Thursday, December 28, 2006

(Things I Love -- Seriously -- About Botswana: Domestic Animals Have the Right-of-Way. This is the Nata Lodge camp ground but could be anywhere.)

After cooking breakfast we chatted with our neighbors in the camp site -- two couples from South Africa traveling on motorcycles. They explain their fearless approach to pot holes, cattle and other road hazards. I am still awed. They are very friendly and interested in us as American tourists.

We replenish our supplies and decide to get the truck washed before going to the bird sanctuary and the Sowa Pan. The ladies of the Faith Hair Salon and Carwash perform a miracle and we leave Nata with our vehicle gleaming inside and out. Despite the filthy condition of the exterior -- they cleaned it without ruining the clothing they were wearing. This was all the more remarkable because they were dressed not as workers in a car wash but as operators of a beauty salon. And on that day the car wash part of the operation was booming and the beauty salon was languishing.

The Sowa Pan is our first trip to this type of landscape in Botswana. Due to the season it is hard to get a glimpse of bird or animal in this location. Water is too plentiful due to recent rain and it is the land form itself that ends up providing the interest. Having made our way on a sand track through a screen of trees we entered the Pan itself. It is a vast sea of knee-high grass from horizon to horizon broken by an occasional bald area of salt and gray-white sand. I slowly meander on the sand tracks until it is clear that we are seemingly alone here. With the light failing (and not wishing to exhaust everyone's tolerance for sitting in the truck cab) we made our way back to the Lodge.

Once there we cooked dinner and arranged our camp site for the night.

Labels: Nata Lodge, Sowa Pan

¶ 2:45 PM