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23rd april - 9th may

Overlanding across Afica in our Land Rover Defender: Botswana

Andy Lees
2006-05-16 15:19:02

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bountiful game they'd encountered, including a pack of wild dogs - even the guide hadn't seen wild dogs for over five years!

maun again - 2nd may

back at maun it was time to resume life on the road. despite the lack of water and game, and the food poisoning that prevented claire from enjoying the delicious food she'd been so looking forward to, we'd really enjoyed our stay in the delta. the other guests in the lodge had been really friendly and made us realize how isolated we'd been and how unaccustomed to company we'd become. but it was good to see the land rover again, and there was a lot more of botswana for us to explore. the exploration had to wait a bit though, as i came down with the same bug that had been ailing claire.

nxai pan - 4th may

somewhat recovered, we left town anyway. our destination was nxai pan, a salt pan and game reserve a couple of hundred kilometres south of maun. the 'x' in nxai represents a click sound which is common in the bushman dialect in the area. we had fun trying to pronounce it. mostly unsuccessfully.

after moremi, we were getting a bit despondent on the safari front, but this small, grass covered pan delivered the goods. not only were there abundant elephant, giraffe and antelope, but a pride of lions feasting on the rotting carcass of a dead elephant. it was the most gruesomely fascinating sight we'd seen since the zombie bulls of dorze. downwind, the stench was putrid. we covered our mouths with scarves. maggots poured from the elephants cavernous, disembowled gut, whilst a large, maned lion knawed on the gaping ring of flesh that was once the trunk. the lions' chins were red with blood, and one of them had such an astonishingly evil glint in his eyes that we wound up our windows in fear.

makgadigadi national park - 5th may

the next day we crossed to neighbouring ...