Savuti, Ihaha, Kasane, Francistown, Gaborone, back into South Africa...

(posted from Sunrock Guesthouse, Johannesburg, RSA)

(This post covers 9 – 19 September, 2011)

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Monday, 19 September-

This morning the fishing-lake guy came down and talked to us a bit on his rounds of the property. Last night when we checked in he had said something about the Krugersdorp area not being safe. This morning we learned there had been a hi-jacking and rape three weeks ago. Four guys hi-jacked a woman's car right on the main street of town and had driven to the nature reserve and raped her. He also told us the guys we could see camped across the river from us were from Malawi and Mozambique and he believed they were robbing homes in the area. He said we were safe because they knew the first place he'd go if anything happened on his property would be their camp. But they (or someone) had stolen a laptop over the weekend at a house we could see in the distance--- while the residents were sleeping there.
When the guy learned we had been in Botswana he said, “It's like 90 per cent black, isn't it?” he asked. “I'd NEVER go there. You know there's a lot of you foreigners who come over here and don't go home, jah?”. We didn't quite know what to think. He was on the one hand kind of aggressive but also went out of his way to be sure we had everything we need, even offering us access to one of the chalets so we could have hot showers.
We then drove into Johannesburg to Nelson Mandela Square and Sandton City mall--- which our guidebook says is Johannesburg's most exclusive. We at first had trouble finding parking because we couldn't enter the parking garage (due to the height of our tent) but just across the street a security guy waved us over. He arranged parking for us in the fancy hotel's garage. When I asked about price he said we could just give him a tip when we come back. It appears he's the security guard for the hotel making a bit of extra cash on the side by offering parking for tips.
We spent a few hours walking through this upscale mall. It had an Apple Store (called an “iStore” rather than an 'Apple Store') and many, many clothing stores. In one area were cars being promoted (including a Ferrari) between stores. There were upscale Italian coffee shops, a gelateria, and a 'Mugg and Bean' coffee shop. The anchor stores were Ackermans, Edgars, and Woolworths.
We then drove the few kilometers over to Bushlore to turn in the truck. We spent about two hours with the returns process and negotiating the credits we'd get for the tire we had to buy, the extra fuel we returned, and the roof-rack brackets we had bought and had installed. We also went over our list of things that had gone wrong with the Operations Manager. All in all it was an easy process but we'll see what happens when Bushlore has had time to do the final going-over of the vehicle.
Jubaloni then drove us over to Sunrock (the guesthouse where we had stayed when we came in) and dropped us off. Nice guy but a frighteningly-fast driver, that Jubaloni. I was surprised how much pickup the Bushlore bus (a Toyota Quantum) had compared to our rental 4x4 truck (a Toyota HiLux).
We spent a few hours decompressing then went over to the Sunrock's lapa for 'sundowners' (happy-hour drinks) and, eventually, supper. During sundowners we talked to Maypo, Orat, and Labashi's dad via Skype Video. Arthur and Ina (our hosts at Sunrock) then made up another terrific braai, this one featuring boerboer and sausages. Good stuff!
We fly home tomorrow night!

