Botswana
Celebrated for it’s diversity of wildlife, Botswana is a land-locked country located in Southern Africa bordering Namibia, South Africa, Zimbabwe and Zambia. Thanks to a land rich in diamonds, the economy is today one of the most robust on the continent.
Areas like the Chobe National Park, Moremi National Park in the Okavango Delta and the Central Kalahari Game Reserve offer a very high concentration of wildlife and flora. The bulk of the Kalahari Desert falls within Botswana’s borders and is home to most of the world’s San population. Be mesmerized by these locals as the speak using a series of ‘clicks’.
Visit the Tsodilo Hills and marvel at the 100 000 year old rock paintings illustrated by the San people in a time long forgotten. Try a walking safari – this exhilarating experience is reserved for the brave and those with an experienced guide. It’s the best way to experience nature thrillingly close up. Float along on a mokoro, a traditional hollowed out canoe, expertly poled by a local guide. Experience some of the best sport fishing in Africa, in the Okavango Delta and on the Chobe River.
General Information on Botswana:
Location: Southern Africa, between 20° and 30° east, and between 18° and 27° south.
Size: 581,370km²
Climate: Subtropical. Summer (Nov-Mar); 19-35; winter (Jun-Aug): 5-23. Rainy season Nov-Mar
Status: republic
Population: 1,680,863 (2001 census), almost 225,000 (2008 estimate)
Capital: Gaborone
Other main towns: Francistown, Lobatse, Selebi-Phikwe, Orapa
Economy: Major earners, diamonds, copper, nickel, beef, tourism
Currency: Pula
Language: English (official), Setswana (national), Shona, other local languages
Religion: Christianity, traditional beliefs
International telephone code: +267
Time: GMT +2
Electricity: 220 volts
Flag: Broad, light-blue horizontal stripes, divided by black central stripe bordered by narrow white stripes.
National anthem: Fatshe leno la rana, which translates to ‘Blessed be this noble land’
Botswana’s most popular areas:
Chobe National Park takes its name from the Chobe River, which forms its northern boundry and protects about 10,700km² of the northern Kalahari. Its vegetation varies from the lush floodplains beside the Chobe River to the scorched Savuti Marsh, dense forests to cathedral mopane to endless kilometres of mixed, broadleaf woodlands. This is classic big-game country, where herds of buffalo and elephant attain legendary proportions, matched only by some exceptionally large prides of lion. Much of the park is devoid of water in the dry season, and the vast majority of it is inaccessible.The four main areas of Chobe are the river front, Ngwezumba Pans, Savuti, and the Linyanti.
Linyanti, Selinda and Kwando Reserves
Almost parallel to the Okavango, the Kwando River flows south from Angola across the Caprivi Strip and into Botswana. Like the Okavango, it starts spreading out over the Kalahari’s sands, forming the Linyanti Swamps. Also like the Okavango, in wetter years this is a delta, complete with a myriad of waterways linking lagoons: a refuge for much wildlife. It’s a wild area, much of which is on the Namibian side of the border, in the Mamili National Park, where it’s difficult to access. A faultline channels the outflow from these swamps into the Linyanti River, which flows northeast into Lake Liambezi, and thence into Chobe.
Both the Kwando and the Linyanti rivers are permanent, so for the animals in Chobe and northern Botswana they are a valuable source of water. Like the Chobe and Okavango, they have become the ultimate destinations for migrations from the drier areas across northern Botswana – and also sought-after safari destinations, especially in the dry season. In recent years in this area, between the Chobe National Park and the Okavango Delta, has been split into three larger concessions – Kwando in the north, Linyanti in the east and Selinda in the middle. In some ways these are similar, as each encompasses a large area of mopane woodlands and smaller, more prized sections of riparian forest and open floodplains on old river channels. Away from the actual water, two fossil channels are also worthy of attention: the Savuti Channel and the Selinda Spillway. Both offer contrasting and interesting wildlife spectacles.
The Okavango Delta
The Okavango Delta, is the world’s largest inland delta. It is formed where the Okavango River empties onto a swamp in an endorheic basin in the Kalahari Desert, where most of the water is lost to evaporation and transpiration instead of draining into the sea. Each year approximately 11 cubic kilometres of water irrigate the 15,000 km² area and some flood-waters drain into Lake Ngami. The Moremi Game Reserve, a National Park, spreads across the eastern side of the delta.
