Botswana ~ Day 7
17/05/09 01:24 Filed in: Botswana
Dumela!
I couldn’t be bothered subscribing to one of the local internet providers. The internet is free at most coffee establishments. A reasonably local portuguese coffee shop has free internet and great coffee so I’ve been there a few times to check the mail and update the facebook. By “local” I mean on the other side of the city.
I have a hire car. A Toyota Yaris, 1.3l 4
cylinder horror. Toyota make some great vehicles,
this Yaris is not one of them. Still it’s wheels and
it allows me to get around.
I’ve been to the local Mokolodi Game reserve which was quite good. Four rhino’s walked right up to the safari truck. There was also elephant, zebra, giraffe, impala, water-buck, Ibex, ostriches and kudu... oh and cheetahs. I managed to photograph most of these with differing success. There were only two of us on the excursion. Myself and an American who worked for the US defense department.
I’ve also been out to “site”. Site is Maunatlala, a village where a water storage project is occuring to provide potable water to about 20 villages around it. The first “sod” has been turned, by which a buldozer has cleared the mopane scrub to allow one to see the line of the proposed dam wall. I got to wander all through the botswana scrub looking at bore-holes. Might sound rather boring, but in actual fact it was fantastic. Who else would get to do such a thing??? In amongst all the mopani trees (no mopani worms for me to eat) we came across a small corral. All lined with umbrella thorn to keep the “wild beasts” away from the heard boy and the cattle. Neither of which had been there in a while.
A man by the name of Progress took me on a tour of Maunatlala and a few of the surrounding villages and we had a great chat about the changing face of Botswana, political and social. I haven’t checked the photos yet but I’m hoping I grabbed a few of the traditional style of house here.. rondaavel. There has been so much progress in Botswana that finding traditional style anything is becoming very difficult. Progress wished he could put the brakes on his namesake for a little while longer. I met a few other very interesting people, including an environmentalist from Lesotho and one of a number of Chinese engineers.
I spent the better part of half a day at Harvey World Travel on Old Lobatse road in Gabs sorting out my travel and accommodation details on my up and coming self-drive tour. Amina was fantastic and figure of patience as she sorted out my wild roamings into something she would work with. I am now booked into two nights at the Khama Rhino Sanctuary and two nights at Gweta rest camp. Mkgadikgadi here I come. This will take up most of my second week in Botswana. The coming weekend I’m arranging to go to South Africa and visit the Madikwe game reserve just across the boarder. It will be nice to have a South African visa stamp in my passport again.
The last week of my time here will be spent at Nitani game reserve in the Tuli block. This is billed as a 5 star resort type thing. Getting to it will not be 5 star. As I’m driving myself in a YARIS! I’ll need to leave the car at a village police station, ring the resort and someone will come to collect me. This is if all goes well. If it doesn’t all go well, then I guess I’ll be in Africa for a very long time... no issues there. At the end of all this I will have seen only two of the five main areas of interest in Botswana. Next years trip is already in the planning stages.
Food, my God the Food! There is everything anyone could ever want in food here in Gabs... and not a McDonalds or KFC in site!
I couldn’t be bothered subscribing to one of the local internet providers. The internet is free at most coffee establishments. A reasonably local portuguese coffee shop has free internet and great coffee so I’ve been there a few times to check the mail and update the facebook. By “local” I mean on the other side of the city.
I’ve been to the local Mokolodi Game reserve which was quite good. Four rhino’s walked right up to the safari truck. There was also elephant, zebra, giraffe, impala, water-buck, Ibex, ostriches and kudu... oh and cheetahs. I managed to photograph most of these with differing success. There were only two of us on the excursion. Myself and an American who worked for the US defense department.
I’ve also been out to “site”. Site is Maunatlala, a village where a water storage project is occuring to provide potable water to about 20 villages around it. The first “sod” has been turned, by which a buldozer has cleared the mopane scrub to allow one to see the line of the proposed dam wall. I got to wander all through the botswana scrub looking at bore-holes. Might sound rather boring, but in actual fact it was fantastic. Who else would get to do such a thing??? In amongst all the mopani trees (no mopani worms for me to eat) we came across a small corral. All lined with umbrella thorn to keep the “wild beasts” away from the heard boy and the cattle. Neither of which had been there in a while.
A man by the name of Progress took me on a tour of Maunatlala and a few of the surrounding villages and we had a great chat about the changing face of Botswana, political and social. I haven’t checked the photos yet but I’m hoping I grabbed a few of the traditional style of house here.. rondaavel. There has been so much progress in Botswana that finding traditional style anything is becoming very difficult. Progress wished he could put the brakes on his namesake for a little while longer. I met a few other very interesting people, including an environmentalist from Lesotho and one of a number of Chinese engineers.
I spent the better part of half a day at Harvey World Travel on Old Lobatse road in Gabs sorting out my travel and accommodation details on my up and coming self-drive tour. Amina was fantastic and figure of patience as she sorted out my wild roamings into something she would work with. I am now booked into two nights at the Khama Rhino Sanctuary and two nights at Gweta rest camp. Mkgadikgadi here I come. This will take up most of my second week in Botswana. The coming weekend I’m arranging to go to South Africa and visit the Madikwe game reserve just across the boarder. It will be nice to have a South African visa stamp in my passport again.
The last week of my time here will be spent at Nitani game reserve in the Tuli block. This is billed as a 5 star resort type thing. Getting to it will not be 5 star. As I’m driving myself in a YARIS! I’ll need to leave the car at a village police station, ring the resort and someone will come to collect me. This is if all goes well. If it doesn’t all go well, then I guess I’ll be in Africa for a very long time... no issues there. At the end of all this I will have seen only two of the five main areas of interest in Botswana. Next years trip is already in the planning stages.
Food, my God the Food! There is everything anyone could ever want in food here in Gabs... and not a McDonalds or KFC in site!
|
