atravelynn

I'm up to where you meet Albert.

The hint on your ATMs not working in Botswana could save the day for future travelers.

You know how restaurant critics have different categories of rating places? For your picnic stops you'd have to add the criteria "poop quantities."

I agree with you on the guinea fowl. In the right sunlight their blue is shimmeringly beautiful.

The interaction between self drivers and guides in Moremi is interesting. Good thing you used your spotting skills to spot the camera. I can't imagine forgetting your camera. Any explanation on how that came about so we all can avoid a similar calamity?

I have heard of people leaving a camera or binocs on top of a pop top vehicle and then it drives off.

This is a long shot, but by any chance have you done many Africa trips (I know you mentioned 2 previous Botswana self drives) and were you at San Camp about Aug 11, 2005?

canadian_robin

Atravelynn
Hmm - poop ratings - interesting idea!

The bank card problems were a surprise - we had never had difficulties before - we will have to get to the bottom of it!

Apparently, the Aussie had the camera on her lap and it must have slipped off and onto the road. We narrowly avoided driving over it - Robert saw it at the last minute and swerved around it - good thing we were going at game drive pace. The woman had 2 weeks worth of photos on the camera and no back up - needless to say, she was extremely happy.

No we haven't been to San Camp - one of these days....
Robin

canadian_robin

After a brief walk at sunset on one of the lodge’s trails that wound its way through the forest, we returned to our tent and tried out the outdoor shower. It was lovely! At 7:30pm, we walked to the main lodge for dinner. It was a communal affair, with all sixteen guests seated around a huge table. The lodge only accommodates eighteen guests in nine tents, so it was almost at capacity. I had a family of five from Spain on my left and Robert and the Belgium couple on my right. The dinner of tomato soup, followed by beef stroganoff on rice with broccoli, carrots and green beans, and apple crumble was excellent. The South African wine was also very good. We were surprised to learn that the couple from Belgium had visited the Skeleton Coast in Namibia last year, where their guide had been Bariar, the same fellow who had just been our guide at Kulala Wilderness Lodge in Sossusvlei, Namibia. We both agreed that he was an excellent guide with a great sense of humour. He had tried to convince us that the large sociable weaver nests hanging in the trees were actually food stored by giraffes for the winter. We returned to our tent shortly after 9:00pm and reviewed the day’s pictures. We headed to bed shortly after ten, enjoying the sound of the frogs, which was incredibly loud. Shortly after we put out our lights, the hippopotamuses put on a lovely performance, with many deep roaring grunts and snorts - such a classic sound of Africa. What a wonderful way to fall asleep! In the night, we were woken by strong winds, which sent a rain of seeds and leaves down on the tent. Had it not been the dry season, we might have thought it was raining. Before dawn, we were awoken again, this time by the helmeted guineafowl, which were creating quite a racket. Not the most restful night, but a memorable one!

The following morning, we were the first at breakfast, anxious to be underway. It was a warm 12oC in the tent when we woke up, and the outdoor shower at dawn felt lovely - once we were under the warm water! We were headed to Nxai Pan National Park, where we were to spend three nights. After a delicious breakfast, we collected our perishable foods from our hostess, who had refrigerated them for us overnight, and left Motsentsela Lodge just before 8:00am. In the midst of the lodge’s lovely indigenous forest, we stopped to take a photo of the two of us standing beside the Land Rover - our pre-trip portrait! I sincerely hoped that it wasn’t the portrait that would be used at our funerals. We had read so many dire warnings about the trip that we were about to undertake that I couldn’t help but wonder if we were going to emerge from the Botswana bush alive.

