Adventures in Botswana: Arrival

There is nothing quite like the opportunity to see animals in their natural habitat - and an African safari means a chance to see some of the most legendary animals on the planet. Having been to Tanzania last year, I was keen to return to the continent. As one of the most stable and successful countries in Africa, Botswana focuses on high cost/low impact tourism - meaning fewer people and high-end lodges with responsible and sustainable practices. Plus, the Okavango Delta is one of the most interesting places on the planet. Of course we’d go! 

I was lucky enough that Anil and David, my friends from Cambridge who work in conservation (and who traveled with me to the Amazon in 2022) were both just as eager to go on safari. David lived in Zambia many years ago, and Botswana has always been on his wish list. David is a forest ecologist who, like Anil, works with data and computation to study biodiversity, conservation, and ecology. When we went to the Amazon, it was David who helped explain rainforest flora and got me excited about each individual tree and vine that we saw. He’s bringing his 17-year old son Samuel (who was 13 when we all went to Peru together!!) to round out our group. The trip wasn't solely for fun - their project is to map all the habitats of the world, and using satellite imagery, build prediction models. To help, they wanted on-the-ground images to compare with their GPS satellite data, so we'd take photos from the field. We were also planning to meet with researchers from the Okavango Research Institute in Maun, and Anil was hoping to build collaborations.

I traveled to Cambridge a few days early, mostly to give myself time to adjust to jetlag. A good thing, because I was exhausted and loopy for the first few days! It’s always fun being in Cambridge – but I don’t remember it being so full of tourists (who weirdly stop outside Anil’s front door to gawk at the hangman’s sign hanging from the wall outside – and you can clearly hear each tour guide’s hangman story from the living room, and Anil mumbling “No, that’s a lie!” each time…!🤣)

Kasane and Chobe National Park

We arrived in Botswana after a too-long 11-hour flight from London to Johannesburg (where we met up with David and Samuel), then another 2 hour flight to Kasane. It was a nice 'welcome to Africa' moment to see the baboon sitting in the middle street and the impala on the side of the road, as well as the many colorful birds on the telephone wires – all on the 15-minute ride from the airport to the hotel! 

We purposely arrived a day early so that we could relax and get acclimated before the trip began, but we loved seeing all the birds (and sociable spiders) on the hotel grounds and practicing with our binoculars and cameras. Tlou was right next to a Nando’s (a popular fast-food chicken restaurant that they have in England), so Anil and Sam were happy to walk over for a late lunch.

There's nothing quite like a G&T (or, just a T) in Africa!

The next morning, we took a quick taxi ride to Cresta Mowana Lodge – a lovely resort right on the Chobe River. The Chobe River is the international border with Namibia (and just 15 km further downstream is the Bonazazi border – where Botswana, Namibia, Zambia, and Zimbabwe meet at the confluence of the Chobe and Zambezi Rivers). After a relaxing afternoon (with David and Anil enjoying the much-talked-about gin and tonics, and Sam and I enjoying just the tonic) on the sundeck, we took a sunset cruise to get an introduction to the wildlife that relies on the permanent water of the river.

Elephants, hippos, crocodile, buffalo, birds... it's teeming!

We motored a quick 15-minutes upstream, to the boundary of Chobe National Park where the largest island of the Chobe River is located. Sedudu Island seasonally floods, and the marshy environment hosts so much life! 

From the boat, we saw elephant families and pods of hippos, marabou storks and African darters. There were large Nile crocodiles and Nile monitor lizards, plus antelope that I hadn’t seen before: waterbucks with their distinctive ‘toilet seat’ white rings around their rumps and red lechwes – one of the most common antelope in the swampy marsh. 

This African darter got photobombed
by that Nile monitor lizard

If you can't suck your own trunk, suck someone else's.

I, too, luv mud.

Yellow-billed storks are bee-you-tiful

Taking the cruise also gave us a spectacular view of the vivid African sunset, which seems more vibrant than those back home. 

Returning to the lodge, we saw warthogs and a Chobe bushbuck wandering the grounds. Now it made sense that we were warned not to leave the resort’s marked paths and walkways!

Kasane is also a convenient drive to Chobe National Park, Botswana’s first National Park and home to a huge variety of animal species. Early the next morning we embarked on our first game drive. On the way to the park, we were lucky enough to spy two porcupines in the dark hours of the early morning, then when we got into the park one of our first sightings was of a honey badger. Seeing these elusive species solidified the feeling that we were truly in a special place! 

Getting up close and personal with the wildlife

The most exciting sighting was a giraffe being chased by a solitary young male lion, with a black backed jackal tagging behind. The lion of course failed and sheepishly slunk away while a very bored lioness watched from afar. Sam got a nice video of the action!

Nata and Elephant Sands

That afternoon, we met our guide Chandra who would be with us the next few days. Our next stop was to the northern edge of the Kalahari, where we wanted to see the salt pans. It was a 4-hour drive along a VERY pot-holed highway down to Nata, a very straight road through scrubby savannah and sparse areas of agriculture. There were no amenities along the way – just the occasional troop of baboons or elephant. 

