July 21st, 2018.  It’s hard to imagine that in two weeks we’d be home.  Leaving Tofo was starting to feel a lot like the end of our trip.  There is an inevitability to all the packing and stowing and cleaning out that loomed ahead and it began to dominate my thoughts.

We were missing the wildlife we had seen so much of earlier in the trip.  To shake off the pending finality we resolved to make one last visit to a national park and do some game viewing.  We had bypassed the parks in Malawi and Mozambique’s Gorongosa, so set our sights on Limpopo National Park, and to take advantage of the relatively new (opened in 2006?) Giriyondo border crossing that allows passage directly between Limpopo and Kruger National Parks.

We got a late start and didn’t leave Tofo until 10 in the morning, but we were warming up to the leisurely start plan, a change from our predawn wake ups while we were in the parks, or when making long dashes across Tanzania.  Limpopo is too far to drive in a day so we set off aiming to find a place somewhere near Xai Xai to spend the night.

Road conditions were excellent, and being a Saturday traffic was light.  Driving along we were again confronted by brave vendors, staring the cruiser down from the middle of the road, willing us to stop.  Overpriced cashews, peri-peri and papayas were the products of the day, by zone, as always.  We bought some peri-peri from very nearly the last vendor in an unusually long length of peri-peri vendors.  We felt like giving a sale to the last person was a good thing, and it’s never bad to have some fiery red chili paste.

As we closed in on Xai Xai we consulted iOverlander and T4A for a place to stay, and settled on the Sunset Beach Resort, which was said to offer camping as well as rooms and a restaurant.  A few kilometers down a sandy track and you creep up on the place from the back side of a hill.  After parking we walked through to the office and were treated to an incredible panoramic view of the ocean.  Perched fairly high on the hill, it’s a spectacular vista, and there is a huge deck where we sat and gazed out on the sea.

We checked in, and were shown to our site.  The camp sites are adequate but relatively uninspiring.  Clearly geared to groups who plan to stay for the week and fish, the campsite is not the attraction, just a place to base activities.  You are given a key to a private ablution, but it’s a cement block house sort of thing without much ventilation, and in the humid Mozambique climate fungus had grown and had a strong moldy odor.

Campsite aside, we headed back to the deck to enjoy the wonderful view.  Sipping on beers, we watched humpback whales breaching from horizon to horizon, it was incredible.  I work on a ship on the California coast and we see humpbacks whales often.  Breaching is always a special behavior to see, but I had never seen such a continual display of jumping whales, and never with such a panoramic vista.  It was particularly enjoyable.

To Limpopo National Park

The next day we were off to the Limpopo National Park.  Just out of Xai Xai we crossed the “great grey-green greasy Limpopo river”, as described by Rudyard Kipling, though just outside of Xai Xai it is not “all set about with fever trees”, nor teeming with crocodiles and hippos, more like farmland and cows, but nonetheless it conjured romantic notions of our few days ahead in the wilderness.

There are a few routes up to Limpopo National Park from the coast.  We continued along the N1 and turned inland on the N101, transitioning to the N221 at Chokwe, to the R445 which took us all the way to Massingir, the last outpost outside the park.

This series of roads winds through flattish farmland and low but persistent density population.  We stopped at the market in Chokwe and Jenny loaded up on more of the beautiful boldly patterned bolts of cloth for sale in the market.  Not sure what it’s destined to be, but she couldn’t pass up those striking colors and prints.

There is fuel in Massingir, but cash only, and we had to try several bank machines to find some cash to top up before heading into the park.

The park itself has a wonderful entrance, parking area, toilets, and office to pay the fee.  Everything was looking very tidy and professional, we were the only ones there.  $8USD per person entrance fee paid, (take that Serengeti!) we headed into the park.

Limpopo National Park was formerly known as Coutade 16, a hunting concession, until 2001 when it was gazzeted as the Limpopo National Park.  It lies adjacent to the famous Kruger National Park of South Africa, and is now part of a 35,000 km2 transfrontier park. Plans are underway for an enormous, nearly 100,000 km2, conservation area called the Great Limpopo Transfrontier Conservation Area (TFCA).

There is a broad effort to create transfrontier conservation areas in the Southern African region, to preserve freedom of movement for animals across borders and restore some level of migration patterns in the wildlife populations.  This also allows animals to move as the environment requires, leaving areas of drought, for example.  There is another spectacularly large project underway in Kavango Zambezi region that will be over half a million square kilometers.  Truly amazing work.

The Limpopo NP area has been over hunted and poached and game numbers are low.  Efforts are being made to translocate animals from other parks, to reintroduce species, and build populations.  Anti poaching units are working in the park, and the fence between Kruger and Limpopo is not being repaired when damaged, allowing animals from Kruger to move into the Limpopo portion of the park.

For now though, the Limpopo National Park is in its infancy, and our guidebook lead us to have low expectations.  Since visiting I’ve been watching the area on windy.com (the most excellent weather website) and the Limpopo region is routinely the hottest part of southern Africa.  So beware if you plan a visit in the summer, when temperatures are routinely 40°C+.

We found the roads in the park are in pretty good shape, with some corrugations along the main routes but nothing too extreme.  Vegetation seemed very dry, and though we didn’t see any game as we went along we were enjoying being back in the bush.

In a particularly sandy part of the road it looked like a great heard of something had been through and we wondered what it was.  The hot sand was too loose for our inexperienced tracking skill to make out the spoor.  Rounding a corner, our question was answered.  Cows.  A lot of cows.  The herders cracked their sticks and pitched a few rocks and kindly moved the cows out of the way for us, and we inched through the herd.

Remember how I said this was a new park?  We came to learn that it is so new that there are still small villages and cattle kraals inside the park.  I have no idea what the plans are, to allow a multi use park, or to eventually relocate the village, which always brings up the moral questions of these sorts of endeavors.  

Moving along we saw one antelope sprinting away from us into the brush, and no other game before arriving at our destination for the night, Campismo Aguia Pesqueira, a campsite run by the park.  There is a small tidy office and we checked in, paying our USD $5 camping fee, a total bargain.

There are a series of eight or ten sites perched high above the waters of Lago Massingir, the lake created by the dam.  Each site has an excellent view, braai stand and spot for a fire, and is tucked tightly in the trees.  The only other visitors we saw in the park were camped a few sites down, in a smallish big rig.  

After a few beers celebrating our last night in Mozambique, as dusk fell, we decided it was time for a haircut.  I was looking pretty feral, my last hair cut being quite some time ago, I was long overdue.  We had a battery (under)powered set of trimmers, and Jenny set to work on her first ever haircut.  Maybe not the best strategy, but I think it came out pretty good.  Come daylight, she said maybe she would approach it differently next time.

