Date: Monday 30th August, 2010 | Country: Uncategorized | Tags: africa, blogsherpa, Botswana, Gaborone, Kubu Island, Shakawe | 7 Comments »
On my 3rd visit back to Botswana I was able to go on a small road trip with my friend Luisa and we decided to visit a couple of places one new to me and one that I fell in love with the first time I was there.
Kubu Island
Lying southeast of the Okavango Delta and surrounded by the Kalahari desert Makgadikgadi is technically not a single pan but many pans with sandy desert in between, the largest being the Sua (Sowa), Ntwetwe and Nxai Pans. The largest individual pan is about 1,900 sq mi (4,921.0 km2).
We were told by a few people in Gabs that Kubu Island is a must see place and we wouldn’t regret it. It took us a day and half to drive to the start of the pan where we could book one night camping on the Island and for entrance and camping costing around £15 each it seemed reasonable enough. It’s run by a local community trust and the money goes back to the employment of the staff that work and maintain the place. Kubu Island is a igneous rock "island" in the salt flat of Sua pan. Kubu Island lies in the south western quadrant of Sua Pan, contains a number of baobab trees, and is protected as a national monument
Above: Getting to the Island
When someone told me that in the middle of a salt pan there was a granite rock Island full of Baobab trees, it’s difficult to comprehend the size and beauty and spiritual nature that the Island offers to you, when you first arrive there are 8 designated camping sites to choose from, all are different in their layout and the baobabs that the camp has so it took us a while to choose our own site due to the beauty of each site and as it was empty at the time we were there we had the pick of the bunch.
Above: The Magical Kubu Island
The Island is a very special place, the camping facilities are basic with a small drop toilet and no shower facilities so if you can get past that it’s a place to unwind and experience a remote wilderness.
Shakawe..Again
The thought of being back on the Okavango delta brought a serious sense of excitement to me and it’s a place that I seriously will be visiting on a regular basis while I am in Botswana. This time I came with my own rod and some lures and John was not surprised to see me back. It was a long weekend the time we went up and some old friends of John and Heather arrived around the same he first day that Lu and I were out with John, he took us to a place called the ‘Bread basket’ that he has had some luck with in the past and after a few hours in other areas without a bite, the bread basket came to fulfil its name and within 5 minutes we all had a fish each. Lu and I had caught our fishes at exactly the same time which was very freaky but fantastic to catch my very first fish. The only problem with catching your own fish is that you have to de-scale and gut the fish yourself getting very messy in the process! Over the next few days I managed to catch a few more fish some small, some big and even had a whopper get away but there was confusion on the boat as to whose line was what so I didn’t feel that bad, and after a good few days on the delta relaxing in the sun, casting into the shimmering delta and eating some fantastic meals round the Braii (mostly thanks to Heather and Anne) we had to leave. John and Heather, once again thanks for your hospitality and you are one of the reasons why I am here to stay so thanks!
Above: I love Fishing!
Junior Achievement/Barclays & Stepping Stones
I thought that I would be doing a lot more volunteering for the Junior Achievement/Barclays joint achievement scheme that I saw a lot of in Ghana, but for whatever reason it didn’t work out as planned. I got to visit one secondary school called Kagiso just outside Gaborone and met two sets of kids that were running their own initiative. The first set of kids were running a specially designed mug that either had a pattern on it or would change colour when hot water was put into it, unfortunately as I explained to them the cost of their mug was around 100 Pula (£10) and this straight away stopped them being able to sell it within their own school which there were around 1000 kids. The second group however were a success as they came up with contemporary jewellery designed and manafactured by the kids themselves and their designs were fresh and at 10 pula a pair of earrings (£1) they were able to sell beyond their targets and making 20-30p per sale in profit they were on the road to bigger and better things.
