Botswana (For the 2nd Time)

19th October 2004 (cont.)

….Leaving Namibia was easy, as was smuggling a boerwurs, some cheese and a box of wine into Botswana. We roll into the typical border town of Shakawe and change our remaining South African Rand into Pula. At the fuel station, I chat to the lads filling up next to us about changing more cash and places to camp. They run the Shakawe Fishing Lodge down the road where we decide to stay. It is on the banks of the Okavango in beautiful settings. They leave us in the bar to go fishing so we crack open a few tins and watch bee-eaters fly over the water. We light a fire and have boerwurs with salad, placing the wine box on the front wing of the car. Craig shines the torch into the water at a pair of croc eyes staring up at us and decides to get as close as possible to it, before it disappears into the darkness. When the guys return from fishing they invite us for drinks aboard the houseboat moored on the banks. The night and early morning are then mostly spent in the bar competing in a darts competition.

20th October 2004

Again the Overmeer Grand Cru has managed to completely erase our memories. When I eventually manage to drag myself from the tent, I find Craig curled up in the foetal position under a chair next to the car with a towel wrapped around his head; the poor guy is suffering big time. I leave him to recover and take a shower and when I return he is a new man admitting he had popped a paracetamol. Refusing to rely on pills for hangovers, I slowly slip into one of the largest hangovers ever and opt for the first driving shift to keep my mind off it. We drive south, rounding the edges of the Okavango Delta into Maun, stopping for cash, fuel and lunch. The sandy track north out of town takes us towards the south gate of Moremi NP in the Delta. Whilst waiting at a disease control gate, an elephant crosses the track in front of us. We choose to camp outside the park and find the Kazankilli camp 28kms from the park gate. We park up under a tree next to a waterhole and light a fire. Swarms of thousands of tiny birds ‘woosh’ across the sky sounding like gusting winds. After a huge amount of pasta we recover slouching in the chairs before retiring early.

21st October 2004

We leave early for the south gate along the sandy, woodland track. The drive north up to our chosen campsite, Xakanaxa, is through dry woodland, sparse of wildlife until the greenery starts and we see a young bull elephant next to the track. I slowly reverse back to him, dropping it quickly into first again when he gives us a warning charge! We get to the campsite next to the marshland and talk to someone about boat hire. We get directed to an empty office next to the airstrip – useless – and decide to drive round the tracks of woodland and past marshland, water and bush identifying heaps of birds, seeing impala, waterbuck, nyala, giraffe, zebra, a monitor lizard and a lone hippo out of the water, metres from the car. After three and a half hours we are knackered and follow knocked down or smashed stone signs back to the camp, park up and have lunch. I write diary and Craig catches some rays whilst a bright red-chested Barbet feeds on our breadcrumbs. After driving back and forwards to the office and boat hire people, we decide it’s not going to happen and the Botswana tourism board need to buck their ideas up. We head off for an evening drive to the north gate and get into the camp in the dark, immediately lighting the fire and preparing dinner. Shortly after the huge boerwurs has been chucked on the grill, we hear rustling and clanking of tins. The torch lights up a pair of hyena eyes 20m from us. We follow him around the camp and let two SA lads also know. Craig constructs a makeshift torch to wave at the thing if it decides to attack. We had to shine the torch numerous times and charge the beast when he and another hyena passed our vehicle within metres. Craig then shines the torch into a tree and illuminates the large eyes of the tiny Bushbaby, which we study for a while – awesome! We then watch and laugh as the SA lads, who should be used to this wild camping, start up there vehicle to drive to loos! After keeping the hyenas at bay for an hour we give up and hit the tent.

22nd October 2004

I wake in the night hearing one of our chairs being knocked over and scare of another hyena with the torch. After a cold shower in a pile of leaves (hadn’t been used for donkeys), we head off towards the south gate, being given another warning charge by a feisty young bull elephant en route. We head to the Kazankilli campsite where we stayed two nights ago to fill up with water and suddenly change our route plan. We opt to head north again for the slightly more expensive but more interesting drive through Chobe NP and into Zambia. The deep sandy track up to the south gate of Chobe is great fun. We see elephant crossing in front of us. At the gate we are met by four people from Manchester who are struggling with their borrowed Discovery. I listen to the problem but cannot help out with spare parts because it is a petrol engine. The men seem more bothered about finishing their beers and cracking open two more than fixing the problem and act literally stupid, making us feel embarrassed to be English. The road is bad enough as it is so before they can ask for a tow we crack on. The drive north through dry, muddy marsh and golden grassland is pretty dull and lifeless. The last stretch to the campsite is deep sand so towing would have been a nightmare. We park up, have lunch and relax after a very long morning. We head off for an early evening drive and are both amazed at how diverse the park is compared with this morning. We drive through thick bush, along a dry riverbed and through long open grassland, ideal for lion. It feels like proper ‘drive anywhere’ self-safari when we start properly tracking cat tracks in the sand. The sunset is also incredible against the silhouette of an elephant. Unfortunately we see no cats but both agree that just driving through great bush on a safari is equally as enjoyable. Back at camp we light a fire with the little wood we have left and have an ‘eat-up’ dinner.

23rd October 2004

In the morning the first job is clear up the mess of our rubbish bin which has been ransacked by hyena or jackal. One of the Manchester men collars me in the ablution block and tells me what a nightmare they had getting to the camp and how they got stuck in sand for over an hour in the burning sun, ran out of water and how it happens to them every year. I eventually get away. Craig then gets collared by him when he pops the question of ‘any chance of lift up to Kasane?’. Kasane is over 120kms away through deep sand and woodland. I walk over and get told how they have also run out of diesel due to the excessive amount needed through the sand up to the camp. I let the chap down gently because it is completely out of the question, his timing is unreal (just before everyone’s morning drive) and the fact that if they weren’t so thick and had prepared properly they wouldn’t be in this situation. We both jump into the car and head off quickly out of the camp, north along the deep, sandy, woodland tracks through the Chobe Nature Reserve. We see numerous elephant and a pack of wild dog just on the edge of the track, which is superb due to their rarity. We enter the park again on the public tarmac road to Kasane seeing more elephant and Southern ground hornbill. Leaving Botswana at Kasane is straightforward. Like over two months ago, entering Zambia is a different question….

Distance travelled since London : 39,965 kms

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