This was going to be one of the highlights of this trip. Going through the Kalahari desert.
When you hear the word desert you immediately think of a desert like the Sahara with sand and dunes. This is not that kind of desert. In fact deserts are defined as areas with an average annual precipitation of less than 250 millimetres (10 in) per year.
In this case there was some scattered vegetation so you could see some trees every now and then but mostly small vegetation and quite dry. The terrain was also quite sandy.
I bet you didn't imagine it this way, did you?
After the safari we did in the morning we pretty much spent the first whole day travelling until we reached the South gate of the Central Kalahari Game Reserve.
Most of you probably don't know much about Botswana but within Africa it's quite a rich country. While we were travelling across the country we could all see lots of schools and hospitals... and more important... they had lots of roads... with asphalt on them, which is something you don't get to see very often in Africa.
This is because back in the 60s when they started to exploit the diamond mines, the State became part owner of the exploitation and amazingly enough, they managed to spent the money quite wisely ever since.
We spent our first night in Kutse Kalahari lodge nearby the South gate
where we met Paul, the guide who was going to take us through the Kalahari desert. We were leaving Carmen behind and travelling by 4x4s (there are no roads in the desert).
Paul turned up to be quite an interesting chap. He came to Botswana back in the late 60s beginning of the 70s and started looking for a job. The government of Botswana had been looking for someone to serve as a cartographer since at that point there were no maps of the Kalahari and nobody knew how many people lived in there nor where so after years trying to find someone to do the job he volunteered and was offered the job. Even the people offering the job tried to persuade him not to take it because it was too dangerous!
So together with a native bushman and a geologist they spent 2 years going all over the Kalahari desert. Most of the tracks you can see today in the desert are the ones he did when he first explored that area... then people started to follow them and now they became the "official roads".
You can see him on the below photo, in the centre leaning back against the car
Not only he was our guide during the day but at night, we would also teach us about the stars, he had one of those super powerful green lasers he used to point to the stars and tell us about all the constellations in the South Hemisphere and I was greatly surprised when he did a pretty good explanation of how the universe came to be, relativity and even string theory... he obviously has a curious mind and enjoys reading in his spare time.
As if that wasn't enough, he also used to tell us stories about the bushmen. He spent quite a lot of time with them and had lots of funny anecdotes.
We left early in the morning in order to avoid the hot sun for as long as possible. Amazingly enough, it was cloudy...yes, in the desert! so the sun didn't turned up being a problem.
Our first stop was at a bushmen village, you can see the village on the background
We spent some time with them, we were curious about their lives so we asked many questions but funny enough, they were also curious about ours so they also asked lots of questions.
The first story that Paul told us about the Bushmen is when he got to meet them for the very first time... he got to their village (he was working as a cartographer for the Botswana Government) and they all saw him carrying a lot of stuff around and they thought he was a very poor person and pitted him for having so many things...
It turns out, in their world, the more you have the poorer you are. They tend to move quite a lot, they have a nomadic life, so the more you have the more you have to carry. In fact, when someone owns something... say a bucket, they give it to someone else as a present and then ask them whether they can use it... so next time they have to move again... they won't have to carry it again. :-) but in order to give your things away you need family and friends... people to share your things with... if you don't have them you'll have to carry everything yourself.
When we were approaching the sunset we stopped to set the base camp.
That's were we were sleeping...not much cover against lions nor any other predator... but believe it or not, that was all the protection we had... also no guns. Nobody in our party (guides included) had a gun or any other fire arms since they are not allowed in the Central Kalahari Game Reserve.
I think it's worth mentioning that on the previous excursion (one month earlier) a lion pride entered their camp and they all run off to the cars and spent the night inside their cars. Luckily nobody ended as a lion breakfast.
But as you can understand, knowing that... sleeping in a tent didn't inspire much confidence... in fact we all went to our tent every day with an empty bottle in case you had to go to the toilet at night... let me tell you, being at night on your own in the darkness with all that high grass knowing anything could be out there ready to ambush you... not easy to pee, I can guarantee you that!
These 2-3 days didn't live up to the expectations, it was nice and worth visiting but I suppose I was expecting a lot more life ... a lot of desert and not many animals... although the next step in our trip will be the Makgadikgadi pans where the salted lakes are. Some of the guys in the group had travelled all over Africa and they all concurred on one thing. Malawi and Victoria waterfalls are probably the best places to go if you want to see animals.
We travelled North where most of the animals are due to the wells and we managed to see far more animals. Then we went east in order to reach the Makgadikgadi pans.
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