Above: Kagiso Secondary School Junior Achievers
When I first got to Gabs, I met the Barclays contact Egenia who took me to see another project called Stepping Stones in a place called Mochudi. Stepping Stones was setup to help HIV children with after school activities. One of the projects run here is called ‘Income Generation’ which teaches the kids here how to run their own business, so there is a catering group, an events group, a jewellery design group and a cinema club group. It was here that I met my friend Celia who is co-ordinating the income generation group and it was here that I felt I could volunteer my time to the cinema club. Celia welcomed the assistance and I started to try and help promote the cinema’s next few films, starting with Twilight. After a few weeks they had their second film night and from 3 tickets being sold the first time they did the club, we collectively managed to sell 30. I hope to continue volunteering here as I like the kids here and hopefully over time we can get the whole of Mochudi coming to see the films that the kids are putting on. I’d also like to say a big thanks to Celia who not only has put me up on her living room floor for the past couple of months but has also gone out her way to introduce me to all her friends and contacts and without her help it would have been a hell of a lot harder, thanks Celia.
Above: Stepping Stones Cinema Club
End Credits
At the time of writing this last post in my blog, I have been on the road for 9 months, I have visited some of the most colourful, vibrant & friendliest places in Africa and possibly in the world by comparison. I always had a yearning to see if South Africa was the place that I wanted to spend a few good years of my life but as with most things in life, they never always go the way you planned it might and sometimes you have to go with your own gut feeling which suits the time you are currently at in your own life. I loved seeing the mountains of Morocco, the Senegalese food was amazing, the party atmosphere of the Guinea Bissauan’s, the wild beaches of Sierra Leone and the Ivory Coast, the friendly nature of the Ghanaians, the rollercoaster ride you experience in Nigeria, the grandeur of the Cameroun hills, the vibrant jungles of Congo Brazzaville, the ease of camping anywhere in Angola, the solitude within Namibia and the epic scenery that South Africa throws in your face everywhere you look. When I got to Botswana I found many of these aspects that I loved on this whole journey were all there in one country and at this time in my life it feels like a good place to be. For those that have known me for a while, although I have worked in the corporate world for many years, one of my ambitions has always been to setup and run my own cinema/bar/cafe. When I got to Gaborone (Gabs) the capital of Botswana, I could clearly see that there are opportunities here and I could either go for it now or turn my back on an opportunity and maybe never realise this ambition of mine. Being on the road for such a long time, you have plenty of time to think about your own life and what you want to do with it from this moment onwards, well my time came up with the conclusion that at 35 years old it’s a good time for me to try this in a city that is one of the friendliest places I have ever been too as well as the city is developing and crying out for places/venues such as what I have in mind. I have just applied for permanent residency (entitles me to 5 years) in Botswana and also setup my own company that I can start trading through, I will be back in the uk around Mid Sep and remain there until the new year when I will return and start my new life in Botswana, I look forward to seeing all my family and friends that have supported me throughout this journey soon. For those people that I met along this journey and opened their doors to me and became good friends with, I will never forget you and you have taught me many things about human nature that I never knew existed.
Here are some photos that in pictures try to explain what this journey was all about.
Above: My African Nomad Adventure 2009 – 2010
Look forward to hearing from you and thanks for all the kind words and support I have received from friends, family and people reading the blog that I have met along the way.
Noel
www.Nomad-Adventure.com
Date: Wednesday 28th July, 2010 | Country: Botswana | Tags: africa, blogsherpa, Botswana, Chobe NP, Gaborone, Khubu Island, Kuru SAN Art, Maun, Moremi NP, Shakawe | 5 Comments »
‘Not far’ as many people would tell me when asking where places were even if it actually took 10 minutes or 10 hours to get there, well using this common phrase, we are ‘not far’ from South Africa as we enter Botswana, African country no 18 via the Caprivi strip. The weather is still cold during the starts and ends to each day with some glorious sunshine during the middle part of each day. I am several weeks behind with updating the blog so apologies for the delay! The following blog gives an account of the places I visited and in the chronological order of them.
