Wednesday, May 24 through Friday, May 26: We moved from the safari tent to a chalet, still without heating, but more like a conventional hotel room and considerably warmer, for the next night. We spent the remaining three nights of the Nata visit on our camp mattress on the floor in a spare bedroom of Peter Robson's house, next to his auto repair shop, because all accommodation at the Nata Lodge was fully booked for the rest of our stay.
The days were occupied with visiting Jeff's friends and acquaintances in Nata, touring the community junior secondary school where he once taught industrial arts, and making brief excursions to various destinations in the area surrounding the town. We spent one morning in the Nata Sanctuary, on the eastern edge of the Makgadigadi pans system. Botswana and parts of Namibia had a record rainfall earlier this year, and the pans were still full of water, attracting large numbers of birds. We counted eighteen species, not including the barn owl and chicks that live on top of the gate at the entrance to the sanctuary.
One evening we picked up Thamane after work and drove out with him to his family's cattle post. We took along some beef, sugar, and milk as gifts. We had met his mother during our Botswana visit in 2003; she was very pleased to see us again, and gave us a gift in return--a goat. We thanked her and accepted the gift on the condition that the goat would be butchered and roasted for a feast at some future time. It was very pleasant to sit at the fireside at dusk drinking tea with Thamane and his relatives, who are members of the Kalunga ethnic group.
Our occupation for another day was entertaining Ladies, a friend from Jeff's Peace Corps days who works at the junior secondary school. We drove from Nata about 70 kilometers to Elephant Sands, a new lodge and luxury camp under construction. We had a brief tour of the camp and a cup of coffee at the lodge, then drove out into the bush past a veterinary camp in search of wildlife and birds. Besides the elephants we saw going to and from Elephant Sands, we saw three giraffe, a springbok, four wart hogs, one male and one female steenbok, and three or four impala. Among the birdlife were crowned plover, crimson shrike, and francolin.
The days were occupied with visiting Jeff's friends and acquaintances in Nata, touring the community junior secondary school where he once taught industrial arts, and making brief excursions to various destinations in the area surrounding the town. We spent one morning in the Nata Sanctuary, on the eastern edge of the Makgadigadi pans system. Botswana and parts of Namibia had a record rainfall earlier this year, and the pans were still full of water, attracting large numbers of birds. We counted eighteen species, not including the barn owl and chicks that live on top of the gate at the entrance to the sanctuary.
One evening we picked up Thamane after work and drove out with him to his family's cattle post. We took along some beef, sugar, and milk as gifts. We had met his mother during our Botswana visit in 2003; she was very pleased to see us again, and gave us a gift in return--a goat. We thanked her and accepted the gift on the condition that the goat would be butchered and roasted for a feast at some future time. It was very pleasant to sit at the fireside at dusk drinking tea with Thamane and his relatives, who are members of the Kalunga ethnic group.
Our occupation for another day was entertaining Ladies, a friend from Jeff's Peace Corps days who works at the junior secondary school. We drove from Nata about 70 kilometers to Elephant Sands, a new lodge and luxury camp under construction. We had a brief tour of the camp and a cup of coffee at the lodge, then drove out into the bush past a veterinary camp in search of wildlife and birds. Besides the elephants we saw going to and from Elephant Sands, we saw three giraffe, a springbok, four wart hogs, one male and one female steenbok, and three or four impala. Among the birdlife were crowned plover, crimson shrike, and francolin.
posted by Jeff & Gina Smith at 9:35 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home