Being in game viewing mode, the following morning we got an early start,.  We were headed for the border post inside the park, and we thought that maybe as we got closer to the Kruger boundary we might get lucky and see some animals.  

Again we saw a glimpse of a steenbok (maybe, it was fast), but not much else.  We did see elephant spoor and some other unidentified dung, so animals are certainly around.  It did seem like conditions were very dry and many animals had moved into a different part of the park.  

We explored one of the side tracks labeled 4×4 only.  In this park so empty of visitors it really felt like exploring the wild wilderness all on our own.  We wound through the bush, brush scraping down the sides of the cruiser on the narrow track, eyes peeled for wildlife.  Even though we didn’t see anything, it felt special to see a park so early in its life.  We fantasized about an alternate life where we joined the team bringing this park back to life*.

Even with its sparse wildlife I think Limpopo NP deserved more than the one night we gave it.  There are more roads to explore, including one that parallels the Rio Singuedxi for a while.  I understand there are some more difficult 4×4 tracks in the park as well, so if you are seeking out that sort of thing that could be fun too.  We really hope to come back to this park and see how it’s changed.

Eventually we arrived at the Giriyondo border post.  Checking out of Mozambique was quick and efficient.  We drove the short distance to the South African side, and ran into a surprise.  When we confidently handed over our passports the immigration official informed us that we would only be given seven day transit visas.  What, what?  Seven days?

We had been to South Africa several times before and always been given 90 day visas on arrival, so we asked what the issue was.  He replied that yes, we were eligible for a 90 day visa on arrival, but since we hadn’t returned to our country of origin we were still traveling on the original 90 day visa, which runs out in 3 days.  He could give us a 7 day transit visa, but no longer.  He wasn’t rude, but was firm in his position.  We ran through numerous options, and he even said we could try at another border post and they might not know the rules as well, but it was also a risk that we would waste a lot of time driving and get the same answer. 

We had talked about possibly entering South Africa, but then going into eSwatini (Swaziland changed their name to eSwatini in April 2018) and trying to reset our 7 day visa, but the immigration official said that there was a risk that when looking up our passport in the system that the officials there would not allow issuing a second 7 day transit visa, and we could be stuck in eSwatini.  After pondering our options we resigned ourselves to returning home about a week early.  So, seven days to enjoy a bit of Kruger, reschedule flights, race back to the farm to store the cruiser and make it to the airport.  

After sorting all that out we chatted with one of the park staff who managed to book us some last minute camp sites in Kruger.  We ended up with one night at Shingwedzi, another at Tsendze, and the last night at Satara.  Driving into Kruger was another world, the roads immediately become better, and we started the last leg of our adventure.

*Since our visit I read White Man’s Game, an illuminating look into the difficulties of conservation.  The book mostly uses Gorongosa National Park as an example of how complex conservation work is, and why conservation frequently has unintended negative consequences.  Certainly something to ponder, and also frustrating that is seems so hard to help, that helping one worthy thing can impede or hurt another very important thing.

 Logistical notes

• Fuel, food or anything else you need is readily available along the coast.  Be stocked up before you head inland, including on cash, as other than Chokwe availability of most things will be limited.
• Tofo to Sunset Beach Resort, (near Xai Xai), 233 Km, 5h 15m
• Sunset Beach Resort to Campismo Aguia Pesqueira, 352km, 8h 15m

• Limpopo NP fees – $8pppd, I forgot to note if there is also a vehicle fee.  It seemed very inexpensive to us.  Camping $5pppn, a steal. 
• Campismo Águia Pesqueira to Giriyondo Border Post, 64km, 3h

Traffic is hectic.  For example, the only stoplight in town is merely a suggestion of traffic flow, but not rule, so at the stoplight it’s a miraculous mash of trucks, safari vehicles and motorcycles endlessly heading for collision, but then somehow missing each other.  Usually.

And there are just enough tourists for their to be hawkers pedaling their wares on the street.

If you’re foolish enough (us) to stray from your hotel, taxi or guide then they descend upon you with the same chorus we have encountered all across Africa.  Never deviating from the script, it goes like this,

“Hello, how are you?”

We respond, “Good, how are you?”

“Good.  Where are you from?”

“America.  California.”

“Ah, California!  Good!  My name is Joseph (or whomever).  What is your name?”

“I’m Andrew, this is Jenny”.

“Very nice to meet you.  I would like to show you my art (or t-shirts, or tour brochure, or bracelets, or hats, etc)”.

“No, thank you, we’re not buying anything.”

“That is okay.  I will just show you.”

And so on.

I must say that they are very good at getting you into a not unpleasant conversation, but unfortunately it is always the same conversation heading in the same direction, the sale, and it takes a while to get there.  Usually they’re happy to walk with you during this, so that is something.  But enough of traffic and pestering touts, it’s time to escape to the open road.

We made a stop at Shoppers, the big supermarket on the way out of town.  It’s the first supermarket we’ve seen in a while, so we went a little overboard on provisioning and left feeling well stocked but also with depleted funds.  If you can keep yourself away from the convenience of the supermarkets and stick to the open marketplaces food is quite cheap, but inside those gleaming doors the prices are similar or even higher than they are at home for anything that is imported.  Which is most of it.

Tarangire National Park, just over a 100km from Arusha, was our destination.  We made the easy drive on a great road in under two hours.  The last 7km or so off the A104 is good gravel, but with speed bumps ever couple hundred meters, so not too fast right at the end.

For Jenny this stop is something of a homecoming, her first safari destination.  She visited with her mother and sister on their first big family trip more than 15 years ago.  She was excited to see the park again, and to see after our recent explorations if it still would seem as amazing as those years ago, or if it was just because they hadn’t been on safari anywhere else before.  Tarangire didn’t disappoint and I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it.

Entrance fees here are less than the Serengeti, thank goodness, but still not cheap.  Again they didn’t ask and the Cruiser was assessed at the sub 2000kg weight, whew.  Entrance fees were, I think, $60/pppd, camping $30/pppd for the public campsite No. 1 and vehicle fee was $40/pd.  We decided to keep it simple here and stick with the public campsites.

Sitting in the shadow of the giants of the Serengeti and Ngorongoro, Tarangire doesn’t get as much credit as the bigger parks, and I also hadn’t given it a whole lot of thought.  Well low expectations proved to be good and we had a great visit.  We arrived in the early afternoon and after checking in we rolled right into a game drive.