History
The British Government put "Bechuanaland" under its protection on 31 March 1885 after Tswana inhabitants were facing hostile movements by various tribes as well as the Boer’s and asked the British for their assistance. When the Union of South Africa was formed in 1910 out of the main British colonies in the region, the Bechuanaland Protectorate, Basutoland (now Lesotho) and Swaziland (the "High Commission Territories") were not included, but provision was made for their later incorporation. However, a vague undertaking was given to consult their inhabitants, and although successive South African governments sought to have the territories transferred, Britain kept delaying; consequently, it never occurred. The election of the Nationalist government in 1948, which instituted apartheid, and South Africa’s withdrawal from the Commonwealth in 1961, ended any prospect of incorporation of the territories into South Africa. In June 1964, Britain accepted proposals for a democratic self-government in Botswana. The seat of government was moved in 1965 from Mafikeng in South Africa, to the newly established Gaborone, which sits near its border. The 1965 constitution led to the first general elections and to independence on 30 September 1966. Seretse Khama, a leader in the independence movement and the legitimate claimant to the Ngwato chiefship, was elected as the first president, re-elected twice. The presidency passed to the sitting vice president, Quett Masire, who was elected in his own right in 1984 and re-elected in 1989 and 1994. Masire retired from office in 1998. The presidency passed to the sitting vice president, Festus Mogae, who was elected in his own right in 1999 and re-elected in 2004. The presidency passed in 2008 to Ian Khama (son of the first president), who resigned his position as leader of the Botswana Defence Force to take up this civilian role.
Botswana adopted its new name after becoming independent within the Commonwealth on 30 September 1966. It has held free and fair democratic elections since independence.
Geographically the country is flat and up to 70% of Botswana is covered by the Kalahari Desert. It is bordered by South Africa to the south and southeast, Namibia to the west and north, and Zimbabwe to the northeast. It meets Zambia at a single point.
Border
Everything went very smoothly at the border that leads you into Chobe National Park. On the Namibian side there we were the only people waiting to exit the country so after filling out our VAT returns which they told us would be returned to my account within a few weeks we were able to leave Namibia and on the Botswana side we were given a 90 day entry visa that was for free as well as obtain their car insurance for the same period which cost £12 or 150 pula and everything was done within 30 minutes of arrival. The only thing here is that Botswana is a massive beef exporter to the EU and other areas round the world and they made myself and Reka disinfect our flipflops as well as made Maggie drive through a pool of disinfectant no doubt trying to prevent foot and mouth into their lands, while we were doing this, one lady was curious as to the colour of my skin and she couldn’t believe that I was brown and she started checking me up and down and even pulled my trousers up to see my legs if they were the same colour as the rest of my body! It was all done in jest and we all had a good laugh about it.
Chobe National Park
The idea of a national park to protect the varied wildlife found here as well as promote tourism first appeared in 1931. The following year, 24′000 km² around Chobe district were officially declared non-hunting area; this area was expanded to 31′600 km² two years later. In 1967, the reserve was declared a national park.
A note about national parks and reserves in Botswana, a few years ago they were run by the government parks board but in the last year and a bit the government have been cordoning areas of to private concessions with their reason being keeping the footprint of tourists to an acceptable number each year, but the reality from my perspective is that they are probably earning a fat wedge of cash from these private companies and eventually the average income family will be priced out by the smaller number of rich people that fly into Bots, see the wildlife that they want and then fly out again. As a result of this privatisation, you cannot simply arrive at any park and then pay your park fees and drive in unless you are not intending to sleep in one of the designated camping areas. Due to the size of these parks it almost makes it virtually impossible to drive for the day and leave without having to sleep in either a camping area or a hut/lodge. So even though we entered Bots via one of the gates to Chobe, we actually had to drive to the closest town called Kassane to book our 1 night in Chobe. That night we slept in a nearby campsite in Kasane which was reasonable enough at 60 pula each (£5) and the next day went to their offices in the town. The cost of the park entry fees are 120 pula each (£10) per day and the camping a very reasonable 30 pula each (£2.50) but we had to tell them when we wanted to go. The staff in the office were not helpful at all and looked like they would rather be somewhere else than here but we found all the info we needed to know from some other tourists also visiting the park. Nevertheless, the next day we were in Chobe and the route we chose was along the Chobe river (didn’t have much choice by the way) but it was well worth it. The roads consist of thick sandy tracks that only a 4×4 can traverse through and it all added to the charm of the place trying to avoid large tour guided 4×4’s carrying expectant tourists on the back seats while trying to spot some animals in the process. Actually spotting animals wasn’t that hard as herds of Elephants would cross your path, followed by Giraffes, Buffalo, Springbok and over by the river you could get good viewing spots for watching Hippo’s and the odd croc.