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Sunday, 18 September -

We had a restful night and good, hot showers at our chalet in the Ngoyama Lion Lodge at Krugersdorp Nature Reserve. As we parked to drop off the keys at the front desk, we saw our only lions of the trip-- a male and a female in a relatively small fenced lot. It was depressing to see them like this. They both looked too skinny and very bored.
We drove in to Johannesburg to the Africa Museum. The GPS first took us to an empty lot before I noticed there were two listings for the museum. We parked free right out front and the museum had free admission.
This museum is located in a massive old market building. On the lower floor we spent an hour in a temporary exhibition of cartoon art. This one was wonderful. We wouldn't understand the cartoons at first but underneath each was a good explanation of the issue with sufficient background to understand the cartoonist's point. This also provided an interesting picture of life in South Africa. My favorite cartoon strip was 'Madam and Eve', which has a Dilbert-like incisiveness.
The museum also had a very interesting geology section. It's of great interest to us, of course, because there's so much we don't know of Africa's geology and geography.
There was also a photography exhibit which showed us intimate photos of daily life in rural KwaZulu-Natal, a northeastern province in South Africa.
We spent three hours in the museum and then crossed the square to Sophiatown Cafe for lunch. And there on the menu was just what Labashi has been looking for--- a dish made with mopane worms. These are caterpillars of the emporer moth which feed on the mopane tree. After collection the juices are squeezed out and the remainder dried. They can be eaten at that point but often are cooked in a sauce of some type. In this case it was a wine and garlic sauce. The worms themselves are about two inches long and about 3/8 of an inch in diameter. See http://planyoursafari.com/blog/african-delicacy-the-mopane-worm/ for photos and more info.
After lunch we walked to the nearby Worker's Museum and learned the history of Johannesburg's workforce. The black laborers lived in subsistence conditions in 'camps' which were fenced and monitored by company police. Whites were generally skilled labor and they lived in much better conditions. The Workers' Museum did a good job of showing how recruiters were sent out to fulfill the cheap-labor needs of the mines and why the workers would be interested in coming to live in such conditions so far from home. It wasn't a matter of choice so much as a matter of providing for family.
By mid-afternoon we needed to move on so had to leave the Worker's Museum earlier than we'd have liked. But we needed to make the 45-minute drive to the Lesedi Cultural Village. This village is a tourist attraction which features reconstructions villages of five of the main historic tribes of South Africa-- Ndebele, Zulu, Basotho, Xhosa, and Pedi. That's then followed by traditional dancing and then an African feast of traditional foods.
Our village tours went too quickly. We were in a group of about a dozen people and would first be asked to greet the four or five people manning each village. They'd reply and we'd be given permission to enter. Then our guide, a young Zulu woman, would tell us a few interesting facts about the tribe (such as why they wear the clothing they wear) and then we'd move on to the next village. We'd have liked this portion to last longer but with all the activities of the evening, it would be impractical to do so for most tourists. Oh, yeah... and at the Basotho village we were offered mopane worms. This time they were just the dried worms. They tasted like biltong--- better known to us foreigners as jerky. The group at first didn't want to try them but Labashi jumped in and took one and that gave four or five others the push they needed to give it a try (including me!)
After a short break we were invited into a dirt-floored community structure with a smoky fire burning in the middle. We were given demonstrations of each tribe's dancing specialties, both male and female. The drums were incredible during these dances and readied everyone to give it a short try.
After the dancing we were invited to a restaurant where we had a buffet of crocodile, ostrich, lamb, chicken (“African fowl”), and beef sausage, with salad, veggies, and dessert (milk pudding and koeksisters (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koeksister)). I'm not a fan of game in general but the meat dishes were prepared in sauces and were quite good.
After our goodbyes to our hosts at Lesedi we drove to the nearby fishing lake where we had stayed night-before-last. When we entered asked for and were granted permission to stay until 0900 tomorrow. We were the only customers there and built a fire with our remaining wood and enjoyed a very nice few hours beside the fire before retiring to our rooftop tent.

