Game Reserve, managed by the Botswana Department Wildlife and National Parks (DWNP). 

Most of the Delta is only accessible by boat or air. Deep into the wetland there are numerous luxury safari lodges where guests must fly in. At the eastern edge of this wetland is an area that is accessible by road, just, and that is were we intend to visit. North of Moremi Game Reserve is Chobe National Park, which includes the Savuti area as well as the riverfront along the Chobe river. The north shore of the Chobe river is Namibia and Zambia.

These areas represent the most trod territory for self drive safaris of anywhere we’ve been on this entire trip. It is common for South Africans to make a sojourn up for a holiday and there are also many 4×4 rental companies catering primarily to Europeans. Itineraries often include some variation of what we’re doing. 

There are only seven public camps (as in, not fancy lodges) within these parks, and each of those has about 10 sites. These are frequently booked months or even more than a year in advance. Even though people drive through here all the time it is still serious wilderness. The camps are unfenced, cars get stuck in water crossings, tires are sacrificed, baboons steal food from camp, and over the years a few unfortunate people have had dangerous or even fatal encounters with wildlife. 

As the tar ran out we stopped to air down the tires. Gerry and Ronda were feeling the anticipation. As an introduction they got their first “African massage” as we drove over the violent corrugations of the B334, huge clouds of white dust being kicked up by our tires. It is not a comfortable stretch of road.

After making the turn the road improves and we started to see some animals. It is wonderful to watch your friends get their first glimpse of wildlife, first a few impala, a lone zebra, and finally a couple elephants. Each time we stopped and our friends had huge smiles on their faces. And we hadn’t even gotten to the park yet. Bushlore had provided handheld radios so we could chat between the vehicles and point out sightings.

At the gate we checked in with ease. We had paid all our park fees at the Maun DWNP office, no messing around with payment was necessary. Our first night was booked at Xakanaxa, about as deep into Moremi as one can go by road. On the way we lucked out and saw a sable antelope with their magnificent scimitar horns, a rare sighting in Botswana. 

Moremi came into its own with wonderful scenes of zebra, impala, elephant and baboon all cavorting about. Gerry and Ronda were amazed and soaking it all in. It added a lot of fun for us that they were getting such a kick out of it. You know your safari friends are easy to please when they didn’t want to move on from the first set of baboons we saw. We are jaded, normally considering baboons as trouble, with their camp raids stealing whatever they can get their hands on and having a tendency to shit in inconvenient places (camp table top, fire pit, hood of the car).

Moremi was indeed wet, much wetter than we’d seen it on our previous visit, but that had been in November after a long dry spell. Now the water was so heigh that many game viewing tracks were inaccessible, including out to the popular dead tree island area. A guide told us “No! Don’t even think about it. We are not going out there either and you will certainly get stuck.” 

Often the advice for water crossings is, “Don’t.” Simply take another track around. But with many tracks already unnavigable our area of exploration was curtailed enough and we did allow a few water crossings that we judged safe. We evaluated them by either seeing fresh tire tracks and wet sand at either end, a sign that the crossing had just been passed by someone else, or we got out to walk the crossing. The first water crossing was a success and it put a grin on Gerry’s face that lasted at least ten minutes.

As for walking water crossings, this must be done with particular care that there are no animals about. I read a story online recently of a fellow that did this and lost a leg to a crocodile in a shallow crossing. This is probably why technically you’re not supposed to get out of your car in the reserve, except at designated spots like picnic sights, gates and campsites. In practice it seems the park staff more tolerant, when it is appropriate, than in other parks.

We checked in at Xakanaxa midday to find our spot. As is so common, there was a double booking for our spot. Both parties had legitimate bookings from Kwalate Safaris. The staff here are pros at untangling this sort of thing which happens all the time. They offered us to either camp right next to the ablutions or in an unofficial spot that is between campsite 8 and 9. We chose the latter, dubbing it Site 8 ½.

This was fairly close to site 9 and we chatted with the campers there, fearing we were intruding. On the contrary they had never camped in an unfenced campsite before and were more comfortable having neighbors close by.

After some lounge time and organizing a boat trip into the Delta for the following day we spent the rest of the afternoon on a proper game drive. It didn’t yield anything extraordinary but was still great fun. All the usual suspects were out, impala, zebra, elephant, buffalo, waterbuck, lechwe, baboons and giraffe, and we got one or two more water crossings while we wandered our way through the maze of tracks south of camp. 

Feeling generous we returned to camp early, so that our friends could settle into camp un-rushed before it got dark. We were rewarded with a spectacular sunset over the wetlands. 

In the morning we got cracking pre-dawn for a proper morning game drive. Gerry, serious about his coffee, brought a hand coffee grinder and Aeropress and was hand grinding coffee by headlamp in the pre dawn darkness. That is dedication! 

It was another fun game drive and we worked the area south of camp towards third bridge, making it as far as fourth bridge before turning around. Again a number of loops were completely swamped. What a contrast to when to our visit in November. It was really special to see the seasonal difference. A guide gave us a tip about a lion sighting, but after much driving around in mopane scrub it proved fruitless.