Above: Chobe National Park
If you are camping in Chobe, be prepared to bring food and firewood as there is no small shop that you sometimes find in national parks but there are shower and toilet facilities here. The campsite is secluded and situated on the banks of the Chobe river and a magical setting that you could easily spend days here watching the wildlife just near you, hippo’s distinctly grunt your way, fish eagles perch high up on trees, monitor lizards trundle through the grass and we even had an army of huge ants invade our campsite looking for something and these guys were huge!
Above: Camping in the Chobe
I have been lucky enough to visit a lot of national parks in Central, Southern Africa and East Africa and the Chobe comes highly rated as a must see place if you are into your wildlife, you are unlikely to see lions and leopards unless you are fortunate unlike the great plains of the Serengeti or the red dunes of the Kalahari but for an experience in itself the Chobe National Park is a special place and I hope that the Botswana government change their current privatisation plans to stop this becoming a place that only rich tourists can visit as the park is huge and I would have like to see more than the full day that I was there.
Nata, Elephant White Sands
On our way to Maun we stopped over in Nata, it’s a small dust bowl of a town but there is a campsite there 30 or so km before you hit the town called Elephant Sands and aptly named as the campsite is covered in White sand and guess what, there are plenty of Elephants that every day move through the campsite to get to wherever they are going. We ended up staying there a few nights as the place was so magical it would have been rude to leave after one night! The campsite had it’s own supply of wood for guests to the campfire was always roasting hot during the cold wintery nights. At one point the Matriarch of the dozen or so elephants that passed through the campsite smashing there way through the trees in their path stopped and checked Reka and I out and she must have been literally 20 metres away, to be that close to an amazing animal is exhilarating and something that is difficult to ever forget.
Above: Getting close to nature
It was also here that I said a fond farewell to 2 of my closest items of clothing, my flip flops and my shorts, they had both been lovingly worn throughout the 8 months of my travels but were at the stage that they had been through several repair jobs via Reka and myself and shoe repair people along the way and they finally had to be put down!
Above: We’ve been through a lot together my friends, farewell!
Maun
We went to Maun specifically so we could vist another national park in Botswana called the Moremi game reserve. Similar to Kassane for Chobe National Park, the town is teeming with tourists that are going as part of a guided tour or via their own hired vehicle. Kassane and Maun both have a similar infrastructure in that there are plenty of supermarkets and bottle stores with many lodges and backpackers situated in or near both towns. The only problem with this was to find a campsite where you weren’t falling over other people I had to find a campsite that was further out of town and after booking our one night in the Moremi we found a campsite about 40km away from the national park that was reasonable and chilled. Maun wasn’t my cup of tea but there is one food shop in town which serves a great array of meat and fish as well as their own preservatives such as homemade jams and chutneys and well worth a visit if you are ever there, can’t remember the name of the place but it’s a small town so won’t be hard to find. Oh also had to replace 2 wheels that were on there way out due to wear and tear so bought a couple of new tyres from a tyre shop in Maun, he was the most reasonable but still double the price of what you would expect to pay in England and there aren’t many places in Botswana that sell second hand tyres which is a shame. Also had to visit another mechanic but this time of the welding kind as my fuel tank was starting to leak so found someone that could remove the tank and find the problem (a small hole no more than a pin head) that was located and repaired after 3 hours of them bumbling around trying to remove the fuel tank in the first place.
Above: Lovely food shop, New tyres and Fuel Tank repair!
Moremi National Park
I’ll be short and sweet about this Park, there had been recent rains in the area and more than expected to point of areas being flooded so much so that only certain routes in the park could have been done, I saw more wildlife outside the park on the way into the gate than I actually did in one day within the park (we were treated to seeing a herd of around 150 elephants outside), everything was overgrown and made it difficult to see any wildlife and for whatever reason maybe due to a number of factors such as timing and the recent rains I personally did not enjoy going to the Moremi, I’m sure others have had better experiences.
Above: Nothing to see in Moremi!