Nxai Pan National Park lies in the Kalahari Desert in northern Botswana, where there is a series of huge, flat salt pans. They are ancient lakebeds that were once part of the 60,000 sq km super-lake, Lake Makgadikgadi. The lake is thought to have dried up in the last 10,000 years, leaving behind large salt pans where the lake was at its deepest. The vast area of salt pans is arid, harsh and somewhat featureless, but remains largely untouched, offering a sense of isolation that is often so difficult to find. Nxai Pan National Park was originally state land, but an area of 1,676 square kilometres was declared a game reserve in 1970. In 1992, the boundaries were extended to 2,578 square kilometres and the reserve was granted national park status. The park includes three pans - Nxai Pan, Kgama-Kgama Pan and Kudiakam Pan. All are covered in short, nutritious grasses, which support large numbers of grazers - plains zebras, blue wildebeests, springboks, impalas, gemsboks, steenboks, elands and red hartebeests. “Islands" of acacia trees on the pans provide shady spots in which animals rest during the day, and giraffes move from island to island feeding on the acacias. Surrounding the pans are forests of acacias and mopane woodland, where elephants are often seen. Lions are present all year round, and cheetahs and bat-eared foxes roam the open grasslands. A total of 217 species of birds have been recorded. Scattered throughout the park are huge baobab trees, the most famous being Baines’ Baobabs that overlook Kudiakam Pan. We had been warned that the game viewing can be rather unpredictable in Nxai Pan during the hot, dry season, when we would be visiting, but we were going as much for the beautiful scenery and remoteness as the game.

The entrance to Nxai Pan National Park is located roughly 130km east of the turn-off to Motsentsela Tree Lodge along the Maun-Nata road, so we did not have far to travel this day. However, the narrow road has a poor reputation and high accident rate due to wandering domestic animals, and we had been warned by Safari Drive to take it slowly. Driving through the village, which lies on the track between the lodge and the Maun-Nata Road, I felt as though we were intruding on the villagers’ privacy. The sandy track passed very close to some of the rondavels and, still early morning, people were bathing and brushing their teeth. Others sat huddled about fires, wrapped in blankets. We averted our eyes when necessary. Reaching the main road, we began first by back-tracking almost to Maun to the Caltex Station to pick up some charcoal, which we had somehow missed, even though it had been on our shopping list. Robert also picked up a Ngami Times, the local newspaper, which made for fascinating reading. We traveled at 90km/hr, avoiding goats and cows on the highway. We passed a donkey cart with a young family heading into Maun. We passed many women and young children collecting firewood or carrying it on their heads.

canadian_robin

About 40km from Maun, we were stopped at another veterinary fence, where the inspector again asked if we had any fresh products from cloven hoofed animals. We assured him that we were only carrying chicken and that our milk was all long-life, UHT milk. We also had cheese and sandwich meats but, being processed, they were allowed. Our thermoelectric refrigerator, which was on the back seat, was searched, but the inspector skipped the Engen refrigerator, which was in the back. The interrogation and inspection complete, I got out of the Land Rover and joined a long lineup of mostly women and children, who had piled out of a bus and the back of a large truck and were waiting for their turn to walk through a pan of chemicals. It took me a while to make my way to the front of the line, as everyone was required not only to dip the shoes that they were wearing but also any other footwear that was in their vehicle. Some people were carrying three or four pairs of shoes, and it was taking them a while to dip them all! The children, who were from the back of the truck, smiled at me shyly. I couldn’t decide if they were more fascinated by my colour or the fact that I was so lightly dressed in shorts and a T-shirt. To me it felt very warm, but some of them wore toques and all of them were covered from head to toe in warm clothing! Of course, in the back of the truck, they would be exposed to the wind, whereas I was nice and comfy in the Land Rover. I felt completely out of place, but enjoyed listening to the excited chatter around me. As the driver, Robert also dipped his shoes in a pan of chemicals and then he was directed to drive our vehicle through a wide, 15-cm-deep pool of chemicals. Yuck! We arrived at the entrance to Nxai Pan National Park at 10:45am, prepared to tackle the notorious 36-km sandy track from the park entrance to the park gate. We had been told to allow two hours for this difficult stretch of deep sand.