The Okavango Delta is produced by seasonal flooding. The Okavango River drains the summer (January–February) rainfall from the Angola highlands and the surge flows 1,200 kilometres in approximately one month. The waters then spread over the 250 km by 150 km area of the delta over the next four months (March–June). The high temperature of the delta causes rapid transpiration and evaporation, resulting in a cycle of rising and falling water level that was not fully understood until the early 20th century. The flood peaks between June and August, during Botswana’s dry winter months, when the delta swells to three times its permanent size, attracting animals from kilometres around and creating one of Africa’s greatest concentrations of wildlife.
The Okavango delta is both a permanent and seasonal home to a wide variety of wildlife which is now a popular tourist attraction. Species include African Bush Elephant, African Buffalo, Hippopotamus, Lechwe, Topi, Blue Wildebeest, Giraffe, Nile crocodile, Lion, Cheetah, Leopard, Brown Hyena, Spotted Hyena, Greater Kudu, Sable Antelope, Black Rhinoceros, White Rhinoceros, Plains Zebra, Warthog and Chacma Baboon. Notably the endangered African Wild Dog still survives within the Okavango Delta, exhibiting one of the richest pack densities in Africa. The delta also includes over 400 species of birds, including African Fish Eagle, Crested Crane, Lilac-breasted Roller, Hammerkop, Ostrich, and Sacred Ibis.
The majority of the estimated 200,000 large mammals in and around the delta are not year-round residents. They leave with the summer rains to find renewed fields of grass to graze on and trees to browse, then make their way back as winter approaches. Large herds of buffalo and elephant total about 30,000 beasts.
Papyrus and reed rafts make up a large part of the Okavango’s vegetation. During the flood season they float well above the sandy river bed with roots dangling free in the water. This gap between bed and roots is utilised as shelter by crocodiles. The plants of the Delta play an important role in providing cohesion for the sand. The banks or levees of a river normally have a high mud content and this combines with the sand in the river’s load to continuously build up the river banks. In the Delta, because of the clean waters of the Okavango, there is almost no mud and the river’s load consists almost entirely of sand. The plants capture the sand, acting as the glue and making up for the lack of mud and in the process creating further islands on which more plants can take root.
This process is important in the formation of linear islands. They are long and thin and often curved like a gently meandering river. The reason for that is that they are actually the natural banks of old river channels which over time have become blocked up by plant growth and sand deposition, resulting in the river changing course and the old river levees becoming islands. Due to the flatness of the Delta, and the large tonnage of sand flowing into it from the Okavango River, the floor of the delta is slowly but constantly rising. Where channels are today, islands will be tomorrow and then new channels may wash away these existing islands.
The Kalahari’s Great Salt Pans
The great salt pans lie in the heart of the northern Kalahari, forming an area of empty horizons into which the blinding white expanse of the pans disappears in a shimmering heat haze. In winter, dust devils whirl across the open plains; in summer many become undulating seas of grass beneath the turbulence of the stormy skies. It is a harsh, spare landscape, not to everybody’s taste, but it offers isolation as complete as anywhere in southern Africa, and a wealth of hidden treasures for those prepared to make the effort – including Stone Age ruins and prehistoric beaches.
The wildlife is rich, but highly seasonal and nomadic. At times you’ll find great concentrations of plains game, with all their attendant predators, and, in good years, spectacular breeding colonies of flamingos crowd the shallow waters of Sua Pam. At other times the stage seems empty. But even then, there is always a cast of smaller Kalahari residents behind the scenes – from coursers and korhaans to mongoose and mole-rats.
The Central Kalahari
Covering about 52,800 km², the Central Kalahari Game Reserve is one of the world’s largest game reserves. It dominates the centre of Botswana. This is Africa at its most remote and esoteric: a vast sandsheet punctuated by a few huge open plains, occasional salt pans and the fossil remains of ancient riverbeds.
The Kalahari is not for everyone; the game is often sparse and can seem limited, with no elephants or buffalo. The distances are huge, along bush tracks of variable quality; and the facilities have been limited to a handful of campsites. So unless you have a fully equipped vehicle and lots of bush experience, it is probably not the place for you. The converse is that if you’ve already experienced enough of Africa to love the feeling of space and the sheer freedom of real wilderness areas, then this reserve is completely magical; it’s the ultimate wilderness destination.