In the afternoon we made a long boat trip into the Delta. I had some vague recollection of someone saying that it’s not worth going for just two hours, because you just get to the interesting part when you have to turn around. Perhaps this is true, but I also think the boat operators calibrate their speed so that they don’t burn too much fuel, so the extra hours of boating may not directly translate into that much more into the delta. In our case I think we went for three hours and this was more than enough time in the boat for us.

Regardless we saw a good pod of hippos, a very fat nile crocodile and a fairly animated elephant that was not happy about our presence. Jenny and I did a boat trip from Xakanaxa in November and we both thought we saw quite a bit more on that trip, particularly bird life. It comes down to luck I suppose? 

The Xakanaxa campsite is wonderful. The sites are all stretched along the water and there is almost always good birdlife. Elephants had been wandering through camp but thankfully left us alone. The camps out towards the end are definitely far enough from the ablutions that one wonders whether walking for a shower at dusk is really that wise. For the most part we take care of that stuff during daylight. 

From Xakanaxa we were off to Khwai Magotho camp. This is 70 kilometers away, which doesn’t sound like a long drive but considering it is almost all sandy tracks in the park, barring a little bit of corrugated gravel through Khwai village. On the way towards the Khwai gate we saw a huge amount of tracks on the road, including what must have been a large pride of lions. Gerry and Ronda were starting to appreciate our excitement over tracks a bit and we doubled back a couple times looking for the pride. No luck, and I was starting to get a little stressed about delivering the big game for our friends.

Dombo HIppo Pools made for a great stop to make a second coffee and do a little bird watching and pick out a few hippos and crocs in the distance from the rickety hide. And here we heard about some wild dogs. 

Off we went, following the typical guidance of “They’re a few kilometers up where the track branches sitting by a tree…” Famous last words, for the track branches a dozen times and there are trees everywhere, but miraculously we did find them. A half dozen or so wild dogs sleeping in the shade. They perked up enough at our arrival that we could get a good look at them, but they clearly weren’t going to be up for hours, sleeping through the midday heat. It was great to be able to show our friends these endangered animals.

Onward we went to Khwai Magotho. We had never been to this particular spot before, which is a community run concession on the north bank of the Khwai river, with the national park on the south bank. We zigged and zagged our way through narrow tracks and made a couple small water crossings to drive along the riverfront to the campsite. 

The campsites are all spread out over quite a large area, none particularly close to another. It wasn’t clear to us where we were supposed to check in, but we ran into one of the camp staff making his rounds. He directed not only to our camp but also to a pair of leopards.

This was a welcome surprise and off we went in search of leopards. Reportedly they were on an impala kill, so they weren’t likely to have moved. After a bit of hunting around we found them, deep inside a thicket. We had actually already driven by this same spot on our way in, but the cats were deeply camouflaged and without the tip off we had missed them.

When we showed up there was one other car looking at them, but after we settled in quite a crowd developed and there was much jockeying for position in tight quarters. The leopards didn’t seem to take offense, but eventually we felt it too crowded and left.

Khwai Mogotho has a different feel than the national park that is just on the opposite bank of the river. The difference is mostly because on the Mogotho side the campsites are dispersed throughout the concession. This is nice in one way, in that the camps are spaced a hundred meters apart or more, but odd in the sense that when we drove around I sort of felt like we were always driving close to someone’s campsite, an unavoidable intrusion given the layout of the roads.

We were initially assigned campsite 12, quite away back from the river. This spot, like most at Mogotho, is quite far from the ablutions. We did walk during the day a few times, but it felt like a stretch and at other times we drove. During the night it was definitely unsafeto walk.

After the first night we managed to get an unoccupied space right on the river and we spent two nights there enjoying a wonderful view. Elephants grazed on the bank, waterbuck tiptoed through the shallows and life in the bush was excellent. 

One day I baked bread on the fire in the dutch oven. We don’t do this often because the timing requires the bread to proof for a few hours in the afternoon and doesn’t like to be jostled about in the vehicle. This time I left the bread proofing in the shade, in the dutch oven with a wet towel draped over it to keep it from getting too warm. To protect it from baboons or other scavengers I strapped the lid through the handles and synched it down tight so animals would, hopefully, not be able to get the pot open. Such are the struggles of the bush baker. This worked very well and we were rewarded with fresh bread with dinner.

Another interesting sighting at Khwai was a dead elephant in the river. The classic line from The Endless Summer, “You should’ve been here yesterday,” applies. Apparently a pride of 12 lions was feeding on the elephant carcass, but crocodiles from the river were also interested and a fight between crocs and lions ensued. Sadly we missed this NatGeo episode, though we did see crocodiles still grappling with the puzzle of how to get their jaws around the massive prize of an elephant carcass. 