Tarangire has most of the big game (no rhinos) of the other parks, but is truly famous for it’s elephants.  Interestingly Serengeti, though massively larger, has roughly the same number of elephants as the much smaller Tarnagire.  A good portion of Tarangire’s elephant population is migratory, so not all the elephants are in the park all the time and they migrate into the surrounding game management and conservation areas during the wet season and then back into the park, with the Tarangire river as the attraction, for water in the dry season.

It’s not the dry season now, so the park wasn’t at peak elephant population, but still we started seeing elephants pretty quickly after entering the park.  And the park itself has a completely different landscape to the nearby Serengeti, so it was still attractive and fresh even after our time next door.

The entrance is at the north end of the park, and the Taragire river, some 5 or 10 kilometers into the park, creates a very scenic river valley.  The terrain, excepting the slope into and out of the river valley, is flattish and rolling hills with open woodland and a large population of very wonderful baobab trees.  Driving along the game viewing trails we managed to see a few elephants grazing amongst the baobabs, really nice.  The baobabs are everywhere here, but not as old or large as the trees we camped near in Nxai Pan.

On our two night stay here we managed to squeeze in quite a lot.  Some lion sightings and a sleeping leopard right on the first game drive.  Heaps of elephants, with some very young ones charging back and forth around their mothers.  The largest tusks on an elephant I have ever seen.

A few parts of the park had massive swarms of tsetse flies.  In their excitement at our presence they hurled themselves at us with such force that we could hear constant tapping on the windows, like heavy rain, and we congratulated ourselves on having functioning air conditioning to save us from the flies.  Of course that didn’t help me when I had to get out of the car and pee, but you can’t have it all.  Any opening of a door or window is closed as soon as possible, and then followed by five or so minutes of trying to kill or let out the flights that got in the cab, while cursing their bites.  For some reason I seem to be the more attractive target, Jenny doesn’t get bit as often, and she is a better tsetse fly killer than I, so thankfully the flurry of action doesn’t last too long.

Our public campsite was pretty decent.  At first glance it’s a little eclectic, with no designated camping spots and haphazard ablutions and camp kitchen spread around.  The ablutions were clean and pretty decent though, and there were cold water showers, so all in all pretty good.  There was an eating area, four picnic tables with an ominous steel cage around them.  Eating in a steel cage while in a park seems a little odd, like who is looking at whom here?  But it is to protect you from the troops of baboons waiting to ambush and take your food.  We were spared though, for whatever reason they left camp alone this time.

There was one other self drive car there, a couple that we had met in the Serengeti with a rental.  The other guests were part of a couple budget safari groups, where they drive from park to park in their safari viewing vehicles and each guest is given a dome ground tent to set up in the public campground, then they go for game drives in the same car they arrived at the park in.  The guide staff cook in the camp kitchen and after a day or two move to the next park and repeat.   I’ve never seen this sort of tour advertised (I’m sure they are) but it seems like it might be a great affordable and low key way to see some of these parks.  On the other hand, this didn’t include a fire in the evening and also they seemed to be starting their game drives fairly late, 7:30 or 8 o’clock in the morning, so they might have been missing out on some good game viewing.

The first night we ended up sharing our fire with some of the people in the safari group and had a nice evening swapping stories by firelight.  We met an American family from the midwest that had just summited the nearby Kilimanjaro together, and a couple of Dutch women that had organized their own tour of Tanzania to see a few things not usually on the tourist trail, like visiting a hospital and going out on a real fishing boat, taking the local public transport, that sort of thing.

South to Kisolanza

After an uneventful second night in camp No. 1, camped right at the base of two baobab trees, it was time to hit the road.  We had dallied in Tanzania long enough and we needed to make tracks south.  So with a dawn start we departed, light rain falling as we checked out of the gate.

We stuck to the main road, the A104 (aka the T5) and sped south.  As is our usual routine, I drove in the morning.  There was very little traffic on the road and we made excellent time.  This portion of the Tanzanian road system also didn’t seem to have many speed bumps, so we were given a bit of relief of the constant guard one has to be on to make sure you don’t accidentally hit a speed bump unexpectedly.  Though to be fair they are usually in villages where we aren’t driving very fast anyway, but sometimes there are a few sneaky ones out of town, unmarked.

It stayed overcast with intermittent mist and we started to climb a pass south of Babati.  I hadn’t done a whole lot of route planning for the day I admit, and I had neglected to see that we had a couple passes to go over.  The road seems to be brand new though, and there was almost no one on the road, so even in the rain we easily made our way up the switchbacks and deeper into the mist.  Higher up it was raining all the time, and foggy.  I had to drive slowly anyway for the steep switchbacks, but even so I worried about a truck popping out of the fog.  On roads this steep a lot of the trucks seem to be traveling barely faster than walking speed, and even with our modest 30 or 40 kilometers and hour I didn’t want to plow into the back of one, particularly since brake lights seem to be optional on some of the commercial vehicles.

Part way through this I got stuck behind a truck going about 10 kilometers an hour.  Rain.  Fog.  Winding roads.  Waiting.  What do you do?  This is familiar territory to any driver in Africa, stuck behind a truck for who knows how long.  I couldn’t see much ahead in the fog, but after waiting and waiting I became impatient to overtake.  I hadn’t seen a truck coming the other way for a long time.  Gripped by the fatalism of the African driver, I waited for a straightish section and with a little faith and a heavy foot I overtook him with as much haste as our 1HZ engine could muster.  Done, no problems.  This sort of risk is what we see on display from a lot of the drivers on the roads here all the time, and it had started to take hold of me as well.

Overtaking on blind turns, driving with no lights, brake lights not working, all of these are part and parcel of driving here.  The truck drivers and busses in particular are far more comfortable traveling at speed on the narrow roads than anyone else, and approaching each other it often seems like they’re so close they’ll will clip their mirrors, and yet they don’t.  We saw the burnt out carcass of an overturned bus on the shoulder once past the summit of the pass.  We see glass and a mangled guard rail and a smashed shipping container on the side of the road, evidence of some grave accident not so long ago.

Later that day we smelled the strong smell of smoking brakes overworked on one of the trucks and I wonder what that driver is thinking?  Does he not know that his brakes might be close to failing, or how to engine brake?  Or does he know perfectly well, but this is the truck they’ve given him, and in spite of it’s mechanical deficiencies he knows he must drive it or risk loosing his job?   We see the overturned cab of one of the big rig trucks, smashed and caved in and know that no one could have possibly survived.  This is a continual reminder to us that the most dangerous part of this trip is not malaria or lions, or banditry or violence, but simply the daily danger of driving.  We remain vigilant and continue along.

