The end of the Sand, San, and soon SA

botswana. its a desert. almost entirely. it isnt all the same, but it is all desert. there are subtle and large differences in the desert like the presence or lack of grass, species of trees like marula and baobab. the north of the county has a river with water(there are many rivers signposted along the road...but none have water). the zambezi flows into the okavango delta and spreads out over something like 16000km2. thats a heap of sand that is wet and has grass and lots of trees with furry things running around eating the plants and marking the sand. we saw a few game antelope(impala, kudu, puku, sable, reedbuck, waterbuck, duikker...) abound, a few girrafe, elephants and hippos galore, few crocs and water monitor lizards, babooons, monkeys, birds, snakes, a jackle, mongoose or mongeese, zebra, and ostrich. we saw tracks of some leopard. we heard some lion, and we saw tracks and heard hyena and wild dogs. mongoose or the water monitor are the best. giraffe are just strange. hippos make strange sounds all night long. when you are sleeping 200ft from 13 of them it is quiet a problem for sleeping. best i can describe hippos noises as are jabba the hut's laugh, a little menacing and unsettling, plus they have big teeth.

we did too much driving. it was spread over 19days which helped, but there wasnt much choice to get around the country. it is big and things are far apart. a private jet would have solved the driving and bird hitting issues. i think we ended up at about 3000miles.

now off to trek with the ponies and the snow in the mountain kingdom


antelope, doing antelope things, standing and eating.
mongoose, like timone, are awesome. there was a whole family that visited us daily.
Botswana has salt pans...something about evaporation, heat, no place for water to go but up.

Botswana is a desert


I am happy, i swear. The sun and water were very bright. i am also vertical. this is what the delta looks like from a dugout canoe.