From Mogotho we moved north to Savuti. We only managed to get a single night booking here, so it would be a stepping stone on our way north. Just past the Mababe gate, where we officially passed into Chobe National Park, we took the marsh road north and stopped at a watering hole. Just as we were about to move on we spotted a lion, perfectly camouflaged by her sandy coat. She kept looking up, out at something and lo, we spotted a large male in the distance that was guarding another elephant carcass. 

Full grown elephants are too big for lions to kill so in this case, and that of the one at the river, I feel confident that these elephants died by other means and the lions were feeding opportunistically. A few moments later a hyena came loping out of the bush and made a few furtive approaches towards the elephant, but each time the male lion ran him off. Watching different species interact, particularly predators, makes for a special sighting.

Moving north, worried about time, we joined the faster sand ridge road which was indeed very sandy. With the tires deflated we churned north well enough. Part way along we found a car with a trailer of provisions for one of the camps that was bogged in the sand. We stopped to help them out, rigging up a simple tow strap. Jerry and Ronda got the full experience of helping out a fellow traveler, as many have helped us, and we managed to pull them out without drama.

At the Savuti campsite we checked in and found our spot, settling in for an afternoon break from the long drive from Khwai. 

After so many months on the road traveling alone it was a real pleasure to travel in tandem with Gerry and Ronda. Of course we meet and talk to people all the time, but in almost all of those interactions it’s the first time we’ve met those people and will also probably be the last. Traveling with friends has a certain depth and we enjoyed our evenings around the fire that much more as we rehashed the day’s experiences. Part II of Friend safari is next. Savuti, Thobolos, Ihaha, Kasane and Victoria Falls.

The Nitty Gritty

Maun Provisioning Notes:

Even though we’ve been to Maun several times we still haven’t settled on the best spot for provisioning. There is a new mall with a shiny new Spar on the north end of town, but even though it is bigger than the old Spar in town it wasn’t as well stocked. We’ve also tried the Shopright, which we find good in other towns but the Maun edition is lackluster. Maun is oddly lacking in the fresh produce and fruit department, especially when compared to Namibia where the stock has much more variety and higher quality. If pressed I would say the old Spar is the place to go.

Also Meat Boys, by the Riley’s Garage, has meat (of course) but also higher quality eggs than the supermarket, as well as a few other hard to find odds and ends such as rice noodles, curry paste and good biltong. 

Meat Boys will also deep freeze whatever you want ahead of time if you call ahead. This is nice because you can even have it portioned per meal, so you don’t have to thaw too much of any one thing. For this trip we were traveling with one of the rarest species in Africa, vegetarians, so this particular service was not required.

A note on weight and GVM

The max GVM on our license disc is 3200 kgs, so the stop at the weigh bridge confirmed what we already knew, we were officially overloaded. On the brighter side the makers of our upgraded suspension, Old Man Emu (OME), sell a GVM upgrade for this vehicle that would put us back in the green. We don’t have the official GVM upgrade (not available on used vehicles or, as far as I know, in South Africa), but as near as I can tell our upgrade has all the same components, it just doesn’t come with the official certificate. This doesn’t mean that our weight isn’t hard on the vehicle, but it does mean that we are far safer than we would be if we were overloaded and still on the stock suspension.

Khwai Mogotho vs. Khwai Nortgate

Confusingly there are two Khwai camps. One is called “Khwai North Gate” and likes on the south bank of the Khwai river, inside the Moremi Game Reserve. The second is Khwai Mogotho” which lies on the north bank of the river and in a concession held by the community in the Khwai Development Trust. 

Camping at North Gate is more expensive, not only in price, but because you’re inside the reserve still you pay for camping as well as reserve fees. The North Gate campsite is more compact, with the reserve extending around the camp. When you leave camp here you are in the wilderness with camps and lodges few and far between, constrained to very limited areas.

At Mogotho the campsites are spread apart so far that you almost feel you’ve never left the camp site. In truth I suppose that maybe 30% of the area has campsites here and there, but this is some of the prime wildlife viewing area, meaning there are vehicles game driving back and forth most of the time, either past your camp or we felt we were intruding a bit on others by driving close to their campsite so often. It is however a congenial atmosphere and everyone seems good natured about it. 

Tour operators are allowed to set up substantially sized mobile safari camps and this too can be a little obtrusive, with supply and staff vehicles going to and fro adding to the traffic. At our originally assigned campsite the noise of staff setting up a large mobile safari camp went long after dark.

We would certainly stay at Mogotho again, particularly given the cost savings of the park fees, but I don’t think it gets a 100% unequivocal endorsement. DWNP recently changed the fee rules so that you have to pay on the day you exit a park and the day you enter. This means most are paying twice when traveling the popular route from Moremi to Savuti campsite in Chobe National Park. Breaking the trip at Mogotho for at least one night is an excellent way to avoid double payment on one day and spend an extra day in the bush.