South of Kolo Pass we drop out of the hills, the terrain flattens and the clouds and rain ease off.  This land is also covered in baobabs.  We’ve never seen so many.  They’re much less common in southern Africa and we had believed them to be sort of rare, special.  Here though they are everywhere, mostly not too big, but looking good, really nice terrain.

Continuing on we pass through the city of Dodoma.  This is a common stop for overlanders, not because there is a great place to stay but more that is a convenient distance to cover in a day.  Our early start and little traffic had delivered good progress, so we decided to push on to Iringa, the next significant city south.  I had assumed that south of Dodoma traffic would pick up, but it doesn’t much and we continue along.  There are frequent police checkpoints along the road, but mostly we are waived through, or stopped for a simple “Where did you come from, where are you going?”, then sent on our way.

In Iringa we need fuel, but we also need an ATM because none of the fuel stations take a credit card.  We see a shabby looking fuel station a block from a bank and we stop and fill up.  Fortunately the ATM is working and we’re on our way.  On the way out of town (our campsite is a bit south) we drive past numerous gleaming pristine fuel stations with ATMS in them.  This seems to be our habit, to always stop just before the really convenient place, of course.

South of Iringa the road turns to the T1, and the road fills with the traffic of heavy trucks, mostly hauling fuel from Dar Es Salaam.  The T1 is the main road from Dar and is the conduit to carry fuel, all by truck, to Southern Tanzania and Malawi.  Traffic notwithstanding, in not too long after Iringa we arrived at the Old Kisolanza Farmhouse campsite at about 4 in the afternoon.

It’s set up really nicely, with campsites in the trees, fire rings and picnic tables for most sites.  There are a few other campers there, so for once we’re not camping alone like many of the campsites we’ve visited outside the parks.

There is a restaurant here and the food is reportedly amazing so we skipped cooking tonight to try it out.  It was pretty remarkable, a 3 course meal by candlelight, delicious sautéed veggies from their own garden, an amazing but simple crushed tomato and garlic sauce for pasta and a chicken main course.  Such a contrast to camping, and it still surprises us that here in Africa this combination of bar, restaurant and campsite exists where in the states it’s unheard of.  Maybe a future business idea for home?

The next day we spent a pleasant morning swapping route notes and road conditions with a South African couple that was heading to the Serengeti, and they gave us some tips on Malawi.  It’s nice to feel we’re back on the route where there are a few others of “us” on the road, and also good to have a slow morning.

Before getting on the road for our next jump south we ask about filling our water tank.  Water is always something we have in the back of our mind, how much do we have, where will we get it next, and what kind will it be?  We have an almost 60 liter tank in the back of the cruiser, with a little spigot on a hose back by the kitchen.  A lot of people have a similar setup, with the spigot mounted under the fender or rear bumper so the spigot is always dirty, so the water is just used for cleaning and they buy bottled water for drinking.  We mounted our spigot on a strong magnet, at the end of the hose, and when we arrive at camp and open up the “kitchen” side of the canopy click the spigot on the side of the cruiser, ready for use and clean.

This of course doesn’t address if the water is potable.  We prefer to have potable water in the tank and avoid the waste and inconvenience of bottled water if we can.  We have some treatment drops to treat our water if need be, but amazingly so far we haven’t used them, wisely or not.  We have used a combination of sources.  We filled with the city water in Livingstone, which is treated but still is a bit risky for someone who isn’t local.  It was fine, but didn’t taste great.

Borehole water, which is usually regarded as safe to drink, depending on how deep and where the borehole is located, is our preference.  At times we’ve not been able to get borehole water so we’ve also put non potable water from various camp spigots in the tank, boiling it if cooking or making coffee or tea, and supplemented with big 10 liter jugs of bottled water for drinking.  This isn’t particularly efficient and we end up having to decant the big jugs into smaller bottles, and also end up just carrying too much weight.  We also always carry one or two 5 liter bottles of “emergency water” that we hide in the back and forget about, just in case we get a leak and lose our water, or it’s contaminated.  So far we haven’t needed those.

At Kisolanza the owner said that their water wasn’t potable, but that just a couple hundred meters up the dirt road there is a borehole with excellent water we can fill our tank.  We find the manual borehole pump that is ubiquitous throughout Africa, in almost every village.  Surprisingly we haven’t used one yet on the trip, the couple times we’ve managed to get borehole water before it had already been pumped to a reservoir tank with an electric pump and was just gravity fed.

We got one of our empty 10 liter jugs and start pumping.  It only takes a couple minutes of easy pumping to fill our 10 liters, and I decanted into the tank from our jug.  We left the tap open on the tank to flush out our old water, and in about 20 minutes we’ve flushed and filled our tank with water that tastes like pristine bottled water.

Delicious water loaded, we were on our way again.  Originally our destination was the Utengule Coffee Lodge, west of Mbeya.  This is a little out of our way, as our plan was to turn south onto the T10 to Malawi a bit east of Mbeya.  The Utengule Coffee Loge is on the opposite site of Mbeya, and would require braving Mbeya traffic, twice, to get to and away from there.  The South Africans we had met at Kisolanza told us about a hotel in Tukuyu, along our route on the T10, that would let you camp in their grassy courtyard for $10 dollars a night and would give you a key to a room to use the bathroom.  Good enough for us, so we made our way to the Landmark Hotel in Tukuyu.

This camping method is one of the options available to those traveling overland when there are no campsites.  Other options are to find a place to wild camp, ask a mission to camp, or to ask for a village elder’s approval to camp in or near a village.  We were trying to keep it simple, so hotel courtyard camping it was.

On our way there we encountered what seemed like endless kilometers of construction and the slow traffic that comes with this.  Some of the road was done and was impressively wide, really beautiful tarmac, but frustratingly the speed limits were still 30 or 50 kph even when there was no road crews and no villages.  We got stopped for speeding, but they generously let us off, so we kept to the slow speeds and resisted the urge to step on it and power along the beautiful roads.

By the end of this my normal patience with slow driving had eroded and I was pretty frustrated at the slow going and Jenny took over.  She had other challenges.  On the older parts of the road the road was narrower, and decent tarmac with not many potholes, but amazingly parts of the road were actually rutted.  How this happens on a paved road I don’t know, but it looks like they maybe let heavy trucks drive on it before it had completely cured, or that the road bedding underneath had settled, but instead of the pavement cracking it just flexed into the ruts.  This was a problem because the truck wheel track width is wider than the cruiser’s.  A couple times the ruts were so deep that we actually started to fishtail a bit on the road, the rear wheels sliding in and out of the paved ruts.  It was scary with all the truck traffic around and we slowed down and made it through without any further excitement. 

