By Louise Bishop (University of Alaska, Fairbanks)

A week ago we moved to the very northeast corner of Botswana where four countries (Botswana, Namibia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe) come together at a river oasis. We drove 12 hours from our previous camp in the Sankoyo trust area through Chobe National Park and to the town of Kasane. We stayed in Kasane for a day and then headed right back into the bush of the Chobe Enclave, where I am writing this now.

The landscape in this part of Botswana is stunning. We hadn’t seen hills in almost a month, so when we came across the dunes and rocky outcrops at the edge of the vast savanna of the Mababe depression we got pretty excited. At first, the savanna went on for as far as the eye could see. We passed by a tower of giraffes moving south in the midday heat. When we drove passed them they started to speed up, running in the awkward way giraffes do. Every time they pick a leg up it seem to take forever to come back down, yet somehow they still manage to move along quickly. Elephants are the same way; they both look like they function on a slower wavelength.

After a couple of hours driving through yellow savanna grass that came up to the windows of our cars we hit sand and woodland. We bumped our way along the road trying to avoid getting a tire stuck until the inevitable happened. We were on a hill when the tires of our oldest landcruiser, “Franklin,” could go no further and firmly lodged themselves in the burning hot Kalahari sand. We all hopped out to give it a push and before we knew it four more cars stopped to help, and then four more after that. In the end I think we counted 18 people who stopped to give good old Franklin a push or pull with the tow rope. The sand and the sun were too hot to stand in so we all took turns running out to the car to push and then back into the shade to socialize. One of my favorite things about Botswana is that no matter the situation there is always time to make new friends! After about 25 minutes we got Franklin out and continued on to Kasane.

 

 

The bush of Chobe National Park, where I am sitting at camp as we speak, is much different than the other concession areas we were in before. The landscape is not nearly as flat so there is no river to spread its fingers through the bush and bring it to life. The river that is here, the Linyanti, which I came across yesterday on a transect, seems like a small miracle in the midst of a hot and dry woodland. The river snakes around, watering the soil and making grass and tall reeds grow around big elephant and buffalo footprints. If you look into the distance you can see Namibia starting somewhere on the flat river plain.

There are not nearly as many safari outfits here because it used to be a hunting concession until the nation-wide hunting ban last year. As a result, the herds of zebra and buffalo are flighty and nervous around the vehicle. There are also cattle posts all around the villages in the Chobe Enclave. Yesterday we saw a herd made up of zebra and cattle making their way together through the heat to the Linyanti River.

Our current camp is situated where an old hunting safari used to be so if you wander down the hill or into the bushes close to camp you can find piles of skulls. There is one particularly haunting spot under a big dead tree where elephant jawbones are lined up with tags naming the hunter and the date of the hunt. It serves a good reminder of how quickly Botswana and all of Africa is changing and growing.

It is beginning to get hot here now while I am writing (at 8 am), so in conclusion; Botswana is an amazing country that I know I will be very sad leaving even though that is still a month and a half away. The more time I spend here the more I fall in love with it. I am looking forward to when the rains come and transform all the yellow into green and I am also looking forward to celebrating Halloween at this camp with all the skulls and bones around, so stay tuned for that and goodbye for now!

 

 

Sala sentle!

P.S. Everyone at home I hope you are enjoying the snow for me; it’s 105 degrees here!