Tuesday, March 24, 2009

N click ai Pan *













Botswana
March 14th & 15th, 2009

Waiting for the puddles to dry before heading North, we decided to go to the famous salt pans which are best seen this time of year as the animals from Makgadikgadi, a pan further south migrate north during the rainy season. Just over a hundred kms from Maun we made our way.

Our first stop was Baines Baobabs, a cluster of trees made famous by a painting made over a hundred years ago. It is stunningly set as it is essentially a tree island in the middle of a flat salty landscape. A definite must-see.

We then headed into the park where game viewing is enhanced by a barren landscape of low grass plains spotted with sparse trees. Numerous elephant were spotted happily munching away on some bushes and grass. A zebra was noticed having a huge gash on his rear looking distinctly like a claw slash nonchalantly snacking. Huge herds of springbok were seen lying on the grass. And amazingly a group of 26 giraffe were counted. These giraffe weren’t too shy and once they got used to the car they continued as if we weren’t even there. They showed us just how flexible they are as they bent down somewhat awkwardly and ate the grass. It was fantastic.

Our big adventure however came at 6:30pm, just as we were heading to set up camp before dark. We drove into a puddle and well, couldn’t drive out. Yikes we were stuck. Out came the shovels. Moving like crazy we shovelled and shovelled. Trying again to move we had no luck. More shovelling, a bit of deflating and some complicated navigating, we got out just as the sun was giving its final light.

Nxai Pan pronounced with a click for the x, yep one of those cool African languages – see if you can say it 

No comments: