BotswanaAug 25, 2010
|
|
Bushmen (San) on the bushmanwalk
Bushmen (San) dancing
Okavango Delta
| Hey everyone! Unfortunately I never had the possibility to go to an internet café while staying in Botswana and Zambia. Therefore I'm doing this entry only now (I'm back home for 1.5 weeks now). I also added some more pictures to my entries about South Africa and Namibia. After entering Botswana we first stayed in Ghanzi. There we made a bushman walk with the local bushmen, which are called "San-People". They showed us their medicine plants and what they use them for. It was quite interesting. Because we wouldn't have understood anything, there was a woman that spoke English and translated everything for us. They also showed us how to make fire (only by using wooden sticks and dry weed). In the evening the danced for us. They showed their entertainment and healing dances to the tourists. The women sang, the men danced. It was quite different than the dancing we're used to. The next day we proceeded to Maun, the "touristic capital" of Botswana. This town lies at the border of the Okavango Delta, the largest inland delta in the world. To see it at its fully beauty, we made a 45 minute scenic flight over it. It was quite a scary little plane, with place for only about 12 people. But it was really worth it, because the flight was very beautiful. The delta is a huge area covered by rivers, shallow lakes, swamps and small islands. We saw a lot of elephants and smaller, not really distinguishable animals out of the plane. It was amazing. On the morning of the next day we packed everything for our 2 night excursion into the delta. We took parts of our personal luggage, our tents, chairs, a table, food, etc. with us. The first 45 minutes we drove by speedboat. That was much fun, because he drove really fast. We then put all our things into the Mokoros (dug out canoes) and proceeded (always two people and a Polo (driver) per boat) this way. I was astonished how much luggage they put into these small, unstable canoes! The mokoros then drove silently through the shallow water and the sea weed. There were a lot of water lilies. Sounds really comfortable, doesn't it? Unfortunately there were an awful lot of spiders in the sea weed that liked to jump into our canoes...which made it much less comfortable! We camped on one of these millions of islands. After putting up camp we dug a "toilet hole" just outside the camp. In the evening we went for a short bushwalk, but unfortunately we didn't see any animals. But we saw a lot of animal tracks and animal crap ;-). The next morning we made another bushwalk. Unfortunately the greatest "attraction" was the crossing of two rivers, which meant putting of the shoes and wading through the shallow water... In the evening we went out by mokoro to see the hippos and the sunset. That was very beautiful and we could fully enjoy the silence and nature out there. In the evening we sang and danced with the Polos (they stayed with us the whole time). The next morning we went back to the mainland. It was a great experience and much better than my first bush camp! The day after we proceeded to Gweta, where we camped under the impressive Baobab-Trees. We then drove to Kasane, a little town at the Chobe River (the border between Botswana and the Caprivi Strip of Namibia). In the evening we made a two hour boat game drive on the Chobe River. That was amazing. We saw a lot of animals, i.e. elephants, buffalos, different antelopes, crocodiles, hippos, different birds, baboons, giraffes, etc. We even saw three elephants crossing the river. We were not sure if they swam or if they walked on the ground, but sometimes the whole animal was covered by water! |
Advertisement 
|
