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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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makgadigadi national park, stopping at baines baobabs on the way. i've mentioned baobab trees before on the kenya page, so suffice to say that they're bloody huge and impressive looking. this is particularly true when they rise out of the blinding white, cracked floor of a salt pan, as these ones do.

in 1862 these particular baobabs had been painted by a fellow called thomas baines and they have bourne his name ever since. now, i was a little surprised when claire told me this. 'he painted them?', i asked incredulously. why on earth would he do that? i wondered. i knew these early explorers were a bit barking, but even so. they did look a lot redder than the other baobabs we'd seen, but surely not, after all this time...

when she realised what i was going on about, claire was delighted to declare that thomas had, of course, painted a picture of those unnaturally red trees. obviously i still wasn't quite feeling 100% - it was hot out there - and we had a good laugh at my expense.

the makgadigadi pan national park was unsurprisingly characterised by more endurance-testing tracks. the soft sand carved into snaking trenches by the vehicles that had gone before. the trees that manage to somehow derive nourishment from the sands then suffer the boistrous attention of the elephants. knarled grey branches scatter the ground. bleached from the sun, they make for dry, easy firewood. but if the termites have got there you need to take care. i found out just how persistent their bites can be.

though the park is vast, at the time we visted the game was concentrated along the botletli river. virtually dry, the river looked more like a dusty canyon. in low gear we descended the steep bank to the river bed below. an elephant drank from one side of a pool whilst the hippos kept to the other. further along, wildebeest and zebra chased about, kicking up dust. in the shallow, drying pools, crocodiles waited patiently in ...