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Saturday, 17 September -

We arose promptly at 0600 to be sure we'd be out of the camping/fishing area by 0700. For once we packed up quickly and even had time for a quickie breakfast (muesli and fruit).
We drove to the nearby Lesedi Cultural Village since the tourbook said they open at 0700. We couldn't imagine what they'd be doing that early and we were right--- the village opens so the restaurant can serve breakfast but the first tour isn't until 1130 (the lunch tour). We figured we'd go do something else and return.
We drove a half hour through absolutely super countryside to get to the Steirfontein Caves, knowing we'd get there long before their 0900 opening time. Along the way we passed hundreds of bicyclists, some in packs of 30 or so and followed by a club vehicle.
This cave is part of the Cradle of Humankind World Heritage Site and is the home of some of the greatest finds in archeological and anthropological history--- skeletal remains of 'australopithicus' hominids, i.e., very early beings with characteristics of both humans and apes. One of the remains, called 'Little Foot' is still partially embedded in stone and is very slowly being excavated with dental drills. The remains are so old that carbon dating cannot be used to determine their age. Carbon dating is only good back some 500,000 years and there is no carbon-based material to test. Approximate dating is done by determining what the polarity of the earth's magnetic poles was in the rock around the sample. The magnetic poles change slightly over eons and in fact were at one time reversed.
Our tour of the cave was about an hour long and led by an entertaining guy who called himself 'Maropeng', the name of a nearby tourist attraction. Shortly after descending into the cave (via a concrete stairway), he pointed out a fenced-off opening-- that's where 'Little Foot' is located and is the site of the ongoing dig.
The cave was surprisingly large. From the look of the surrounding terrain I figured the cave would just be a small one. But it had several rooms about 30 feet high. We did have several very low places where we had to shuffle along bent over as far as possible but they were very short.
After the tour of the cave itself we went to the accompanying interpretive displays in the visitor's center and spent the better part of an hour there.
We had lunch in the parking lot and decided we'd drive into Johannesburg to the Apartheid Museum. We arrived about 1230 and spent the next four hours learning about the rise and fall of apartheid and its wrenching effect on the peoples of South Africa. We also spent a long time in a very comprehensive exhibit on Nelson Mandela.
I can't do justice to the Apartheid Museum in describing it. It's truly a world-class, thought-provoking, well-balanced treatment of this tragic part of South African history.
We left the museum around 1700 and went looking for our campground for the night. We tried to call the Krugersdorp Nature Reserve numbers in the 'Camp and Live' book but they were bad. We decided we'd go ahead and drive there and if it turned out camping was not available, we could go on to the same place we stayed last night.
When we arrived at the Nature Reserve we learned the campground was closed for renovations and the entire Reserve was now operating under a new manager. That's what happened to the phone numbers.
With darkness approaching we thought we'd ask about camping at the Lodge and perhaps they'd know of something nearby. On a whim, we asked about the rate to stay at the lodge and were pleasantly surprised to be quoted a price under $60. It turns out the restaurant is closed, the bar is closed and the rooms are being discounted to bring in some cash flow. But that fit our needs very well and leaves us closer to Johannesburg for tomorrow so we took it.
We were shown to a chalet and we cooked supper in the driveway as the sun set. We then had showers, blogged a bit, and read.

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Friday, 16 September -

We awoke at 0600 and packed up slowly. We still had to plan where we were going today. We had the general idea of heading toward the Cradle of Humankind near Johannesburg. The Cradle of Humankind is a World Heritage site but we're learning it's actually several sites.
We drove out of Moklodi Reserve around 0900 and headed for the border just outside Gaborone. The border crossing was very easy and we soon were cruising along along the Madikwe Game Reserve. We had thought about visiting Madikwe when we learned it's relatively new (1991) and has 10,000 animals but we also learned it has no day-visiting facilities, only lodges. That leaves us out.
We continued down through NorthWest Province for the rest of the afternoon. The changes in the land were very interesting. For a few hours we had wild lands on one side (the Reserve) with some signs of cattle-grazing on the other. That changed to more and more signs of cattle grazing and eventually to large farms with planted fields. The land opened up and we had long views across the farms and the landscape looked like eastern Montana for a few hours.
We then came to more crowded areas that looked more like the central California hills and we started seeing farm-based B&B's, grain silos, nurseries, farm implement dealers, the occasional winery, etc. And as we came nearer to Pretoria the weekend traffic increased and we saw upscale lodges, game farms, and small towns with all the services.
We had trouble finding a campground tonight. We have the “Camp And Live” book which is supposed to be a comprehensive guide but it's not very good. NorthWest Province is a huge area and the Camp and Live book only shows a handful of campsites and those consider themselves 'resorts'. We don't have a guidebook like Veronica Roodt's guide to Botswana or the Bradt Safari Guide to help us.
We decided we'd go to one of the Cradle of Humankind attractions and ask for their recommendations for nearby camping. That kind of worked. We ended up at a pay-to-fish lake which allowed campers but we have to be out by 0700 or pay for another day (!!!!!). The good news is it only cost 80 Rand or about $11.
We made supper and spent the evening relaxing and watching the fishermen.