canadian_robin

The first 18km of the sandy track presented no problem and we arrived at the turn-off to Kudiakam Pan and the famous group of ancient trees known as “Baines’ Baobabs” half an hour after turning off the Maun-Nata Road. We were feeling very confident in the Land Rover. We had stopped only once to admire a steenbok that was digging up a root on the road. It didn’t move when we pulled up beside it, allowing Robert to capture some lovely photographs. We passed three oncoming vehicles that were heading out of the park but, because there were at least three and at times four tracks, this wasn’t a problem. Robert would hop from track to track trying to find the firmest one. Since we were making good time, we decided to drive to the baobab trees. Baines’ Baobabs were named after the explorer Thomas Baines, who painted the seven trees in 1862, while on a two-year journey from Namibia to Victoria Falls. The trees are 10km to the east of the track into the park gate, on the eastern edge of Kudiakam Pan. The road into the pan was a single-lane, rough track with deep sand in places, but again we had no trouble along the way.

We arrived at Kudiakam Pan just in time to see two black-backed jackals, reddish-brown dog-like carnivores with a distinct black saddle and pointed ears, disappear into the grass. We followed the track across the northern edge of the pan, stopping to take pictures of the Land Rover against the stark, white, sun-baked clay of the pan. The giant baobab trees were visible across the pan, which was flat and completely featureless, with no vegetation and not even a rock in sight. It was incredibly desolate but at the same time very beautiful. We stood on the pan and admired the view, but the heat and merciless sun reflecting off the pan’s surface soon had us continuing on to the baobabs. We parked in the shade of the baobabs and climbed out of the vehicle to admire them. The seven giants were stunningly beautiful! It was a photographer’s paradise and Robert had great fun with his camera, capturing many lovely photos. Although almost 150 years have passed, the seven trees had changed very little from the way Baines depicted them in his painting. Eventually, we ate our first meal out of the back of the Land Rover, using the large pull-out drawer as a table. It was stinking hot on the pan and we thankful for the shade of the baobabs. We were eventually joined by an Italian couple, who were unhappy to discover that there was ketchup splattered across the contents of the back of their vehicle. Thankfully, we hadn’t suffered any breakages on the rough road. After lunch, we drove south across the pan to view another baobab before retracing our steps back to the main track of the park. With so few landmarks to guide us across Kudiakam Pan and so many tracks diverging off in every direction, it was easy to understand why people become disoriented and hopelessly lost when traveling across the pans.

We arrived at the Nxai Pan park gate at 2:30pm, having discovered that the second 18km stretch of track from the Maun-Nata highway to the park gate was far worse than the first. It took us an hour to tackle the deep sand, corrugations and holes of the second stretch - twice as long as the first 18km. Large pieces of wood that people had placed under the tires of their vehicles to help extricate them from the thick sand still lay on the worst sections of the road. Thanks to Robert’s skill and an unstoppable vehicle, we encountered no problems. We admired three giraffes that crossed the road in front of us and spied several more steenboks. The destruction by the elephants of the low, scrubby mopane on either side of the track was very evident, with the bushes trampled and broken. We were astonished to see many tall, fan-shaped palm trees scattered throughout the area. We would learn later from the rangers that they are endemic to the Kalahari and that the fronds are used to make the beautiful baskets that are found throughout Botswana. The solid white nuts from these trees are favoured by elephants and also used for jewelry.