Turning south towards Tukuyu we started going up again, over 2000 meters elevation into beautiful green hills, farmland full of tea and banana plantations.  We arrived in Tukuyu before sunset and discovered that though one could camp in the courtyard, we couldn’t because the entrance is too small to drive a vehicle onto the grass.  I hadn’t thought of this when we heard about it from our new South African friends, who were in a ground tent.  So we tucked into the corner of the parking lot, a little odd, but no one bothered us.  That night we went to bed and it began to rain heavily, but we stayed snug and warm in the tent.  Tomorrow we’d enter Malawi, dropping from these higher elevations to the Lake Malawi level of 500 meters.  We crossed our fingers for better weather tomorrow and listened to the rain.

Fortunately now all park fees for both parks are payable by credit card at the gates.  No more convoluted bank deposit slips brought back to the park offices, or smart cards charged up for hopefully the right amount or whatever.  Those are still options, but payment at the gate was much easier for us.

We wanted to stay in the so called “special camp sites” so we could camp in the complete wild, alone, as opposed to the public campsites.  For this the charge goes up to $50 pppn, in stead of $30.  We arrived at the gate around noon and began the lengthy check in process.  We gave them our preferred areas we’d like to visit and they called the Arusha main office to see what camp sites were available in those areas.  

They assigned us to Sero 4 and Grumeti camp sites.  We planned to stay two nights at Sero 4 in the central Seronera region of the park, then two nights in the Western corridor, then a last night back in Sero 4 and then we would depart through the Naabi Hill Gate to the southeast.  This is a little illogical, since we had to drive past Grumeti through the Western corridor to get to Sero 4, but we wanted to see the wildebeest migration in the Western corridor.  The wildebeest are in no hurry this year (don’t they know we’re on a schedule?), late due to a big rainy season, so we figured even giving them a few extra days to make it to the Grumeti river would be good.  

The park officials printed out our park permits with the wrong campsites and no dates on them, and just told us to not worry about it, go to Sero 4 and Grumeti.  This seemed curious to us, in case anyone checked our permit.  They assured us it wasn’t a problem, but we at least got them to hand correct the permit in case they were checked.  

After this we also had to haggle about the car fee.  The Serengeti is notorious for having high fees, particularly for foreign vehicle entry fees.  This is allegedly to keep Kenyan tour operators from coming in to the Serengeti and undercutting local tour operators, but has the side effect of stinging fees for self drivers like us, who are not particularly common in the park.  Technically the fee for any vehicle over 2000 kgs tare weight is $177 USD per day!  Under 2000 kgs is $47 per day, so obviously we would prefer that.  Several Tanzanians had assured us that even though we were over they only charged the higher rate to commercial operators.  However this isn’t what happened to us, the park officials threatened to charge us for the higher weight and asked to look at our vehicle paperwork to verify the tare weight.  

We were horrified, it’s already a pretty huge expense to come here, and it would push the daily cost to almost $450 USD a day to be in the park if they charged us the higher rate.  This is partially because everything in Tanzania has a whopping 18% VAT.  We handed them as much paperwork as we had on the vehicle hoping they would find a number that made them happy.  Sifting through it all somehow they missed the tare weight on the registration and we kept our mouths shut, and after a while they gave and charged us the lower rate.  

I don’t generally approve of dodging park fees, it is after all important to preserve these lands, and it is an enormous swath of land that Tanzania has set aside for conservation.  But there have been a lot of recent price hikes in the park fees and we simply couldn’t stomach any more, so in this case if they missed that it’s on them.

After all that it was around 1pm we made our way into the park, with something like 100 kilometers to go to our campsite.  As we went along the main road we saw a few large herds of wildebeest, it was impressive, but nothing like we would see in a few days time.  Since we didn’t get into the park till 1pm we didn’t have a huge amount of time to wander, so we continued on our way towards the central Seronera region of the park.  Once we got closer to our campsite we realized once again that we hadn’t asked specifically for directions to our camp.  Time was running out, and I was concerned that we would waste a lot of daylight just trying to find the park office, but we didn’t have much choice.  

In Seronera there is a small loose community that supports the park.  A fuel station, a small garage, a staff village where some of the park support staff live, an airstrip, and for us the park headquarters, visitor center and tourist information office.  We tried to find the park headquarters and couldn’t, or if we did it was a closed off compound not for the public, then made our way to the tourist information office.  

We explained we didn’t know exactly where Sero 4 special campsite was, could they please direct us.  It turned out that neither did they and I knew we were in trouble when he pulled out the same map we already had.  After about 20 minutes of hazy directions and “It should be somewhere over here,” we decided to just take our chances and hope we saw a sign.  

Casting around east of central Seronera we found a few signs pointing us east, but the track split and split again and we didn’t find it.  We asked guides, a few people at a camp and each gave it some thought and said “Maybe over this way,” with some vague gesturing.  To add to our concerns the sky was darkening and it was looking like it was gong to rain.  

Eventually it got dark and we asked another guide, he suggested we just go to the public campsite and sort it out in the morning.  Fair enough, conceding defeat he lead us to the closest public campsite and we arrived in the dark, again.  And it began to rain.  Sigh.  

It wasn’t the best introduction to the Serengeti.  Visiting such a prestigious park we had built up high exceptions and run up high expenses, so to arrive and spend two hours not finding our campsite, and to camp at the wrong camp in the rain was a bit demoralizing.  

At the public campsite there was a large group of locals camped there, it almost looked like a camp for contract construction workers or something, but we found out after talking to them that they were students from a wildlife management school.  We picked an out of the way spot and popped the tent in the rain, grabbed some perfunctory snacks for dinner and retreated to the tent.  As we listened to the drone of their generator and the rain drops smacking against the fly we were feeling bummed, but also confident that tomorrow was a new day and we would have a fresh start.  

The morning was overcast, left overs from the rain the night before, and we set out quickly for our fresh start.  Almost immediately out of camp we were treated to a small pride of lions in the grass, things were looking up.  The lions were mostly sleeping, so we continued on and discovered that we had been close to our designated campsite, it was about a half a kilometer further along the road.  There was indeed a sign, but it was almost completely obscured in the tall grass and we probably would have missed it in the dark.  We scoped out the spot for that night and were feeling good.

We headed off to the southeast towards some of the kopjes on the plains.  Quickly the acacias of Seronera thinned out and we were in open savannah with only a few trees dotted here and there on the grassy plains.  The Serengeti is famous for it’s rocky outcroppings, kopjes, which are also favorite lounging places for lions and incredibly beautiful.  Sure enough, following the tracks wandering around the rocks we found lions sleeping off whatever they had been up to during the night.  Wonderful.  