Fess: 

Khwai North Gate: International is $50 pppn for camping + 270 Pula pppd meaning a single night at Khwai North Gate is $50 + 540P (~$45 USD depending on exchange rate) = $95 USD pppn to stay at North Gate, since you have to pay the park fee for the both dates. Rates for SADC and Botswana residents are cheaper and can be found here and official DWNP fees are here.

Khwai Mogotho on the other hand is much less expensive, at 360 pppn (350 + levy), with no other fees, working out to $27 pppn, and no other fees. Quite a savings! 

There are some good maps and info about the Khwai Development Trust here.

After exiting the gate there is a short stretch of tarmac and then a left into Nxai Pan.  The road into Nxai Pan main park area is not good.  It’s widened to three tracks wide in most places, with people looking for fresh sand that isn’t heavily corrugated, but this has failed to find any improvement.  So for most of the 30+ kilometers in to the park we suffered along the corrugations, though not too bad I suppose in the end.

The watering hole just before the gate was full of elephant, so we had a great introduction to Nxai Pan watching a group of bulls playing in the watering hole.  

After checking in at the gate we saw there is a small but well stocked “tuck shop” at the gate selling beer, snacks and a few other sundries, impressive for such a small store.  We were running short on beer, as we’d showed up before the bottle shops were open in Rakops, so we picked up two very expensive six packs.  The do have a corner on the market I suppose.

We started by checking out our campsite, No. 2, at South Camp. It was perfectly fine, but again we realized how spoiled we were in the CKGR with wide open spaces all alone, whereas this campground we were still in semi-close proximity to our neighbors.  

The ablutions (note: toilet/showers/restrooms are referred to as ablutions, at least at camp sites anyway) were the same as at Khumaga, probably because they are run by the same 3rd party, but with one significant difference.  It seems elephant are a problem here, because the ablution block is fortified like a P.O.W. camp.  It has a chain link fence, electrified, surrounded, on both sides of the fence by a more than two meters wide swath of rebar spikes in concrete, so that elephants can’t step close to the fence.  There was a narrow path, maybe eight inches wide, for people to walk between the spikes to the gate.  Don’t trip!  

Things is a good reminder of an important issue with elephants and wild game in general.  We are prone to romanticizing them, and though they do deserve all of our appreciation and more, I think we should all also appreciate the difficulty that lies in living near these great animals and the clash when they collide with humans.

When you see what it takes to protect something as simple as an ablution block, think of what it takes to protect a farm, or your home.  Also around the park were numerous useless cement block signs because they were knocked over.  I wonder how often the park staff righted those blocks before giving up?  

When checking into the park we saw a compensation sheet for locals, compensation for livestock lost to lion kills, for pula/hectare of crops lost to elephant damage.  Seeing this and the fortifications around some areas certainly gives us a moment of pause to consider the confrontation between wild animals and man.  I don’t know what the solutions are, and with Botswana having a relatively low population density I imagine it is less of a problem here than in some other places.  

I did read about a project where farmers had bee hives spaced around the perimeter of their fields.  Apparently elephants hate bees (a funny image) and would avoid those crops, and the farmers would also end up with honey to use or sell.  Of course there is a scalability problem, and perhaps the elephants would eventually overcome their fear, but I thought it was an interesting idea.

Nxai Pan was beautiful, similar the smaller pans in the CKGR, but larger.  We heard lions that night in South Camp, but no sightings of cats that night or the morning after.  We didn’t see a lot of other people here, maybe 6 other vehicles that were camped in South Camp and a couple safari company vehicles.  

The roads in Nxai Pan were decent in places, but it must have been very wet earlier in the season as you could see a lot of deeply rutted sections in the road.  In many of the places people had driven along side these for a clear path, widening the road.  Then those must have become rutted and they would drive again wider still, resulting in a maze of rutted tracks 50’ wide.  I wonder at the ecological impact of this and if there is a better way?  It’s also curious that we didn’t see this elsewhere in our admittedly limited explorations, so why here?  I did notice that the safari operators use very large old international trucks instead of the standard land cruiser or land rover vehicles, perhaps those heavier vehicles are part of the problem? 

When we provisioned in Gabaronne we had assumed that we would be able to re-provision between the CKGR and the Makgadikdadi.  We had stretched our stores longer than we thought, and so had not made much effort to shop before coming here.  

Now provisions were running low and so dinner was getting weird.  Then Jenny said “What if we had broccoli and I made french fries?”  I responded with a long silence, as I took a moment to appreciate Jenny.  I love broccoli.  I love French fries, and it has never occurred to me that we could make them on their own.  She took this silence as disapproval, and started to change tack, but I quickly assured her that would be fantastic.  So we had broccoli and French fries for dinner and heard the call of lions again, and again appreciated our situation.  

Baine’s Baobabs

After a night at South Camp we had reserved a night at Baine’s Baobabs site No. 1.  This is something like 30km south east, along side a salt pan.  At the gate they told us that camp No. 1 was inaccessible and that we were being reassigned to No. 2.  