canadian_robin

We were met at the gate by Michael, a friendly ranger who informed us that the ranger who was responsible for collecting the park fees wasn’t there at the moment. He had been stung by a scorpion earlier in the day and was at the hospital in Maun. I made a mental note not to wander around the campsite in my bare feet. Michael suggested that we go ahead into the park and that they would come and collect our fees of 750 pula (CDN$120) from us at the campsite later that evening. They would issue our permit to enter the national park at that time. Since it was only mid-afternoon, we decided to take a game drive around the park before setting up camp for the night. Thankfully, in contrast to the road into the park, the roads within it were hard and easy to negotiate, although we had to dodge around enormous holes that had been dug by elephants. We headed about 2km north towards the park’s only artificially maintained, permanent waterhole, which sits in the middle of the dried up, grassy pan. During the rainy season, there are small pans of water scattered throughout Nxai Pan. However, during the dry season, from May to October, Nxai Pan is very hot and dry, and the natural waterholes dry up. Animals become dependent on the artificial waterhole that provides water throughout the year, and often congregate around it. One of the easiest ways to see game is to sit and wait patiently at the waterhole for the animals to come to you. The waterhole was much larger than we expected and, while we could approach the pan from two sides, tree branches had been laid down that prevented us from getting any closer than to within 200m of the water. It was difficult to see the smaller animals and birds. We found two-lappet faced vultures, two secretarybirds and four black-backed jackals at the waterhole. The vultures were powerfully built and huge (>1m) birds, with heavy yellow bills, red heads and necks, and dark bodies. They were incredibly ugly. The long-legged grey and black secretarybirds, on the other hand, were beautiful. The long, black feathers, which project out from behind their heads like pencils and give the birds their name, were clearly visible as the two birds strutted along the edge of the waterhole. From the waterhole, we did a loop to the north and east, where we found a group of impala sheltering in the trees, a skittish ostrich and several more steenboks. We headed to the campsite around 4:00pm, anxious to set up camp and prepare dinner for the first time in daylight.

We were surprised to find campers occupying three sites at the South Gate campsite, as we hadn’t seen any other vehicles since arriving in the park. There is only one campsite in Nxai Pan National Park these days, which is located about 2km east of the main gate. It was a very pretty campsite, set in a grove of tall trees that thankfully provided some much needed shade. There was a small ablution block that was protected from elephants in a most ingenious manner. The entire building was surrounded by a single two-metre-wide layer of large, rocks. The rocks were set close together in cement and each was carefully placed so that a sharp point faced upward. It was impossible to walk across the rocks. It took us a minute to realize that there were three very narrow paths through the rocks where we could access the ablutions. It was a bit if a trick to walk along the paths as they were very narrow. We had to carefully place one foot in front of the other. In the ablution block, we found a flush toilet, a sink with cold running water and a shower for each sex. The washrooms were spotless! Outside, there was a wood-fired boiler, which would provide hot water for the showers if we or another camper took the time to collect some firewood and build a fire. The water taps that were scattered throughout the campsite were also carefully protected from the elephants and it took us a minute to figure out how to turn on the taps. The spouts of the taps protruded from cement blocks that were each about a metre square. On one side, just above the ground, there was a hole that was just big enough to accommodate our hands. Reaching in about 20cm, we discovered the taps. So much for not putting your hand where you can’t see it!

Our camping permit indicated that, of the seven campsites available, we had been assigned to campsite NS3. We couldn’t find it. There were various combinations of letters and numbers on trees, but nothing that resembled NS3. We returned to the gate with our campsite map to consult Michael, who tried to describe where it was. Returning to the campsite, we concluded that our site was within the construction area that was taped off. The Department of Wildlife and National Parks in Botswana was constructing a new ablution bloc that was to be completed in the next couple of months. In the end, we just picked a pretty spot away from the other campers and Robert set up the tent while I started dinner. I was impressed that Robert had the tent set up and the ladder in place in a matter of minutes. For dinner, we used the gas cooker and prepared a chicken stir-fry in a Thai green curry sauce, which we enjoyed over rice.

After dinner, once we had everything stashed back in the Land Rover, we sat and enjoyed a lovely evening. It was warm enough that we were still in our shorts and T-shirts. The ranger, who looked well recovered from his encounter with the scorpion, came by and we agreed to swing by the gate in the morning to pay our fees. The moon was bright enough that we could move around the campsite without our flashlights. We stayed near the Land Rover, not certain what might be lurking in the darkness around us, although we did venture to the ablution block to enjoy a hot shower. One group of campers had started a fire in the boiler earlier and, thanks to the slow-burning mopane, the hot water had lasted for several hours. The shower felt wonderful. I don’t think I have ever been so filthy in my life. In the light of my headlamp, I could see the dirty water running down my legs. The very fine, soot-like sand and dust of the campsite and park roads covered us, our clothes and everything we owned. My hair felt like straw. We understood that this was going to be the way of things over the next twelve days and accepted the fact that, in spite of the showers, we and all of our possessions were going to be dirty. We did our best to protect the camera and laptop but, despite plastic bags, we were fighting a lost cause.

tockoloshe

Still enjoying your report!