We also saw elephants in the distance, and our fair share of zebra, topi, warthog, giraffe and a few wildebeest that had not joined the main migration.  Also Thompson’s gazelle and impala.  

Later in the morning we were heading back towards central Seronera and we heard a hissing noise from the back and discovered our first flat tire.  We had let some air out of the tires to ease the pain of the corrugated roads along the western corridor, but maybe too much, as we had a small sidewall tear from the rocky conditions from this morning.  

At least it happened in a convenient location.  It was pretty flat and we had good visibility around us, so a quick scan to check for predators and we hopped out to change our tire.  Several guide vehicles drove by as we were working and courteously checked to see if we were okay.  In about 20 minutes we were done, on our way with our first flat behind us.

We carry two spare tires, so even with almost a week in the bush ahead of us we had another spare should we need it.  We added getting the sidewall fixed, hopefully, to our growing Arusha list for after the park.  

That night we settled into Sero 4 special campsite to enjoy the sunset.  The campsite is set on a gently sloping hill with a wonderful view towards the east of a small valley, mostly yellow medium length grass around and two flat top acacias at either end of the campsite, a great spot.  

At dusk just as we were starting to make dinner we saw headlights charging towards us and we thought maybe some rangers were coming to check our permit.  As they came closer we saw a roof top tent on a land rover and I guessed, correctly, that this campsite was double booked.  After the initial surprise we introduced ourselves and all was amiable.  There was plenty of room for two without interfering with each other.

While working on our dinner we chatted a bit with our new neighbors, and we heard the whooping call of hyenas not too far away.  A habit of campers in the bush is to carry a strong flashlight and occasionally scan the perimeter for the reflection of eyes.  Ostensibly green eyes are harmless grazers and yellow eyes are predators, but of course sometimes the distinction is fine and yellow eyes alone do not belie the difference between a lion and a harmless small wild cat.  We made our scan as the call of hyenas got closer and sure enough there was a hyena not 20 meters away edging the perimeter of our camp, no doubt investigating us.  

Hyenas are often referred to as scavengers, and this is true, but they are also hunters perfectly capable of taking their own prey, often in packs.  Seeing the hyena inspecting camp was disconcerting, but we watched him and he continued on his way.  We kept an eye out for him for the evening, but he backed off further into the grass.  Waiting to scavenge our trash we hoped, but later we talked to a guide who said the reason hyenas can be so dangerous is because we let them get close enough that when they decide to attack it is too late to do anything about it. 

That night we had curried lentils and I tried my hand at making chapati, an Indian/East African flat bread.  Though not perfectly round it was flaky and warm and turned out pretty well, something I’ll definitely practice some more.

Back to campsites.  Trouble with special campsite bookings seems to be quite common in the Serengeti.  In the few days that followed every self driver we met had either double bookings for their campsites or found that the camps they had booked were totally inaccessible, either roads were impassable or the camp was overgrown or whatever.  With the incredible expense it costs to be in the park, just over $300 USD a day for us, and that isn’t including of course the cost of having your own vehicle, it is frustrating that the park doesn’t appear to know who is camping where and what roads are usable.  Obviously the tour operators who are setting up large tented camps must have a better system to ensure that they aren’t double booked, and I presume that they inspect the sights before setting up and do what maintenance needs to be done so they can operate.  

The next day we checked in with the park, not at the tourist office, not at the visitor center, not at park HQ, but at the airstrip, of course.  As far as we could tell the park office at the airport (no sign) is the only place that either knows what is going on or can find out.  It was good we checked in before heading out to the Western corridor to our Grumetti campsite, because we were told that camp too was already booked, that the officials at the Ndabaka gate had incorrectly given us that site even though they had called the main office in Arusha.  We were given a new special campsite, Kira Wira Hill, but again they didn’t know exactly where it was, but assured us there was a sign.  All of this was a bit exasperating, but I suppose is just part of the deal.  I thought maybe we should have made more of an effort to book in advance, but since even other self drivers we met who had booked a year out had encountered similar problems perhaps it didn’t matter.

That morning we had great luck of sighting two huge male lions with regal looking manes.  There weren’t up to much, but they did pose for us in the morning light, it was nice.  We also spotted a mother serval, a medium size spotted cat, with a young cub.  The cub was barely larger than a house cat kitten and must have been very young, and while the mother was watching us with concern the cub was playing around and seemed to be having a grand time.  It was great to watch.  Eventually the mother picked up her cub and ran into the grass.

In the afternoon we made our way west, towards our Kira Wira Hill special campsite.  The Western corridor is more densely wooded than the central and southern plains of the Serengeti.  The attraction is the Grumetti river, and that a large portion of the migrating wildebeest congregate there to cross the river before they make their way north to the Masai Mara.

Driving in we had marked on the GPS where the large herds of wildebeest were, so it was interesting to come back and see if they had moved.  We found that they hadn’t moved much, but there more of them.  Many many more.  It is staggering to see so many animals.  Even in just the two days that we had been in Seronera it was obvious that huge herds of wildebeest had moved into the area, preparing to cross the Grumetti.  The herds were spread out in the plains along the main road and along the river, wildebeest numbering in the tens of thousands.  It’s unbelievable that such a fantastic amount of grazing animals leaves any grass left at all, but it seems they do.  

We did find our camp with relative ease that night, about two kilometers off the main road just at the tree line.  We made camp and gazed at thousands of wildebeest on the plain below.  As we watched the sunset there was an endless chorus of wildebeest making their curious honking noise, cavorting and grazing.

It was my birthday that night, and Jenny had attempted the impossible, to make me a proper gin and tonic.  As everyone knows, a gin and tonic is just not right if you don’t also have ice and lime.  A lesser drink might be consumed skimping on the details, but a G&T is all or nothing, in our opinion anyway.  Lime we had managed to find in the market, a challenge in itself as all limes and lemons are all green and are all referred to as lemons.  Ice was another story.  Our 12v fridge has the power to freeze, as evidence by the numerous vegetables we had ruined by turning it down too far and by the milk for Jenny’s tea that is often half frozen in the morning.  

She had put a few plastic containers of water in the bottom and turned it down to it’s coldest setting.  Frozen vegetables, check.  Frozen milk, check.  Frozen water…no.  Stubbornly they had refused to freeze, too much agitation on the bumpy roads I suppose.  Oh the hardships we endure!  I happily settled on cold beer, and Jenny made me French fries, sautéed carrots and boerwors over the fire.  We could still hear the honking of a thousand wildebeest in the dark and lions calling, close enough to make us eat in a hurry, and life was good.