We spent the night at Elephant Sands, a watering hole with surrounding tent cabins that draws local elephants looking for water. While it was cool to be so close to the wildlife, there was something a bit exploitative in the feel of the place – perhaps because the first thing we saw were tourists who were hand-feeding the hornbills. 

IDing Bradfield's Hornbills was easy!

Red-headed weaver birds make nests to try and impress the ladies

Dinner show at Elephant Sands

Later that evening as we were enjoying dinner, two large elephants came to drink in the watering hole (but again, nobody stopped the tourists who were pointing their flashlights directly in the elephant’s eyes and using flashes for their photos). Still, it was a remarkable experience to be that close to wildlife, and to get a little taste of why human-wildlife interactions are beginning to cause problems in Africa.

Sleeping under the Stars

The following morning, we drove to Gweta and transferred to an open jeep for our ride to Ntwetwe Pan, one of the three main areas of the Makgadikgadi Pans. Two million years ago, these salt pans were once a huge inland lake that covered an area the size of Switzerland. Over time, the water evaporated leaving behind a concentration of salt and minerals. In the dry season, a salty clay crust covers a vast, flat expanse that seems endlessly desolate. 

On the way, we stopped to see a huge baobab tree that was supposedly around 1,500 years old. The huge trunk stores water, allowing the baobab to survive the harsh environment. Baobabs are sometimes referred to as the “upside down tree,” mainly because in the dry season their bare branches look like roots spreading up in the sky.

This area, while seemingly a harsh and desolate environment, has been home to the Kalahari Bushmen (the San people) for tens of thousands of years. Traditionally a hunter-gatherer society, the San have an intimate knowledge of the land. From them, we learned how to track and catch (and play with) yellow scorpions, who live in up to meter-deep burrows in the dirt.  While these scorpions have a nasty sting, their venom isn't quite as dangerous as the black-tailed cousins that live further in the south (but I still wouldn't want to be stung!) We followed our San guide to find one.

To find a scorpion, you look for a small, moon-shaped hole in the dirt and start digging. Every so often, our guide would stop and test out the depth of the hole, either by carefully (and quickly!) sticking his finger in or measuring the depth with a straw of grass. When he got close, lured the scorpion out with the grass, then carefully maneuvered it so the stinger could be grabbed. 

He then cleaned the scorpion in his mouth so that we could more clearly see its 6 eyes!

Before reaching the pan, we stopped to see meerkats. Meerkats are small mongooses that spend most of their time foraging for insects in the open grasslands. They are often found in large groups, so several have the job of ‘sentry’ where they stand watch looking for danger. 

Strangely, there is a human “keeper” who has habituated a small family of meerkats – every morning he comes out at 5:30 am and spends the day standing in the desolate field, following the meerkats as they forage in the grass. The family once had 5 pups; sadly they recently lost several – one from a scorpion bite, and two others from a honey badger attack. 

We only saw two meerkats, so while they occasionally would pose in the stereotypical upright stance, most of the time they were digging around in the dirt while emitting a continuous stream of (frankly adorable) squeaks. We were able to get fairly close, but they generally ignored us.

After hanging out with the meerkats, we continued to our campsite on the salt pan. We were dropped off about a kilometer from camp and walked in - it gave a great perspective on how desolate, extensive, and quiet it was. A honeycomb pattern of dried salt crunched underfoot, and of course we had to taste it (spoiler alert - it tasted like dirt).

The campsite was a spread-out triangular area far enough into the pan that we could just barely make out the ridge of the grassland where we came from. 

Our camp for the night

A rather genteel table set with a tablecloth and flowers sat near a campfire, separated from the trucks and kitchen area used by our hosts. In the distance we could just make out the shape of four dark mounds – our beds for the “sleeping under the stars” experience.

A bathroom with a view

Equally far on the last point of the camp’s triangle was a small structure that turned out to be the camp toilet, open on the far side to give the user a lovely view of the pan. In front of each area was a small lantern; as soon as the sun went down, we discovered was absolutely necessary, since in the darkness it was easy to get lost (and you could just end up wandering aimlessly into the pan).

We spread our sleeping bags apart to give us room (and to try to minimize hearing anyone’s snoring…haha). Other than the soft and steady whisper of wind, it was complete silence on the pan. In the very far distance, infrequent bursts of lightning would flash a green light – but it was so far away that no thunder reached us. 

A light in the night

With the moon just a small sliver and no clouds in sight, the stars absolutely lit up the sky. Lying in bed and staring up at the vast expanse of the Milky Way was truly awe-inspiring. I couldn’t help but feel tiny and insignificant – maybe that’s why our ancestors, who all sat around skies like this every night, were humble enough to respect their place in the world and didn’t try to exploit the Earth.