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Thursday, 15 September -

We arose at 0630 and put on our city clothes for our visit to downtown Gaborone today. We began following the GPS's instructions to the National Museum when we happened upon a safari outfitter called Hi-Range. On a whim I stopped to see if they might have brackets or be able to make some up or weld my broken ones. To my surprise, they had a set in stock. Here I had assumed the brackets were part of the Eezi-Awn rooftop tent and had contacted the manufacturer and asked Bushlore about support for it in Botswana. There is none. But the rack to which the tent is attached is a Front-Runner product and those products are a lot more common.
I had found the brackets but wasn't sure I had the tools to remove the old ones and replace them. When I asked Hi-Range about possibly installing them, I was pleasantly surprised again. I'd have to pay $67 for the brackets (a set of 4 and bolts) but installation would only be $25 and they could do it right away. I jumped on it and an hour later we were back on the road with new brackets in place and properly installed and sealed with silicone-seal.
We found the National Museum easily and circled the block a few times to find parking. The Museum is next to the National Art Gallery but the Gallery is closed today. The Gallery store was open, though, and Labashi bought some ostrich-shell earrings. But processing the credit card had to be done in the Main Gallery, so they unlocked the doors and we had a chance to quickly walk through the main floor of the Art Gallery and get a sense of the art.
We then spent two pleasant hours going through the National Museum. It has wonderful dioramas, very similar to those on the top floor of the State Museum of Pennsylvania.
After our visit we walked a block over to the Nando's restaurant for lunch, then walked the open-air market between the buildings leading up to Parliament. We circled the Parliament Building, then back toward our parking spot. We noticed the City Library along the way and checked it out.
We then drove to a international school with a dance theater to see if there was anything going on but we struck out there. That drive took us past many embassies in what looks like an upscale residential neighborhood.
We then went over to the University of Botswana and walked to the bookstore and souvenir store. We've done this on many of our trips-- just to get a sense of the place. We also had milkshakes at the snack bar of the student union building.
We then drove back through Gabarone in late-afternoon traffic. We stopped at a LiquorMatic for some Ipala Cream for an evening toast and then on to the Mokolodi Reserve.
We drove up to the World View Conference Center to see the view, then returned to our camp and Labashi made a spaghetti supper while I set up our sleeping quarters.
We blogged and read and watched stars and went to be around 2100, happily tired.


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Wednesday, 14 September -

Malaria-pill day! (We have to take our nine malaria pills a week apart and our first was on the Wednesday we left so that makes Wednesdays “malaria-pill day” ). Fortunately, neither of us has any side effects from the mefloquine.
We had a truckload of loud (and a bit drunk, I think) guys come in to the campsite beside us last night around 2300. They made a lot of noise and talked at full volume through 0100 but then finally quieted down and we slept well from then on.
I spent a few hours catching up the blog and then we drove over to the hotel and uploaded it via wi-fi from the lounge.
We then headed south for Gabarone, Botswana's capital city. Along the way I noticed I had another broken bracket on the roof rack holding the rooftop tent. That's two of them. I called Bushlore and spoke with Clyde about it and he advised getting them welded and if that's not possible, then secure the tent with ratchet-straps. I tied down the rack using rope and a piece of wire I found in a roadside picnic stop.
We drove all afternoon and arrived at Mokolodi Nature Reserve shortly before sunset. We drove right to our campsite and made supper in twilight.
The moon is full now but not coming up until 2030 tonight so I lit the LPG lantern for a while but Labashi doesn't like all the noise--- she can't hear the animals. We watched stars for a bit, then sat in the truck reading until we decided to turn in early-- around 2100.