Logistical Notes:

In no particular order, here are a few things that might be useful if you’re visiting the Serengeti on your own.

There are no garbage facilities, it is strictly pack it in pack it out.  We wished we had known this before we were a couple days into the park, we would have organized our trash differently.  We ended up being able to get rid of trash once in Seronera, but I wouldn’t count on this.  We burned our paper trash in our camp fire and packed out the rest, which was getting pretty rank at the end.  

This is also a good reason to attempt to bring beer in cans if you can find it, as the empty bottles are heavy and take up a lot of space.  We were unsuccessful at finding canned beer in Bunda.  If coming from the west I suspect that Mwanza is the only place you could get it.

Provisioning from the Ndabaka side of the park, Lamadi has an well stocked open air market for vegetables, and meat I suppose for those more adventurous than us.  Bunda has numerous small duka shops with haphazard selection, and I’m sure a vegetable market somewhere, but we couldn’t find it.  

There is fuel in Seronera, usually.  Don’t count on it if you can avoid it, and later we learned in Arusha that the fuel quality in the park is poor and can wreak havoc on a more discerning engine than our trusty 4.2, reputed to be able to burn almost anything.

Special camp sites.  We think they’re worth the extra $40 USD ($20/ea) per night for the full Serengeti experience.  Finding them and booking them is another story.  I’d suggest doing as much research as possible on GPS coordinates for sites prior to coming, don’t count on the park being able to direct you.  There are signs for most of the sites, but there are not always, and even when they exist they might be obscured by tall grass.  Site 5 is not close to site 4, for example, and site 6 might be 20 kilometers away on a different road, so be sure you’re headed the right way if you can.  

There are no facilities at all (i.e. no water, no toilet) at the special campsite, it’s just a place that is designated by the park that may or may not have cut grass and probably a good view.  If you want during your game drives you can always stop by the visitor center, airport or public campsite to use the toilet.  The public campsites also have showers.

Research special campsites here.  I’ll post all GPS coordinates for the special campsites we stayed at in the next post.

There is a very small shop in the staff village, but don’t count on it for provisioning.  It has a few odds and ends, but no real staples.  Toothpaste, cigarettes, cookies, bottled water, maybe peanut butter and an eclectic assortment of other food, but it’s sparse and expensive.  Beer is available at the bar in the staff village, but expensive.

Just this morning we saw the “big 5”, (black) rhino, leopard, lion, buffalo and elephant; not to mention giraffe, zebra, topi, Thompson’s gazelle, hippo, warthog, impala, waterbuck, giraffe, and no doubt some stuff I forgot on top of that.  This combined with the truly stunning vistas of the Masai Mara and we are really almost speechless.

But before I get too far into the wild I’ll catch you up with getting here.

We left Kacheliba on Monday morning and headed back up to the highlands towards Eldoret.  Our next big destination was the Masai Mara Conservancy, and now here we are.  We considered taking the route Richard had recommended through the Cherengani Hills to Lake Baringo and Lake Bogoria.  Reportedly you can make it through to Baringo in a day, but we tend to travel slow, and as we needed to provision and fuel we came to our senses, for once, and decided not to bite off too much.

It is with regret that we didn’t have time for more of Kenya, it’s an embarrassment that we can’t spend more time here.  Next time.  For now we went up the escarpment and took a right on the A1, heading south to Kitale.  Provisioning at Kitale was easy, there are two large supermarkets across from each other down town, Transmatt and Khetia’s, both well stocked, with the odd exception of eggs.  Eggs are obtainable in flats of 36, too much for us, or in a paper sack of 5.  I probably don’t have to tell you that a paper sack is not the ideal way to transport eggs, even if you aren’t off roading.  We found this elsewhere too, sort of hilarious.  We searched around and found a sort of plastic egg carton thing which hopefully will work.

Kitale had really grown up since I worked in the area in 2008.  Then we used to run to Kitale to go to the bank and hardware store and so forth so I felt I sort of knew town a bit, but visiting now it’s clear that things, whether just in the region or maybe Kenya in general, are booming.  Where there was before only two filling stations that would often run out of fuel, there are now what seems a dozen.  Traffic is thick and before it was calm, the open market has expanded exponentially and hotels are restaurants are many instead of few.  North of town on the A1 there was a garish brand new multi story hotel complete with bell hops, a pool and all kinds of bling, but strangely no sign.  It seemed open and operational and I wonder who their market is?

After provisioning we turned onto the B2 and made our way towards Eldoret.  Eldoret is larger than Kitale and also has been booming.  It seems there is an oil pipeline distribution hub here, petroleum trucks line the road on the way into town for kilometers.  After my second failed attempt at getting a sim card for my phone we headed about 20 kilometers out of town to Naiberi River Overland Camp.

Naiberi is geared towards the overland truck business, large trucks plying multi week trips throughout various regions of Africa, with low budget backpacker style travel.  Overland trucks have a bad rap in the self drive overland world as they often crowd camps and can be a bit too loud partying.  There was an overland truck with 12 passengers here today, but they were completely pleasant, no complaints.

The camp is on a hill, with four large covered open “kitchens” (a generous term) with a sink, power outlet, lighting and braii/fire area and an almost flat parking space.  There is a lower campsite on a large lawn with no facilities that they said they don’t open up unless the upper sights are full.  It looked nice down there, but with the recent heavy rain the ground was saturated, and they also said it’s quite cold down by the river.  It was already pretty cold at our site, with the elevation being something like 2300 meters.

Ablutions are clean and pretty nice, with hot showers, flush toilets and decent lighting.  Between the upper camp and the lower camp there is a huge restaurant/bar/hangout zone with great atmosphere, if anything maybe a bit overdone, but someone has clearly put a lot of thought and effort into it.  Also in the bar area is a large fire pit and they stoked up a big fire in the evening, great for warming up.  Outside they had a pool and deck along with small covered areas around for hanging out in the afternoon.

After a lot of days on the road we decided to stay a couple days and regroup a bit, get laundry done and relax.  The first night we had dinner at the restaurant and I had a really great Indian dish, chicken meri-methti (spelling?) with chapati.  Jenny had mutton nyama choma, a Kenyan national dish, and we were happy.

The staff here were really great, checking in with us often to see if we needed anything.  Organizing firewood, dinner, where to go in town to pick up a few things, laundry and even my much sought after sim card were all sorted out in short order.