After the turnoff towards Baine’s from the main road the terrain changes quickly and widens out in to broad savannah.  We saw elephants, orxy, impala and zebra, but not in much density, presumably due to minimal water.  

There are two approach roads to Baine’s, and at they gate they had told us which one to take, but in the slew of instructions provided we forgot that one, and foolishly didn’t write it down.  We took the southern road, but after we arrived at the pan we sort of started to think that we were supposed to take the northern road.  Our route took us across the pan in a few stretches, and this is very soon after the wet season so the pan surface is mostly not drivable.  

This is not a pan like those encountered in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve.  Those are meadows, fertile with grass for grazing animals.  This is a salt pan.  At the edges there was a dry crust, and but we walked out into the middle and it quickly becomes muddy, and you can see where a few people had tried to drive off the track and started immediately to dig deep ruts with their tires.  

We weighed driving back and taking the northern road, but what we had traveled so far hadn’t been in great condition and I didn’t really want to drive it again.  It did appear that others had driven here, and we planned to stick to their tracks and proceed cautiously.  So we crept along and proceeded with no problems.  

In a few sections that looked concerning I put it in low range and was ready to either gun it to maintain momentum or back out quickly.  Jenny walked a few sections and used a steel rod (from our tent rain fly) to probe the surface.  

In the end we made in with no problems, and perhaps we were being overly cautious, but getting stuck and waiting for rescue in the pans seemed like it would be awful.  

Baine’s Baobabs is really impressive. Sometimes referred to as a Tree Island, as clumps of baobabs occur elsewhere, or clumps of trees along an open pan.  Here four very mighty trees and several smaller ones, standing along the edge of the salt pan.  The contrast is so stark and impressive it is hard to describe.  For me a baobab tree always evokes a sensation of respect, wisdom, patience, but these were massive, the largest I have seen, and their mightiness and their grandeur was overwhelming.  We sat and took in their presence.  Thinking about how long they have stood here and being able to share a few moments of their perhaps 1,000 years in this spot was a great privilege.  

Looking in the pan near the trees you could see a few elephant tracks in the mud of the pan.  They had struck out into the pan, but then when the mud became too deep you could see they took a wide arc and circled back.  I wonder why they go into the pan?  Are they attracted to the salt, or where they headed to the island across the pan and had to turn back?  

After taking in the trees for a while we decided to check out our campsite.  It’s about a 20 minute drive along the edge of the pan to get to camp No. 2, and 10 more minutes to No. 3.

Campsite No. 2 is fantastic.  At first I had been slightly disappointed that we were camping “so far” from the Baine’s Baobabs.  But this site is situated between two large baobabs, with a long drop toilet and bucket shower stall (BYO water) about 50 meters off to the side.  This was another fantastic solitary campsite, no one around anywhere and we were really appreciating it.    

There wasn’t much evidence of wildlife in the area, so we spent a slow afternoon in camp making lunch and hanging around camp enjoying the trees and the setting.  We returned to Baine’s Baobabs in the afternoon to hang around for sunset.  A couple vehicles and a safari group came and went, but much to our surprise no one stayed longer than 30 minutes and we had the trees all to ourselves most of the time.  

After sunset we returned to camp and enjoyed pasta and roasted vegetables for dinner.  There had been some cloud cover, but with perfect timing the clouds cleared at sunset and we had a wonderful view of the milky way and the stars and we again marveled at how fortunate we are to be here in this place.

Sunday Pan, Central Kalahari Game Reserve to Makgadikgadi National park.

The primary activity of any safari is the game drive.  This is normally undertaken in the early hours of the day or the late afternoon, when animals are most active and you have the best chance of seeing game, and hopefully predators on the hunt.  Occasionally we talk ourselves into maximizing game viewing with an all day game drive, but after the day heats up, the wind dies and the game becomes sedate while conserving energy in the heat of the sun this usually results in road weariness and some “Why are we doing this?” irritability sometime after lunch.

In the CKGR game is more sparse than in other parks, but so are people and so though sightings are less frequent they are often made alone.  This makes each sighting something to savor and quite special.

For us we try, and emphasis on try, to be on the road before sunrise.  Sunrise now is about 0640, so we’ve been aiming, without success, to get on the road about 0615.  But usually we’re not too far after this.

Jenny does not like to get up in the morning, and it becomes a tug of war between our very cozy tent and her bladder.  When it is dark and cold outside it is doubly hard to coax her out of the tent.  But the potential of sighting lions and other wildlife is much better in the early morning.  So usually I get up and start the kettle, and when I am making tea or coffee Jenny gets up and and on her way out of the tent prepares it for folding up.

One positive of the roof top tent is that you don’t need to take all the bedding out when you put it away, but of course you do need to fold it up every time you drive off, and so our bedding must be folded just so to make the tent collapse and fold cleanly.  About a half hour after I get up we’ll have the tent packaged up, coffee and tea made and have the land cruiser started and we’ll be shortly on our way.

