Into Botswana

Friday 11th June
A bit more of a leisurely start today, we left camp at 8 and headed 100km to the Botswana border. The border formalities were quick and painless and we drove on another 200km to a small camp outside Ghanzi on the edge of the Kalahari desert. The drive was peculiarly void of animal life but Delphin says that sometimes it is just like that; there were plenty of cattle, goats, horses and donkeys but very little wildlife that we could see apart from a few small Bustards, some Pippet like birds and several Violet Chested Rollers - beautiful birds (but very shy).
We reached the camp at about 1pm Namibian time, 2pm Botswana time and chose a hut to sleep in; the camp is run by a cooperative of the Kalahari Bushmen (like those from the Gods must be Crazy), and we are sleeping in some of their huts; though we have the luxury of flushing toilets near by!
We were taken on a walk into the bush by 7 Bushmen, 3 men and 4 women, 1 with a baby. They really are very small people and are quite fair skinned for africans, they have the most wonderful complexions! They would spot a plant and then sit down and dig with their digging sticks and then tell us about the plant in their click clack language which was then translated by a guy called Comfort. They dug up the most enormous tuber, the sign was a tiny dead looking stick poking out of the ground, then opened it up and it was bright red inside- they use it to tan leather. There was a long, long root that they burn the end of then inhaloe the smoke if they have a headache, when they sneeze then the headache will go. Another was a root that they boil up and then rub on joints that are sore or put into nicks made in the skin for backache. There was another root for bad dreams, a seed that pops when you put it under your tongue - it is their joke, they loved it when we were shocked by the popping. There was a herb used to stuff into stinky meat as it is cooked - e.g. jackal, and another herb that is used to seal the hole in ostrich eggs which they use to carry water. Eventually they all sat down and made a fire by rubbing sticks, drank water from an ostrich egg and ate a wild melon that they had found accompanied by huge burps. They seemed very content and very pleased to be able to share their knowledge with us. All too soon it was over and we made our way back to camp, but we saw them again later that evening when they came to do some singing and dancing around a fire for another group that arrived much later. For this the men wrapped some sort of seed that had been strung together around their calves so that they rattled as they danced, they stamped their feet so had that we could feel the vibrations about 10 metres away, the women sat and clapped and sang, only 4 women again but amazing harmonies and really loud resounding claps.
The huts were lovely and warm to sleep in even thought the night was another cold one; the group that had arrived late were a noisy lot, I'm so glad we are not in a large group like that.

Sat 12th
We drove for about 3.5hours to Maun. We saw Baobab trees towering above the other scrubby trees and large numbers of rollers (birds), Hornbills and Chanting Goshawks but no big mammals. At Maun we had to say goodbye to Delphin and Jason and we met our new Botswana guide who is called Lenti in an open four wheel drive. We had some lunch and then went out to our chalet / hotel run by a dutch couple on the edge of the Delta. The river round here dried up in 1994 and then started flowing in abundance in 2007, now the area is quite flooded. Celso and I took the opportunity to go out and take photos of the numerous birds in the area. There were also some very frisky squirrels which we managed to photograph but we didn't mange to capture the little yellow mongoose. In the evening we ate dinner with our hosts at the hotel, a young Dutch couple who have owned the place for 3 years. We watched England squander their chance to win the opening match against the USA and then went to bed to sleep very well.