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Tuesday, 13 September -

This morning we awoke at 0630 and packed up to move out. We have a passenger today ; Rebecca, the mid-twenties Swedish tour leader. Her clients are flying by bush plane to their next stop near Maun and she's taking the bus.... and their luggage. Fly-in safari clients can only have 25 pounds of baggage on the bush flight so she hauls their other bags with her to the next meeting point. She's going to ride with us from Kasane to Nata, then take the bus the 300K to Maun.
As we learned from talking with Rebecca the other night and on our ride today, she's had more life-experiences than most people twice her age. She grew up in Tanzania, studied in Italy and Sweden, spent a year and a half backpacking through South America, speaks Swedish, Spanish, Swahili, English, and French. She's back at University now working on a degree in Global Studies. She wants to work on development projects in Latin America and/or Southern Africa.
After our three-hour drive to Nata we had lunch with her at a Barcelo's restaurant behind the bus stop. We asked around about when the bus could be expected and got answers “1:15”, “2 o'clock” and “3:30”. But the best answer is 'just wait there and it will show up'. Our waitress from Barcelos said it would be okay for her to wait at the outside table where we had lunch so we left her there with a fond goodbye and promises to email each other.
We drove on another four hours to Francistown and checked in to an unexpectedly luxurious campsite at the Cresta Marang Garden Hotel and Casino. Camping was only $22 and we had the run of a luxury hotel with wi-fi, pool, pool-bar, etc. We had showers and talked briefly with two Japanese guys who are bicycling. They had been backpacking but bought old, beat-up bikes in Bulawayo (Zimbabwe) and have been spending more time fixing the bikes than travelling (they joke). One of the guys has been backpacking around the world for six years. He returns home to Kyoto to work for a few months every once in a while but only to earn enough money to go back on the road.
As sunset came on Labashi made up a pot-luck meal from our stock of canned goods. Tonight is was corned beef and corn and onion and olives. We need to eat out a bit less and work our way through the provisions before we return the truck.

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Monday, 12 September -

This morning we slept in till 0630 and then readied ourselves for the trip to the Falls. We left the lodge at 0800 and were transferred to the Zimbabwe border where we met Beki, our guide from Silver Tours. Beki drove us the 45 minutes to Victoria Falls and then took us on a two-hour tour of the falls. Afterward Beki took us to a nearby cafe for lunch and turned us loose until our pickup time at 1430. We spent the time shopping the nice shops of the Elephant Walk and then walked over to the Victoria Falls Hotel.... a very historic and impressive hotel of England's Colonial Age.
Beki picked us up at 1430 for the trip back and we met a German couple who Beki had picked up at the airport for their transfer to a safari camp.
We processed back through Zimbabwe and Botswana border stations and were back in our campsite by 1700, after a very, very nice day.
We had supper in the bar at the Thebe River Lodge and then when the laptop battery died, we went back to our campsite and set up a table in the pavilion near the electrical outlet. Labashi worked on an email to family while I had a long conversation with Peter and Jean Morse, an Eglish couple who are in the process of emigrating to South Africa. They were driving an old Land Rover ex-military ambulance which Peter had taken four years to outfit to see Africa. The Morse's had story after story of their adventures on the road for the last four months. We finally called it quits around 2200.


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Sunday, 11 September -

Today we arose at dawn and took a game drive on this spectacular morning, slowly winding along River Road toward Kasane.
We exited the park around noon and went looking for a campsite. We settled on Thebe River Lodge's campground and had a long conversation with Roy, a Zimbabwe-born South African farmer of macadamia nuts. We then went looking for lunch. We had a long, leisurely one at Old House Restaurant in their garden as locals watched South African rugby on the bar television nearby, a very pleasant Sunday afternoon scene.
We spent a few hours in camp and made arrangements for a guided trip to Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe the next day.
We then drove to Chobe Safari Lodge, hoping to be allowed to have dinner there. Dinner wasn't served for a few hours yet so we had drinks at the outdoor bar and watched the sun set. The Lodge is very, very nice and we enjoyed getting the chance to experience its common areas a bit.
We decided we didn't want to wait for supper so headed back to Thebe River Lodge. We had supper in the bar and spent the whole evening talking and drinking with Rebecca, a Swedish tour leader and college student, and our new-found friend Roy, the nut-farmer.