Then the drive begins.  And a game drive is sort of an odd exercise in fatalism, luck and vigilance.  Of course we have no idea where the wildlife might be, and inevitably you must pick almost immediately from leaving your campsite, left or right?  North or South?  One direction could be a cheetah kill, the other maybe just a lazy kudu munching grass in the distance, and you have no idea when you make your choice.  If you arrive at a pan or a water hole should you wait to see what shows up, or should you keep going?  We must surrender yourself to chance, we just don’t get to know,   But of course everyone else is in the same predicament, and in a relatively empty park like this it means that often when passing one of the half dozen cars you see in a day that you’ll each slow and roll down your window and chat about what you have seen, or haven’t.

We found that on more than one occasion we were giving tips to professional safari guides on where we had sighted predators, when normally they would have the home court advantage.  But with such a large park (over 50,000 sq km) even the pros have to cast around to find game to make their clients happy.

Over those days we saw the usual suspects, drought resistant oryx (gemsbok), springbok, black backed jackal, bat eared foxes, large herds of giraffe (25 in one group), hartebeest, wildebeest and ostrich.  A few kudu, some small “boks” (klipsringer, dik dik, steenbok?  I don’t know how to tell them apart).  A lone warthog.  Numerous birds of prey, as well as the usual kori bustards and secretary birds.

Predators are all over the CKGR, but still their territory is wide and sightings are not guaranteed.  On the first full day we had no cat sightings, though there was a report of a cheetah two camp sights away that came to investigate their site for 20 minutes or so.

On the second day we saw two cheetah hunting giraffe, much larger prey than they would normally go after, but there was a calf (foal?) with them, so perhaps the two of them would go after it?  In that case an annoying safari guide got too close and ruined the hunt.

The next day we saw three cheetah, but from very far away.  After a failed hunting attempt on some oryx we were able to watch them from a great distance, but they never came close to the road.  This is also a inevitability of game driving, the action may not be accessible to you.  Offroad driving is not permitted, so you must stick to the two spoor tracks.  And of course the cheetah, or whomever, do not always have the courtesy to hunt by the road.  But the roads are through the pans, and the pans are where the prey species are, so it is not as improbable as it may sound.

Later that same day we came across a pride of 10 lions in the last hour of daylight and it was magnificent to watch them making their way across the pan.  With all the eagle eyed spotting and searching we practice none of that was required for this sighting, Jenny just said “Lions” and there they were, less than 100 meters off the road.  We watch them till sunset, and when we left them, in the usual way of any cat, they had plopped down for a break with no apparent haste to get on to anything else.

On the morning of our last full day in the CKGR our alarm went off at 5:30 AM to wake us for our regular early morning drive.  Just a minute later we heard a lion’s roar.  It’s hard to say how far, we’re certainly not veterans of the bush and sound carries well in the silence, but it seemed much louder than what we heard on the first night.  Later we read in our guidebook that the call of a lion can carry five miles, but this one seemed much much closer.

In the moment hearing the roar of a lion was certainly a fast way to wake up.  Instantly our senses were heightened, straining to hear another roar.  We were no longer at our customary position at the top of the food chain, and it was exciting to think that we might find lions at first light, or even they might walk through our camp while we were in the tent.

We heard them again, closer again this time, and were now unsure what to do.  It was loud, they were close, and it certainly imprudent to proceed with our customary routine of getting up and making coffee and tea and folding up to tent.  So we waited.

It was curious, the anticipation and uncertainty of wondering just where such a powerful  animal was in proximity to us.  Our pulses picked up a bit, we became quiet, hyper aware of every noise and movement, and there was a sense of anticipation and uncertainty and a tiny bit of fear.  I have read many accounts of time spent in the wild in Africa, stories of camps in the bush and lions in their midst, but what no one has mentioned is how this feeling is similar to arousal.  There is the same wondering of what will happen next, the heightened awareness and excitement and anticipation.  Leaving the tent seemed unwise, and unburdened of the need to get up so early we followed our, uh, instincts, and waited for the next roar.

Not long after we heard the lion again, this time closer still, but looking out in the low light we couldn’t see anything.  We congratulated ourselves on not trying to break camp earlier and waited again.  At about 6:20 the lion’s call faded a bit and we decided to break camp as fast as possible.

In less than 10 minutes the tent was stowed and we were in the safety of the vehicle and on the road, looking for a morning lion sighting.  We found tracks on the road, less than a 100 yards from our camp.

Conveniently the lion had walked in the road and left tracks that even our modest tracking skills could read, so we followed him west about 5 kilometers, periodically stopping to check the tracks and in the end found a large lone male sleeping in the road.  So I guess we didn’t really need our superior tracking skills in the end, but it was really great to see who was responsible for what we had heard in camp.

He ended up not being very active, moving from the sun in the road to the shade of a bush, but we were every close and all alone with the lion.