Motsentsela Tree Lodge sounds really nice, a good way to start the trip – other people who’ve stayed there seem impressed too.

How on earth did you manage to fit dishes, pots and pans etc into your luggage from Canada?? We brought torches, lamps etc and barely got those in!

One regret is not visiting Nxai Pan National Park, we thought we’d see some of it when we did a trip from Planet Boabab but we didn’t actually get into the Park, just camped somewhere on the outskirts. Would you recommend it as a side-trip, especially after doing the rest of the trip – I mean, if one had limited time, would you be happy to spend some time there instead of longer in Chobe/Moremi?
It sounds like you had a good practice session in the deep sand for what was to come, anyway.

I know what you mean about the dust – that’s something I should have mentioned myself to those thinking about a trip like this – you can’t mind getting very mucky! It’s not just the dust but by the time you’ve brushed up against the car a few times unpacking, climbed up and down the ladder, collected firewood, and cooked dinner you do realize you might as well stay dirty all the time. I gave up trying to brush my hair and just kept it in a pony tail. I found it very liberating not worrying about what I looked like, the elephants didn't seem to mind, though no-one else seemed to get quite as dirty as I did!

canadian_robin

Thank you! Postings have slowed a little while I madly plan our August 2009 self-drive trip to Rwanda, Kenya and Tanzania. We were going to go in 2010, but want to avoid World Cup crowds and inflated prices.

Motsentsela was lovely - wished we had stayed two nights.

The dishes were a bit if a trick, but they were of the compact camping variety. Also, they were in our cooler (which we checked as baggage) and, since we were not on any small planes, we had a generous weight allowance.

Although we loved Nxai Pan and were certainly glad we went, I am not certain we would return. I will post the Nxai Pan part of my report, so you can judge for yourself. Robin

canadian_robin

By 9:00pm, we could hardly keep our eyes open, so we clambered up the ladder to enjoy our first of what would be many exciting nights in the roof-top tent. We left the front and back flaps of the tent, which could be zippered closed to cover the screens, open so that we could watch for animals. It was so warm that we slept on top of the duvets. We were a bit restless for the first while, as we tried to get pillows, duvets, the floodlight, camera and all of our other paraphernalia organized. Eventually we slept, but both of us were woken several times in the night, mostly by the construction tape that was strung between the trees which, when it flapped in the wind, gave a perfect imitation of animals rustling in the bush. Around 3:30am, a howling wind and the wild flapping of the tent woke us up. Thankfully, the wind died a short time later, as suddenly as it had begun, and we fell quickly back to sleep. Towards morning, we heard the eerie, coyote-like calls of jackals. When we rose just before dawn, it was already 16oC, and we realized that it was going to be a very hot day. We changed into shorts and T-shirts and left the camp as early as allowed, at 6:00am. We had set the alarm for 5:15am, and were surprised that we had managed to fold up the tent and be on our way within 45 minutes. Eventually, once we had the routine down and the division of labour sorted out, we could be out of camp within 30 minutes. We were surprised that no one else in the camp was up, given that game viewing is known to be best in early morning and near sunset.