John & Heather, Shakawe
My friend Alan that I had met in Lagos in Nigeria had passed me the contact of one his good friends that he used to know when he lived in Botswana. As we were heading to the North western side to go and see some San rock paintings which were in the nearby vicinity we made our way to Shakawe where John lives. On the way there we stayed in a campsite that had recently been flooded and the only way to get there was to drive through a river where the water had reached the height just below the bonnet of Maggie. It was a first for me to drive for what seemed like 5 minutes through this level of water, it was exciting but at the same time a little bit scary but with Maggie in low range and the pressure of the water against the vehicle stopping anything coming inside we made it to the other side.
Above: Testing Maggie’s Waterproof capabilities!
The next day we headed to Shakawe which on first impressions is a dust bowl of a town, it has one supermarket, one bank (a Barclays mobile home) and a couple of bottle stores, people wander the streets looking like zombies that have just woken up from a zombie coma and there is a feeling that nothing actually ever happens here. Bear in mind this was Reka and my impression as soon as we got there. I tried calling the number given to me for John and if he didn’t answer or it was the wrong number, we would have left Shakawe minutes later. John did answer and as soon as I told him it was a friend of Alan he gave me directions to come and find him and he even drove out some of the way to make sure we found the right place. As we drove closer to his house, there was a sense of relief as the dustbowl transformed into a wooded haven and his house was metres away from the waters that form the Okavango Delta. John greeted us as if we were old school friends and from that moment onwards I can clearly say that I had one of the most amazing weeks of my life (in Shakawe!). John and his wife Heather have lived a colourful life, John originally from Malawi where his father had a farm moved to Zambia where John and Heather then had their own farm for a long period of time and then moved to Gaborone in Botswana and after working hard running their own garage they moved to Shakawe to be by the delta and be in a place that they can relax and build their own house and be self sufficient (John and Heather, I hope most of this is correct!).
Above: John & Heathers front garden and pets
One of the first things that we did with John and Heather was to take a ride on the Okavango delta in Johns boat. Just a little bit of info on the delta itself:
The Okavango Delta is produced by seasonal flooding. The Okavango river drains the summer (January-February) rainfall from the Angola highlands and the surge flows 1,200 kilometres in approximately one month. The waters then spread over the 250 km by 150 km area of the delta over the next four months (March-June). The high temperature of the delta causes rapid transpiration and evaporation, resulting in a cycle of rising and falling water level.
The flood peaks between June and August, during Botswana’s dry winter months, when the delta swells to three times its permanent size, attracting animals from miles around and creating one of Africa’s greatest concentrations of wildlife.
The delta is very flat, with less than 2 metres variation in height across its 15,000 km².
The reality is that being on the delta, slowly taking in this giant ever changing wilderness is an experience that I wish everyone could get to see. It’s a magical place and dangerous as well due to the hippo’s that reside along the banks as well as the crocodiles amongst other wetland creatures as well as a number of deadly mamba’s. John has traversed this part of the delta for sometime and yet he even admits that he can get into tricky situations if he doesn’t read the channels and sometimes the movement of islands that sometimes occurs. It is times like this that I truly understood why I travel and the rewards of unknown places that blow your mind.
Above: The Delta in all its glory
For the next few days we spent our time either on the delta, braai’ing outside or warming up chatting rubbish over a hot fire, helping John clear out some overgrown bush in a School garden so that a function could be held there and discovering some of the nicer parts of Shakawe and it’s nearby attraction. It was a holiday within a holiday for me and if it’s possible to be even more chilled than I normally was, it was here that I reached the nirvana of chillness!
Above: Drotsky’s Cabins for sundowners
Above: John & Heather taking us to a place signposted as Paradise!
Above: the kids playing Marimba at Bana Ba Metsi that schools troubled kids originally thrown out of previous schools
The photos above are of the school Bana ba Metsi. The school teaches kids practical skills and they all participate in one form or another in either building part of the school, teaching them mechanics, the sale of chickens and eggs via their own chicken farm, cooking for one another plus the normal syllabus to ensure these children that have previously been isolated from further education a better chance in life through an environment that allows them to grow without being shunned due to circumstances in their own personal lives. The photos above are of some of the kids that have formed a band that play their own composed songs in a style known as Marimba, and the sound is wonderful and shows how much talent is waiting to be harnessed within them. They played wonderfully and as it was unplanned so it was special.