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Saturday, 10 September -

We had a scare last night. Around 0330 Labashi shifted her weight fairly heavily on our roof-top tent, causing the tent to shake a bit. Almost immediately we felt a strong push against the truck. Labashi asked me if I had done that and another sudden jolt occurred. We had seen a largish elephant by the nearby ablution block earlier in the evening and figured it must be the elephant. We lay completely still and listened. We couldn't hear anything definite but Labashi said she could occasionally hear the whoosh of air as the elephant breathed. I thought I heard elephant footsteps nearby. We lay motionless and about an hour later fell back asleep.
At dawn I cautiously zipped open the tent door and checked for the elephant. Nothing. When light came up a bit more I dressed and climbed down the ladder to see the footprints. There were none-- only the old ones we had seen when we first arrived.
Shortly after the jolts happened Labashi whispered “maybe it's Korbus trying to scare us silly Americans”. But there were no tracks from Korbus's camp and he denied having anything to do with it. And there were no 'tracks' of an elephant-nudge in the thick dust covering the truck.
I eventually came to the conclusion that it hadn't been an elephant at all. I had parked one wheel of the truck on a flat rock. The rock wasn't really flat, though.... it was wedge-shaped. By morning's light I could see the tire had rolled off the rock. I think Labashi's jostling caused the truck to roll forward enough to roll off the wedge. The jolts had to do with the manual transmission allowing the forward movement but doing it a gear-tooth at a time ; thus the jolts. It's either that or some kind of ninja-elephant that frightened us.
Anyway, today we drove north from Savuti. I had clear instructions from the wildlife officer on how to find a detour around the deep sand on the lower Ghoha Road. Cross the bridge and take the left turn, then go 10K to a sign to Ghoha. “Immediate left?”, I asked. “Yes-- immediate left”, replied the wildlife officer.
We crossed the bridge and took an immediate left on the road to Linyanti--- the one we know to have the deepest sands in all of Chobe. But it was, after all, a detour. Within a hundred meters we hit deep sand as we climbed a hill and I'm still not sure how we made it to solid ground. But then things went okay up to 9K or so. There we came upon a very long stretch of deep sand and I knew in my heart of hearts that if we go into that sand, we're going to have to be towed out. I walked in about 100 meters and it stretched out far ahead. There's no way I'd have the momentum to get through that and as soon as I made the smallest mistake, we'd be stuck quite badly and have a long, long way to dig out.
I returned to the car and told Labashi there's no way I'm entering that sand. If that means we have to go back to Maun and take the long way around to Kisane, so be it.
We returned to the Savuti gate and learned from another ranger that I shouldn't have taken the immediate left but the left at the split only about 25 meters further on. And once I do that, ignore the signs to Ghoha and follow signs to the airstrip and that will eventually rejoin the road to Ghoha Gate.
We followed the new directions and soon felt we were indeed on the right path. Past the airstrip the road was pretty good and did lead us in the right cardinal direction whereas the Linyanti road seemed to be trending north too much.
After a few hours of rock-and-roll we made it to the Ghoha Gate and signed out of that section of the park. But that also gave us a new problem. The ranger at Xaxanaxa had told us to avoid the 7K stretch of bad sand on the left after the gate but now the Ghoha Gate person told us the opposite. TAKE the 7k road to avoid the worse sand of the straight-ahead route. We decided to go with the opinion of the ranger nearest the turn, i.e., the Ghoha Gate ranger. The 7K segment proved to be quite bad. It was 7K of red Namibian Sand, some of which now adorns the top of my air cleaner and the top of the battery.
After the turn at 7K, though, things got markedly better and we made good time. We broke for lunch at a shady tree and soon approached the village of Kachikau.
A few K before Kachikau, though, we came to a split. The left looked more used so we took it and very quickly came upon two stuck vehicles. They were safari vehicles towing trailers and had all the help they need to get going again so I backed out to the split for another look. Since the road looked good we took it, figuring we could turn around if its character changed. We soon realized it was a boundary line with a patrol road, not the road we wanted. But we could see the village in the distance and it looked like the patrol road would go to it. We continued on and indeed we came to the village. But it was the back of the very large village and we couldn't see how to get out to the hard road. We finally asked directions of the very nice people living there and were soon on good old tarmac, airing up the tires.
We buzzed the 40K to the Chobe entrance gate to the west end of River Road and signed in. Then we got a surprise--- the road was all deep sand for 4K. Fortunately, it was all downhill and didn't go too badly. At the bottom of the hill we broke out to a spectacular view of the Chobe River floodplain and thousands of zebras. It seemed we should have had stirring music at that point-- it was an incredible sight.
We spent the rest of the afternoon dawdling along the west end of River road, stopping to look time and again. We finally reached Ihaha (our campground) around 1600. We checked in and then drove right back out for a late game drive to the east. On this drive we saw a large group of banded mongoose digging away furiously, perhaps after termites or ants--- we couldn't tell.
After dark we returned to camp and built a fire and had supper. As we worked I heard odd sounds in the bushes not far away. That turned out to be Cape buffalo, heading down their game-trail to the river. We had a full moon and could see their massive dark shapes slowly moving to the river.
That night we heard hyenas but didn't see any. We spoke to our next-door neighbor and he had seen a leopard on the evening game drive. We had seen hundreds, if not a thousand, elephants, sable, a dozen giraffes, kudu, storks, warthogs, and baboons.


