Botswana: What's it Like?

Cattle farming is a major part of life for many Batswana. Most people that can afford them, have cattle. In rural areas even those that can't afford cattle will have goats, and donkeys. These animals often wander in and around the roads, so it is very dangerous to drive at night. Even during the day you must really be on your toes and focused while driving. This is the reason many of the vehicles here have huge front bumpers.

This big bull stood right in the middle of the road despite my honking and waving for about 5 minutes.

Botswana: What's it Like?

After reviewing this blog, I realized I haven't shown much of what Botswana really looks like. I thought I should start a series of postings that might give you a better impression of what it is really like here.

I decided to start with this picture of the Ministry of Health. This building is one of the tallest, newest, and most modern buildings in Botswana. AIDS and Tuberculosis are major problems in Botswana, and large amounts of money are poured into trying to control these issues. Some reports claim that 37.5 percent of people aged 15 to 50 years old have HIV/AIDS, and that in the coming year as many as 20 percent of Botswana's children could be orphaned because of the disease. Statistics like these damage Botswana's infrastructure at every level.

I also included this picture because this building is only a couple hundred yards from our house, and we see it every day.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas everyone!!

It is a sunny 95 degrees here today, so after we opened our gifts this morning we went for a dip in the pool. I'll tell you, we could get used to these southern hemisphere Christmases.

Khutse Game Reserve: Day III

The storm continued through most of the night, but we woke to a cloudy but calm and dry morning. We packed up quickly so we could take our time getting back to town on that rough road.

We found 3 big scorpions under Matt's tent while we were packing it up. If only for that reason alone I was glad to have our new rooftop tent. I have been eyeing these ingenious devises since before we came to Africa, and so we picked this one up(in the picture) as an early Christmas present to ourselves. It's made of sold canvas, and should last for many years to come.

Our drive back home was thankfully uneventful. We did spot some leopard tracks that ran for about a mile down the middle of the dirt road. Also we passed a large patch of brush that had caught fire from a lighting strike in the previous nights storm. This just solidified in me the knowledge that this is not a place to underestimate. It is a truly wild place in which humans are not necessarily on the top of the food chain. I have learned some valuable lessons on how to better prepare for our next excursion.

Now we will begin planning for our trip to the Tuli Block next week. Hopefully we will get a chance to see a few of the elephants that roam this area.

Khutse Game Reserve: Day II

We woke slowly on our second day in Khutse, with a mission to find a few wild animals and a camping spot that was farther out in the bush. It became apparent relatively quickly that we would not be seeing a large concentration of animals on this trip. It's the rainy season and with an abundance of water the animals tend to scatter. We did see qute a few Hartebeest, Springbok, and Ostrich, but I knew our odds on catching sight of a Lion were slim to none.

We drove out to a camp spot about 25 km inside the park a had a bit of lunch and rested under an acacia tree during the heat of the day. At about 3pm a few clouds came in and we began to see lightning in the distance. The weather cooled down quite a bit, so we decided to do another game drive and check out some of the other camping areas for future reference.

The game was scarce, and the weather was coming in strong. The sky got dark and it was raining off and on. Then at about 5pm we got a real surprise. It began to hail. Some of these hailstones were nearly the size of a marble and I started to fear that they would bust out a window. It was over pretty quick, but we knew that we wouldn't see any more game out in the open after that storm, so we began to head for camp.

We found a good spot over looking a pan in which we hoped we would see some game in the morning. The lightning intensified all around our camp, and I must admit it made me a bit nervous. We were in a wide open area, under a tall tree. Not the safest spot. That went on for hours, and we called it an early night. We would break camp early in the morning and hope to catch sight of some more game as we made our way out of the reserve.

Khutse Game Reserve: Day I

Last weekend Dillon and I went camping with my friend from the Embassy, Matt Williams and his son Jack, in the Khutse Game Reserve (click on the link to read more about Khutse).

There is about 100km of rough dirt road that you must travel over before you get to the Reserve. It is without a doubt one of the worst roads I have ever been on. I was in the lead vehicle on the way there, and unfortunately Matt had a massive tire blowout about 25 km before the main gate to the reserve. When I got to the gate I figured Matt would be right behind me by only a few minutes. The road was very dusty and I had lost sight of him and thought he had pulled back to stay out of my dust cloud. But Minutes turned to hours and I was getting quite worried. I had no idea what had happened to him. It was getting dark and I wasn't sure I could find him after dark, not to mention the park Rangers were getting anxious to close the gate for the evening.