It was a great start to the day, and we proceeded to drive a long circuit through the park to our final camp, Sunday No. 3, at Sunday Pan.  The park from west of our Letiahau camp to the Passarge watering hole didn’t seem as interesting to to us, but the Passarge Valley was amazing.  In the future we hope to camp closer so we can experience the Passarge area in the early morning or late evening, but for the time being we were satisfied with our drive to see what the park had to offer.

We did see some people flaunting the rules, camping in undesignated spaces, driving off road and harassing animals, and camping in sites without reservations.  We really hope that this sort of behavior doesn’t ruin things for others in the long term.  We didn’t see a single park ranger or staff member in six days in the park and there is minimal infrastructure.  This is how we prefer it, but certainly the only way a park can survive like this is if individuals act responsibly so as to not spoil it for all.

In the end we were very impressed with the Central Kalahari Game Reserve and look forward to coming back.  It is spectacularly isolated and remote, and with the lack of crowds and having wildlife that feels truly wild we were deeply impressed with our visit.

To the Central Kalahari Game Reserve

• Firewood in Rakops was on the right side of the road as you drive into town towards the fuel station when approaching from the south. 25P/bundle, good quality.
• Firewood was available at Matswere gate, 20P/bundle, good quality.
• We averaged 25kph on our way into the park. Not sure if we’re just slow or the road is normally in better condition, though it’s condition seemed reasonable enough to us. I have a hard time imagining anyone towing a trailer progressing much faster than us.

363k , 6hrs 30min total transit time, Gaborone-A1-A14-Khama Rhino Sanctuary (note: times include all our messing about in town, shopping, fuel, getting lost, etc.)

We were still making the Big Push to get up into Botswana, to the Central Kalahari Game Reserve, our first major destination.  This means another day on the road, but not nearly as long as the day before.

When we checked out the Mokolodi Nature Reserve the staff were exceptionally friendly, helpful and professional sorting out our reservation mix up so that we didn’t end up double paying.  Their extra effort and friendliness was a nice way to start our first full day in Botswana.

We stocked up on provisions in Gabarone.  The Cruiser was approaching fully laden and possibly overloaded.  I have been interested in going to a weigh station to get an idea of how close to full, or over full, capacity we are.  Looking at the leaf springs, I’m guessing we’re getting there, and as other experienced overlanders have said, overloading is the enemy of overlanding.  It a disservice to your vehicle that can result in premature breakdown and damage to the chassis.

We did get new Toyota OEM leaf springs fitted prior to starting out and they do look much better than the originals did, and you can feel the improvement driving the vehicle as well, so perhaps we’re good to go.  Never the less, we’ll be trying to shave down our camping kit over this journey to reduce weight and simplify in general.

The drive to the Khama Rhino Sanctuary was uneventful, though I did enjoy the motorway signs “Accident Free A1”, where we occasionally drove by the burned out hulk of an overturned car, so it doesn’t appear everyone has got the message yet.

Khama Rhino Sanctuary is a relatively small 4,300 sq. ha. park that is home to over 30 rhino as of 2008.  I forgot to ask the staff what the current population is.  We had campsite number 8, where you could have camped an army, it was almost a 100m x 50m in size, perfectly flat with some beautiful shade trees.

We skipped the evening game drive to set up camp in daylight and not have to rush things.  We have two nights here so we’ll be able to get out to the pans and see some wildlife.

The next day we made morning and evening game drives and saw pretty much everything the park had to offer, impala, springbok, black backed jackal, hartebeest, ostrich, and rhino.  Lots of them.  We counted 16 on the evening game drive, including two baby rhino that were very entertaining.

Also lots of good birds, leading me to admit that we are lousy birders.  But it turns out birds are more interesting than we thought (I joke that I’m going to write a book called Birds, Not As Boring As You Think) and we have resolved to pick up a guide to elevate our birding past “there is another blue one” and “What do you think that is?”  All in good time.

It’s exciting to get our first glimpse of wildlife for the trip, but this park is fenced and heavily patrolled by the Botswana Defense Force for anti poaching to protect the rhinos.  Due to it being fenced, relatively small and so closely managed it loses a bit of it’s wild feel.  It was still remarkable though, and very enjoyable.  And you do need a 4×4 for the deep sandy tracks, it’s not paved roads that you can take your corolla on as in some of the South African parks.  This certainly cuts down on the crowds.

Khama was a good stop, but we are ready to sink our teeth into the proper wilds of Africa, the Central Kalahari Game Reserve.

708km, 10hrs 15min total transit time, all tar via Mafikeng border crossing into Botswana

We started on rural roads, “R” roads in South Africa on the map, and made our way north.  The R roads, in our limited experience, are great, as there is minimal traffic and the roads are of reasonable condition.  There are less trucks to get stuck behind, as the trucks can only drive 80 kph, but the speed limit is often 120 kph.  However, there is no shoulder, and the roads are narrow, so overtaking or meeting large trucks can be somewhat harrowing.

Eventually we passed through Kimberly, famous for it’s diamond mining history, and onto Vryburg where we managed to fill our cooking gas bottles and grab some snacks, and also importantly stock up on biltong, the South African version of beef jerky.

