San Bushmen of the Kalahari

The territory of the indigenous people of Southern Africa -- also known as the San people -- spans most areas of South Africa, Zimbabwe, Lesotho, Mozambique, Swaziland, Botswana, Namibia, and Angola. The biggest population of bushmen is in Botswana. On our trip we also visited a small tribe of San Bushman in the Kalahari desert. These guys are traditionally hunter-gatherers, who live somewhere out in the bush, hunting wild animals and obtaining all necessary substances including  medicine from wild plants and roots. We had a short walk with them, during which they showed us how they survive in the bush ... by finding some edible plants; digging out roots which they are mostly use as medicine for different kinds of diseases; making fire with dry grass and wooden sticks and so on. The bushmen-walk was very interesting ... they were explaining all the things in their indigenous *click language* ... which is a dialect of the Khoisan language ... it is quite a difficult (but funny) language ... however, it's impossible for us to understand and even to speak! ... so we got a translation in english from an interpreter ;-)

In the evening they are usually sitting around a campfire and performing some native dances. They have also different spiritual dances and rituals for thanking the spirits (eg. if they have killed a predator).

Okavango Delta

The next highlight on our tour was the Okavango Delta in Botswana. It is a large inland delta, formed where the Okavango River reaches a tectonic trough in the central part of the endorheic basin of the Kalahari. All the water reaching the Delta is ultimately evaporated and transpired, and does not flow into any sea or ocean. Each year approximately 11 cubic kilometres of water spread over the 6,000-15,000 km² area. Some flood-waters drain into Lake Ngami.

The gateway to the Delta is a small little town called Maun. It is located at the southern end of the delta ... a beautiful area, where a lot of lodges and mokoro stations have been established. Due to this fact the tourism in the delta has grown and Maun has gained more and more importance in the past years.

Our 3-day delta tour also started from a lodge near Maun ... so for the first part we took a motorboat and then we changed to the small and fancy makoros. These small boats are traditionally made by digging out the trunk of a large straight tree, such as an ebony tree or kigelia tree. However, these trees are protected since a few years and so modern mokoros are made of fibre-glass. The boats are propelled by so-called *polers*, who stand in the back and pushing the mokoro with a pole through the shallow waters of the delta. The boat trip was really nice and relaxing ... and the *polers* were very friendly and funny ;-)

Our camp was on an island in the delta. So we had to put all the stuff for three days into the makoros (tents, dishes, food and so on ;-) ... we had only limited space for our luggage thus we could take just the necessary things (camera, mosquito spray, swimming shorts and a few bottles of wine) with us the rest we had to leave behind. The location was very nice ... we had a lot of space for our tents, a big fire place for cooking and sitting around in the evening and there was also a nice swimming spot nearby (but the water was quite cold ;-)

During our stay in the delta we had two walking safaris where we discovered the delta on foot. The countryside and the wildlife in the delta is amazing and I really enjoyed our stay there.

Safari @ Chobe National Park

Our first stop was at the Chobe National Park, which was the first national park in Botswana. It is located in the north of the country, it is the third largest by size in Botwana and has one of the largest concentration of game in Africa. So, for me it was just another safari ...but anyway, every safari is a special adventure ... because you do not know which animals you will see ;-) ... so what have we seen on this safari?! ... there were a lot of Cape Buffalos, crocodiles, water monitors, different birds and of course a lot of hippos and elephants ... jep, it was a quite nice safari ... just take a look at the pictures ;-)