The routine we established in Nxai Pan would become the routine that we would follow for the rest of the trip. Rising before dawn, we would leave camp at 6:00am, just before sunrise. We would spend the morning driving around the park looking for game. We had decided to forgo breakfast first thing in the morning, when it was dark and more difficult to move around the campsite. Instead, we would drive for an hour or two before stopping to enjoy a breakfast of orange juice, muesli, yogurt and muffins or bread with peanut butter and honey with wildlife or at some scenic spot. During our twelve days in the parks and reserve, we would enjoy many wonderful breakfasts - breakfast with the giraffes, breakfast with the bee eaters, breakfast with the elephants, breakfast with a large dazzle of zebra, breakfast with the lilac-breasted rollers, breakfast with the lions…. What a great way to start the day! Around noon, during the hottest part of the day, when animals tend to become inactive, we would return to camp for a few hours. We would have a braai and eat our main meal of the day. We would shower and Robert would download our pictures. Around 3:00 or 4:00pm, we would go on another game drive, returning to camp after enjoying sunset. Our evening meal would be light and easy and often include leftovers from the midday braai. We usually didn’t bother building a fire in the evening, as we didn’t need it to keep warm and we had read in the Bradt Guide that fires provide no protection from predators such as lion or hyena, which will ignore them with “stupefying nonchalance”. We would usually be in bed shortly after 9:00pm. We would leave nothing outside the vehicle at night - no chairs, shoes or braai equipment - as we had been warned that hyenas would carry off anything they could find. This routine of having our main meal at midday was a change from what we had done in the South African parks, but it seemed to suit Botswana better, where cooking meals after dark in the open was a bit more of a challenge.

In the next three days, Nxai Pan National Park would provide many highlights. Likely because of the unpredictability of game in the dry season, there were few visitors in the park. We seldom encountered another vehicle and most often had the waterhole to ourselves. We savoured the remoteness and isolation! There were large herds (>100) of springboks, impalas and zebras grazing on the pan. Nxai Pan is one of the few places where springbok and impala are found together as they thrive in different habitats. Nxai Pan is actually more suited to the drought-tolerant springbok, but impala are also found in the park because of the year-round availability of water in the permanent waterhole. We saw many greater kudu - large, reddish-brown, elegant antelope with six to eight vertical white stripes along their sides. The males have the most impressive and massive spiraling horns, which average over a metre in length. The brilliant red sunsets in the park were amazing, and we would often sit near a baobab and take sunset pictures with one of the ancient giants in the foreground. Spectacular! Sitting at the waterhole at sunset one evening, we watched as a large and very old male African elephant with broken tusks and torn ears made its way to the waterhole. After a long drink, it threw water over itself, making those of us sitting in the full sun in a stifling vehicle wish that we could join in. It was easy to distinguish the routes that the elephants followed from the mopane woodland to the waterhole by the long trails of dung that radiated like bicycle spokes from the pan. Early morning and late evening, we would find pairs of bat-eared foxes curled up in the grass snoozing. These small foxes are reddish-brown in colour, with black eye masks, bushy black tails and disproportionately large, pointed ears. Very cute! We saw many secretarybirds and kori bustards - huge (135cm), long-legged, cryptically coloured birds with yellow legs and a distinctive crested head. We found huge flocks of helmeted guineafowl that would often run down the road in front of us before veering off into the bush. One afternoon, we followed the viewpoint road for several kilometres. Although we never found the viewpoint, the views along the way were lovely and the rough sandy track through the mopane woodland an adventure. Around 11:00am on our last morning, a male leopard crossed the road in front of us. We had been told by our fellow campers that there was a leopard in the area and we were thrilled to see it. We admired its beautiful spotted coat and powerful build. We had the sighting all to ourselves and followed the leopard until it eventually disappeared into some tall grass. We added two new bird species to our list - the cut-throat finch, aptly named because of a brilliant band of red around its throat, and the capped wheatear. The night skies at Nxai Pan were unlike any we had seen, and the blanket of stars above us was absolutely breathtaking. On our last night in the park, we spent a lovely evening around the campfire with a couple from the Netherlands. Harold and Marian Berger travel to Southern Africa for four months every year, and they had just camped their way through Moremi and Chobe. They regaled us with tales of their travels and offered what would prove to be invaluable advice for our upcoming visit to the park and reserve. That night, we were kept awake by the roaring and grunting of lions, which would be quite close, then far away and then close again. We felt perfectly safe in our roof-top tent, but were reluctant to sleep and miss what is one of the most classic and delightful sounds of Africa.

atravelynn

Life in the roof top tent must have been delightful, along with the breakfasts with all those impressive characters.