Biltong is a big deal in South Africa (religion?) and comes in many different forms, a sort of Oberto style meat stick, sort of flat beef jerky type, chili, spiced, beef, kudu, and also finely shredded, for putting on breakfast cereal, among other things.  There are many other forms, resulting in the need for specialty biltong stores, found at nearly every shopping complex.  We’re partial to chili biltong ourselves.

The day before leaving Hendrick was concerned about the security situation at our chosen border crossing.  Mafikeng (actually Ramatlabama is the border, but Mafikeng is the town before the border) was the most direct, and it is not a main border crossing and thus we hoped would be less busy.  However, Mafikeng had experienced rioting very recently, and the border had been closed.

Wisely Hendrick made some calls and got ahold of a security company that had experience in the area.  For now they said it is quiet and the coast was clear.  He gave us the phone number to call and verify all was well once we were closer, but we were advised that it would probably be obvious if there was trouble, as there would be police, roadblocks and the like.  We had an alternate border crossing that wasn’t too much of a diversion picked out if need be.

As we made our way further north South Africa became a little more like the Africa some at home might picture in their minds.  The shopping malls and car dealers and chain restaurants thinned out and the small towns started looking a little scrappier.  Occasionally we’d see a donkey cart along side the road, and the traffic through towns became less organized.  But all was very civil, and the long drive proceeded smoothly.

Approaching Mafikeng we started to see odd piles of wire by the side of the road, and then we passed by a petrol station and garage that had obviously been the site of rioting and looting.  Smashed out windows, bare shelves inside, damage to the building, debris everywhere.

This sort of snuck up on us, as we thought we had a little further to go before reaching town.

After that we put together that the strange piles of wire by the side of the road were the remnants of burning tires, with just the steel reinforcement left after all the rubber had burned.  We were on high alert, but the few police we saw seemed at ease and we sailed through town without trouble.

The best part of town was when we saw a butcher with a huge sign advertising “WE ARE LISTERIOSIS FREE!”, but as business usually don’t need to clarify to their customers which diseases they aren’t at risk for when shopping at your establishment, it was a little unconvincing.

We arrived at the border.  African border crossings conjure up all kinds of images.  The chaos of delays, bribes, pushy border officials claiming you have the wrong paperwork, unanticipated fees, touts and fixers promising a smooth transit across, prostitutes and hawkers and lines of trucks waiting for who knows what.

However we will disappoint you.  Even in our uncertainty of the exact procedures, and that we didn’t have the right currency for the one very modest fee, we were across, complete with bathroom stop, in 30 minutes.  I’ve had to wait longer at customs to get back into the United States.

All the border officials were courteous and patient, and really I got the impression that maybe we weren’t fast enough for them, opposite of the usual complaint one reads about border crossings.

The last hour to Mokolodi was a pretty easy drive, but it had been a long day on the road and we were ready to be done.  If we had been more prepared (with lunch, not needing to hunt around to fill gas bottles) we could have shaved an hour or two from the journey.  Regardless, in the final stretch we got stuck behind a long string of cars all patiently driving 60 kph on a 120 kph road behind one solitary car taking its time, with 20+ cars behind it.

We have found this is a peculiarity of driving in South Africa and Botswana, that a car that looks to be relatively new will proceed at serene and gentle pace down the road, resulting in a long line of cars performing daring overtaking maneuvers trying to get around it, threatening the safety of all.  But patience usually wins out and you can find an easy stretch to pass on to continue on your way.

We arrived at the Mokolodi Nature Reserve just south of Gaborone at about 1800, sundown.  Late, as usual.  After checking in and a minor mix up at the reservations counter we were off into the park to camp for our first night properly on our journey.  After such a long day on the road I was tired and ready to get out of the car, so the first sip of beer around the fire was spectacular, we had made it.

Logistical Notes:

Border crossing procedure for Mafikeng

1. Park on the left.
2. Building on the right, make any declarations to South African customs, such as electronics.  I had read about this, that one should bring a typed list of all electronics and corresponding serial numbers for customs to stamp, but I had not taken it seriously when running out of time to prepare for the trip.  Turns out this is a thing!  The customs officer patiently typed up a list on their computer using their form, with me reading off serial numbers.  I confess that in our haste (we were late) we did not declare every last item, so hopefully this will not come back to bite us.
3. Stamp out of SA customs.  All in the same building.
4. Get waved through final check point.
5. Drive no mans land, maybe 1km?  I don’t remember
6. Park on the left.
7. Enter Botswana customs and immigration building, fill out the form provided, get stamped in.  Proceed to the next window to show vehicle paperwork (which they didn’t really look at, just to see that we had some).  The fee was just over 150 pula (152, 156? Something like that).  We went to the exchange booth around the corner and got a terrible exchange rate, so we only changed a little more than we needed.
8. Use the near spotless bathrooms if need be.
9. Drive through the last checkpoint, with a short “where are you headed” and we were done.  Easy.