SAFARI – DAY 4 (Moremi Game Reserve, Botswana; mobile tent camp)

This was the true beginning of the safari.  By the way, the word “safari” means journey in Swahili – much like the Australian term walkabout.

We took a 1.5 hr flight from Johannesburg to Maun, Botswana (pronounced “mound” without the “d”), which is the stepping off place for trips to the Okavanga delta.  We were met by our guide, Lisa Reed, and loaded into two safari vehicles – three rows of three seats each, each row higher than the one in front, and a canopy top to provide shade but otherwise open vehicles for maximum viewing – a big Land Rover and a big Toyota Land Cruiser.  These are 4x4 vehicles that can handle almost any condition.  You don’t step into these things – you climb up tiny steps built into the side and then squish yourself into a seat.

And off we went on a 5-hour drive to a mobile tent camp (more on that later).  The first hour was on pavement, past traditional Botswana villages – it really was not westernized or industrialized.  Round mud houses with thatched roofs and a kraal made of tree branches sticking out of the dirt (quite effective).  Goats, donkeys, and cows roam all over, including in the road.  The weather was about 90 degrees F and very dry.  Imagine riding in an open vehicle at 40 miles an hour with the hot, dusty wind sandblasting your face and arms.  Quite bracing.  I even held my hat over my face for awhile until my sister started laughing at me – but hey, I’m not much of a rugged type of person.  By the time we got to camp, my nose and eyes were stuffed with dust and my skin felt like hide.

Technically we are in the Kalahari, which is a large dry savannah.  It was once an inland sea and now all the land in Botswana is the sea bottom – which means it is just sand.  This is the middle of September and towards the end of the dry season so all the trees are bare except for the acacia trees, which are a vivid green with little yellow balls, and a few others.  Thank gawd the trucks have a canopy, but I still felt the sun creeping in on the sides.

The second hour was on fairly smooth, gravelly sand, fairly easy riding and a bit slower in speed.  And the last three hours were in the Moremi Game Reserve on a very rutted, bumpy road, sometimes driving through quite deep sand in which we sloshed our way around the curves.  The drive took forever.  Every now and then we saw an interesting animal or some tracks.

Tracks sighted on the road:  elephant, hyena, giraffe, puff adder.
Animals sighted on the drive:  giraffe, impala, steenbok (a type of antelope), and aardvark burrows.  And elephant poop everywhere in great abundance. 

The mobile tent camp is just that – it is a camp with tents that were set up the day before we got there and was taken down when we left.  There are six staff people to run the camp and take care of us, two guides, and a third person who is a ordinarily a guide but for this camp was the equipment truck driver.  The camp is located on large pond in the delta – we were grandly entertained each night by listening to the hippos snort at each other.  (They do a kind of a wheezy, grunty honk.)  And of course frogs.
We were greeted by a staff member who handed out wet face towels to wash off the dust and were given various instructions about camp life – how to use the bucket shower, how to use the portable toilets in each tent, and how not to walk around unescorted at night.  That is a very big deal – every night all the humans are put into their cages for the night so the animals can roam around without causing us any bodily harm.  The theory is that the animals see the tents as solid objects (unlike bears, which tend to rip into anything to get food, but of course, we did not have food in our tents) and do not recognize the humans inside as food.  The theory held out for the duration of the trip, for which I am grateful.

Anyway, the tents are pretty poshy as tents go – each tent has a sleeping area with two beds and a partitioned off portion of the tent to use as a toilet/shower area.  Each tent gets its own portable toilet (my goodness those things are low to the ground) and a shower which is a canvas bag that hangs on a hook with a nozzle.  The tents were arranged in a partial circle with the dining tent closing the circle and facing the pond, and a campfire and camp chairs in the center.  By this time it was dusk so we sat around the campfire in comfy camp chairs drinking our sun downers (any evening beverage, including wine, beer, and gin and tonics).  We were called into the dining tent for a lovely dinner of pork chops, vegetables, and pears poached in wine.  (The cook announced the menu before each dinner and we were quite well served.)

Had a bit of a hassle getting our portable toilet to work but our guide helped us.  I was barely sweaty even with all the heat because it is so dry.  I decided to just go to bed as is, without washing, because I was too tired (well, in my defense, I wasn’t smelly).
We are really in Africa!!!!!  The dream trip has truly begun.  Lisa tells us that any of a number of animals will come into camp and sniff around during the night.  They may even shake the tent.  All part of the fun, I guess.

TRIVIA QUESTION:  How much does the average elephant poop in a day?   50 kilograms, 100 kilograms, or 150 kilograms?  Answer in tomorrow’s post.