Like Barnley’s Guest House, they mentioned that business was really slow.  I’d certainly recommend Naberi for a stop if you’re in the area.  Hopefully things pick up for them, it’s good to see someone putting in such effort and building a nice facility.

A couple nights at Naberi was great, but it was cold at night and we felt the call of the bush, so we pressed on to the Masai Mara.  Right out the door we took a wrong turn and went 20 kilometers or so the wrong direction.  We had to double back, much to the amusement of the police that had stopped us at a checkpoint earlier.  On our brief diversion we saw dozens and dozens of runners along the road.

Many residents of here do not have the time or need for such things as exercise, the daily lives of many rural Kenyans being very busy just getting by, and hauling all of your water or food or charcoal or whatever is plenty exercise enough.  However Kenya and Eldoret in particular are unique in that this is the home of most of the elite Kenyan runners.  Runners from Eldoret are famous the world over for long distance running, winning marathons and holding records in large numbers.  It was nice seeing these runners training along the road to make a connection to what I had read about.  I’d recommend the Radiolab podcast on Kenyan runners if you are interested.

Back on track we got onto the main highway towards Nairobi.  At this point I must take back all that I said about the Kenyan roads being hectic and stressful.  We found the A104 to be in perfect condition, with ample lanes, passing lanes on the climbs to get around slow trucks and also wide shoulders.  Pedestrians, boda bodas and matatus thinned out and we raced along with ease.

We passed the equator at 9100’ of elevation.  Kind of amazing to think how far we have driven.  We have about 9000 kilometers on the clock for this trip.  The equivalent from our home in California is a quick drive to Equador.  And now we need to drive back!  It doesn’t seem so far to us, each day has been an exploration, and when you’re not sure what each day will bring it’s easy to not consider, too much, how far you have to go.

A Logistical digression:

We turned off the A104 to the road marked B1 and C23 on T4A, not sure why the two names.  To further muddy the waters the very new looking road sign says the turnoff is for the A1.  I think this is because it eventually links up with the A1.  The sign is marked for Kericho.

From the A104 turnoff to Kericho the road is beautiful and passes through many kilometers of fervent green tea plantations.  After Kericho the road narrows but is in perfectly fine shape.

T4A would prefer we turned off onto the B23, just before Sotik.  However we did not, we took Stan’s advice (of Slow Donkey fame, who’s meticulous blog has helped many an overland traveler to follow in his footsteps.  We considered calling our vehicle “Slower Donkey” but decided against it) and pressed on the next logical turn toward Kilgoris.  This turn is simply marked “road” on T4A, but links up with the C17.

After Kilgoris the road turns to gravel (is marram the correct term?), a little bumpy at first but improving quite a bit after about half way to the Oloololo gate.

Digression over.

Getting closer to the Masai Mara we were beginning to see more traditional dress, though mostly combined with western clothing.  A baseball cap, jeans and a t-shirt, but a Masai blanket and hearding stick being the most common outfit.

Masai Mara

We arrived at the Oloololo gate around 3:30 pm, and logically we should have saved our money and camped outside the gate.  But the call of the wild was too strong and we plunked down our credit card so we could camp inside the park that night.  Park fees cover 24 hrs from the time of purchase, so it wasn’t totally ridiculous.

At the gate we bought firewood, at the exorbitant price of 1000 ksh a wheelbarrow full, and after a lot of waiting around they brought us what was almost a tree.  With the help of the rangers we wrestled it onto the roof rack, fearing a bit too much weight up top we agreed to have a big fire that night.

Wanting to get in a bit of an evening drive before heading to Eulai camp we charged into the park, foolishly not asking about road conditions, or directions to our camp.  In retrospect all of this would have been useful.

As is our usual tendency, we headed for the river road.  Normally water draws the wildlife, but since it has been such a huge rainy season this is not the case right now.  Fortunately the Mara Triangle is teeming with wildlife, so that part proved not to be a problem.  As a side note, the western part of the Masai Mara is operated by the Masai Mara Conservancy and is all the territory West of the Mara River.  This area is referred to “the conservancy” or “the triangle”.  Universally everyone will tell you that the Conservancy is better run, but what exactly that meant we were not sure.  We will find out.

Later we learned that this year the Mara has seen the most rain for 60 years.  This meant that the roads are very wet and muddy in some places.  Our river road turned into a two spoor track and from that it turned into the barest hint of a path, just two parallel lines of bent grass where vehicles had been before, but vague to say the least.  Slowly we progressed, seeing elephants and topi and having a grand time, back in a park, alone on a wild track and just us and the animals.

As we went along we started watching the clock with concern.  With the vague track and muddy conditions we were making slow progress, and it looked like we were going to be late to camp.  Sunset is 6:30 pm, and you are supposed to be in camp no later than seven o’clock.

We were getting close to where the track connected to the main road and we would be free and clear, but we came to a muddy ravine across the road, clearly impassable.  We had to turn back, and with that there went our hope of being in camp on time.

We made somewhat faster progress back tracking, but even then we were following the maze of tracks trying to find the shortest route to the main road without having to be turned back again.  A couple times we rolled the dice when given the choice between right and left and luckily picked correctly.  As we approached the main road we were treated to a pride of female lions with cubs, but we were so late and had so far to go we only stopped for a minute.

Back on the main road we made good time towards camp, and that is when we realized we hadn’t asked for any details about the camp site.  When we had said we’d like to camp at Eluai public campsite they simply said “okay” and that was it.

So here we were, late and racing towards our camp while losing the meager light that was left, having no idea of really where we were going.  The map that they gave us was very general, just a dot in between two roads.  Tracks 4 Africa had it marked clearly, so we put our faith in the GPS, but when we made it to the supposed turn there was no road at all.  Hmm.

It was dark by now, so we doubled back, the GPS showing an alternative approach.  Sure enough there was a muddy small track off the main road with no sign.  We took it, and crept into the tall grass.  A Rutted muddy track, and more and more it seemed we might be in the wrong spot.  No sign, a little used road.  We figured regardless where we found ourselves we would just camp and sort it out in the morning, but with grass a meter high all around camping would not be that great without at least a small clearing.

I zoomed way in on the gps and we followed the merest suggestion of a track in the grass and watched the screen for guidance, creeping along.  Finally we found a tiny clearing around an old termite mound and we called it good and made camp.  This is fully wild, no other people, no lights, no fences, just us in the bush of the Mara.  If it wasn’t for our late arrival we would have been thrilled.  Even so, after we got a fire going and after a much needed beer settled down a bit it was really nice to be out there all alone under the stars.  We couldn’t wait to wake up and see where we were in the morning.

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.