Arctic Ocean or Bust
View from the Dempster Highway In 2010 we had been close to the Arctic Circle and had seen how gorgeous the fall colors on the tundra could be. Now the final section of the Yukon’s Dempster Highway has been extended...
Botswana Post-safari Diversions
Since I’d never been to Africa before, the idea of leaving just after the safari didn’t seem right. What if I found out about something wonderful and missed it? What to do with two free weeks before we had to...
Botswana Safari, Chapter 8: Chobe
Hills! Rock outcroppings! Geologic features! Something different! First stop in Chobe Nat. Park was Savuti camp, on the west end of Chobe. In years when there’s a lot of water in an Angolan river, the Savuti channel fills, which then...
Botswana safari, Chapter 7: Khwai
Evening along the Khwai River The Khwai Concession is a novel approach to tourism in Botswana. In order to get the village of Khwai to move from land incorporated into Moremi and Chobe parks, the government suggested a land swap....
Botswana Safari: Chapter 6, Moremi cont’d
Moremi is such a marvelous park, I’m going to spend another chapter on it. We moved further north to Third Bridge camp, a more accessible and thus busier area. The bridges are a wonder. The wonder is that they don’t...
Botswana Safari: Chapter 5, Moremi
In the last post I mentioned Moremi Game Reserve takes up about a third of the Okavango delta on the northeast side. It was set aside in 1963 because it became apparent that poaching was decimating the large animal populations....
Botswana Safari: Chapter 4, Okavango Delta
The delta is the most popular destination of all Botswana. It covers over 10,000 square miles, most of it not in a park. The Okavango River starts in the mountains of Angola and competes for the title of third longest...
Botswana Safari: Chapter 3, Nxai Pan
Before continuing on the safari, a brief history note. Before 1966, Botswana was the British protectorate known as Bechuanaland. Seretse Khana, a chief-in-waiting for one of the largest tribes, was studying law in London in the mid-1940’s when he met...
Botswana Safari, Chapter 2, Makgadikgadi Pans
Moving to the next Kalahari area, we stopped in a small town for gas and water. These small towns have varying degrees of development. Some now have schools provided by the national government with primary and secondary education mandatory. However,...
Botswana Safari: chapter 1, Kalahari Game Reserve
The old bridge near the backpackers facility in Maun. Our safari started at Old Bridge Backpackers. They organize the tours in partnership with the Lebolu Safari outfit we had chosen. Everyone who knows me, or reads this blog, knows I...