A very nice lady at the ranger station let me borrow her phone, and I was able to get a hold of Cassandra. My cell phone was only useful as a paper weight out in the bush. I confirmed with Cassandra that Matt had the embassy satellite phone with him, and felt a bit of relief to know that he could use it if he was in real trouble. He called his wife and told her about the tire trouble, she told Cassandra, and Cassandra called the lady at the ranger station, who told me that he was on his way. The Rangers (and I want you to know that I am using this term very loosely) let me man the gate for the night until they arrived at about 8pm. I closed up the gate and we went to the camp spot I had made not too far from the entrance.

That night we saw two snakes, one of which was a venomous Adder of some sort, scorpions, and a multitude of insects, including some stick insects that were nearly a foot long(they fly by the way). The ground was literally crawling with bugs. Ant, termites and beetles were everywhere. Sleep did not come easily for me that night with all of the insect, bird, and reptile noises. I woke at about 3am and looked out the window of our tent to see an owl not even two feet away.

I did manage to get this picture of the sunset, which I must say was one of the most amazing I have ever seen.

On Sunday the Ambassador and his wife had a Christmas party at their house for Embassy families. Santa Clause even made an appearance, riding in on the roof of the Ambassadors new Land Rover Defender. Each child got a gift from Santa, and then we finished off the evening with a round of Christmas carols around the piano.

It really helped us wrap our heads around the fact that it's Christmas time, even if it is 95 degrees outside.

Gaborone Marathon

I recently found out that this coming April, Gaborone will be holding its first ever Marathon.
www.phakalanegaboronemarathon.com
So, here I go again. I'm back in training for my third Marathon. With the completion of this Marathon, I will have run 3 marathons, on 3 continents, in 3 years. That's kind of cool.

Prado

Our Toyota Land Cruiser Prado is now sitting in the driveway. This will be our "Bush" car. We have plans to get it tricked out African style, for going on long camping trips. It seat up to 8 people so when we get visitors we can go on game drives , and trek through the bush with no worries.

Mozambique: Day 4

On our last day woke to find a beautiful sunny blue skies. We had breakfast and made arrangements to take a boat to a small deserted island not far away. The few hours we had on that island turned the trip from a potential flop to a wonderful lasting memory.

We got back just in time to catch our 2pm flight from the island to the Maputo airport. The flight from the island was on a 5 seat Cessna (that includes the Pilot). That has got to be the smallest plane I have ever been on. We got to see some great views of the Island, the Indian Ocean and Maputo from that little plane.

About 6 hours later we were home in Botswana to the kids, who's first question was "What did you bring us?".

Mozambique: Day 3

Saturday was to be our only full day on the Island. We woke up to find it was still raining, but it was not quite as relentless as the day before. After breakfast the rain had stopped, so I decided to go for a barefoot run on the beach. It was a great run. I had the quintessential overseas beach running experience. A group of young smiling and waving boys ran with me for a couple hundred yards down the beach. They soon got tired and one by one dropped away behind me. It wasn't long before I was completely alone. Just me, some strange sea birds and the Indian Ocean. After a couple of miles I turned around and headed back to the hotel. I wanted to run farther, but my feet were not accustomed to running barefoot in the sand and were beginning to hurt. Sure enough, when I got back to the hotel room I had big blisters on the tips of most of my toes from the constant friction of the sand.

Although the day was grey, Cassandra and I wanted to do some swimming in the ocean. We took a short boat trip to a reef to do a little snorkeling. The water was choppy and the visibility nearly zero, but we decided to give it a try anyway. I jumped in the water and not 2 minutes later was stung on my right arm by a jellyfish. It wasn't just a small sting either, it covered most of one side of my forearm. Shortly after that a woman on her honeymoon that was with us cut her leg on the coral of the reef. So only about 10 minutes after our boat trip began, we were headed back to the pier.

I nursed my sting for a good majority of the rest of the day. It felt as if I had been burnt by fire, and the pain did not subside for about 4 hours. I kept ice on it, and that seemed to help a bit.

That night the stars came out, and we had a wonderful meal of grilled fish and shrimp while the band played.