As Shakawe is a small place there are only so many social circles in the town and John and Heather happen to be very good friends with the Manager Sammy of the only bank in town which happens to be Barclays. She is a lovely person and we had some nice chats with her over a fire at Johns place.
Above: Sammy the Shakawe Barclays Manager
Fishing the hard way
One thing I have never tried before but always wanted to try was the sport (yes, it is a sport, just like darts) was learning how to fish. John is an experienced fisherman probably fishing in some of the wildest and richest (for fish) areas of Southern Africa in Malawi & Zambia amongst other places. His fishing kit is a complex maze of hooks, lines and all sorts of tackle that looks very impressive but meant nothing to me until John explained the qualities of all these lures. John explained that fishing on the delta is one of the hardest places to fish due to the reed system that allows thousands upon thousands of under reed networks that may house fish plus a plethora of other marine life. Fish in the delta range from Tigerfish, Bream (a few variations), Babel (Catfish) to a number of smaller species and John was kind enough to take us out on his boat on a few occasions while we were there for a week and casting out into the pockets of water that lie along the reed bank and the idea was to cast the lure into an area no more than 30-40cm wide and let the lure sink for a few seconds and then slowly reel in the line and hope for a Bream to catch the lure and dinner is then ready, all easy in theory but the difficulty is the lure has large hooks on the end and the reeds near these pockets easily catch the lure and once you get snagged the boat then has to be positioned over the pocket that you were casting into and as John puts it, you ‘close the hole’, throughout the week I tried my damned hardest to catch a fish but had no luck, John did managed to catch the one Bream which we filleted an hour later and had it for breakfast which was amazing, and after a few days of fishing or should I say my very first day, I was hooked and fell in love with being on the delta as well as fishing! Thanks John for the lessons and for getting me addicted! Heather, thanks for making me feel welcome in Shakawe and as you know I’ve already been back but will no doubt be back many other times after this and appreciate your hospitality.
Above: Fishing for Bream
Tsolido Hills, San Rock Art
Before I had met John and Heather the reason why we had been up the north western side of Botswana was to go and see Tsolido Hills a UNESCO World Heritage Site. It was inscribed in 2001 due to its unique religious and spiritual significance to local peoples, as well as its unique record of human settlement over many millennia. It contains over 4,500 rock paintings in an area of approximately 10 km² within the Kalahari Desert. There are 4 hills, commonly described as the "Male", this is the highest, the "Female", "Child" and an un-named knoll. These hills are of great cultural and spiritual significance to the San peoples of the Kalahari. It is believed that the caves and caverns of the "Female" hill are the resting places of the deceased and various gods who rule the world from here. The most sacred place is near the top of the "Male" hill, where it is said that the First Spirit knelt and prayed after creating the world. The San believe that you may still see the impression of the First Spirits’ knees in the rock. As you arrive you are taken through a small museum of photos of the surrounding area as well as artefacts and information on the founders of this site as well as local people that have helped preserve the area, for a small fee you can then take a guide as we had done to take you through one of the many routes that you can choose, we took a 2 hour hike through the female hill and it’s advisable to bring water and a good pair of hiking boots due to the terrain that you will go through, it’s a beautiful place to walk and although the guide was very robotic in his delivery of what we saw it’s still useful to have a guide to ensure you see some of the more interesting rock art paintings that aren’t isn’t obvious if you are by yourself.
Above Right: Interpreted as a drawing of a Whale and a Penguin which could have been seen via travels through what is now known as South Africa.
Above: Tsolido
San Contemporary Art
When leaving Shakawe we passed D’kar which is near Ghansi and were told to pop into the Kuru Art centre which is an art collective setup to help local San artists to create and sell there art. It was an interesting place but all the work being produced were along the same lines except for one artist in particular, it was this artist that I connected with and was able to buy a piece of his collection without paying the extortionate prices that the centre had put ontop of the artists original price.
Above: Kuru Art Centre
Conclusion
Well there is more to come from my travels in Botswana, in the last couple of months I have actually been back to Botswana 3 times for various reasons but mainly because I love being here and so part 2 will round up the rest of my travels so far in Botswana and apologies for not updating the blog sooner.
Look forward to hearing from you