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Friday, 9 September -


We again headed north out of Maun today, bound for Savuti. Though we had been told the camp was full, we also talked with wildlife officers at Xaxanaxa and South Gate who said the concessionaire would have to take care of us since we had a booking at their other camp (Linyanti). We of course had no idea if that was really true but figured there must be some answer because this type of thing would have to happen a lot.
We buzzed along at 100 kph for the first 50K on hard road, then 60-80 kph on the gravel up to Mababe and the entrance gate to Chobe National Park. But then the character of the road changed dramatically. Once through the gate we had two-track and it was two-track with a high center, stretches of sand, and long stretches of immense potholes we had to weave around and/or idle through. For a first hour or so the forest looked a good bit like the woods at home in very early Spring. A few budding trees and bushes here and there, lots of brown, dead leaves and an open understory. But then the land opened up on the right side to classic African plain. We could see for miles. As we trundled along we saw a dozen warthogs, a dozen elephants, and five giraffes.
As we approached Savuti we took a turnoff to 'Bushmen Rock Paintings', a pretty rock outcropping along the river. We followed a path which supposedly led to the rock paintings but never did see any. But it was a beautiful spot.
We then drove on toward Savuti Camp and promptly got stuck in deep sand. This time we were able to dig out by ourselves. We avoided needlessly spinning wheels (which just digs in deeper) and 'dug the dif' and dug away sand from under the spare tire and bashplate. We used sandladders for the front tires and logs for the rear tires. In this case we backed out to more solid ground. We then made a mad dash over a kilometer of deep sand-- I'm still not sure how we made it.
At the gate, the concessionaire guy said it was unfortunate but the campground was full. I asked about the reserve sites and he said they were full too. Also, there was another car ahead of us waiting to see if all the campers with bookings actually showed up. There didn't appear to be an answer and it was way too late to drive back to Maun. But after a while the guy said we could wait up by the ablutions block to see if something opens up. When I asked what happens if nothing opens up, he said 'Then we'll make a plan'. That's South African code for “we'll figure it out”.
We were only at the ablutions block for 20 minutes or so when the guy appeared and said we were in luck. Nearby campers had agreed to let us share their very large site. That's how we met Korbus and Elsa, a South African couple who farm near Cape Town. We gratefully set up camp and took showers and made supper, then spent the rest of a very, very pleasant evening getting to know our hosts. Korbus had tales of his experiences in Namibia in the Bush Wars of the 1970's and Elsa regaled us with stories of how nice Cape Town is.
Korbus cooked up some steaks for their supper and made some 'brown bread' for us. In this case it's tomato and cheese in a long brown roll (much like a hot dog roll) which is then toasted over the fire. They were delicious. For our part we provided all with glasses of Ipana-palm irish cream. It's much like Amarula Cream, though perhaps a bit more chocolaty.
By the end of the evening we were great friends. We exchanged email addresses and invitations to visit. Elsa insists we must come to Cape Town and stay in their guest cottage.


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