photo by Kristina Gubic

“Dumela Ma (Greetings Madam), How far are you driving today?” I’d just reached the Martin’s Drift Border crossing between South Africa and Botswana and the custom official’s question was more out of empathy for how far I still needed to travel in the oppressive heat than out of legal necessity. It was breakfast time and already the mercury was topping 30 degrees Celsius. I had another seven hours ahead of me.

Botswana is one of Africa’s most sparsely populated countries, almost entirely dominated by the formidable desert of the Kalahari. It is a land of wide open spaces, dazzling wildlife and the legendary Bushmen who predate all other civilization on the continent. The Bushmen are the true ancestral people of the region - now a dwindling minority of hunter gatherers scratching out an existence among the dominant pastoral Setswana people. It is from the Setswana language that the desert’s original name became contorted into what it is known as today. ‘Kgalagadi’ which literally means ‘great dry up’ in Setswana – gave way to ‘Kalahari’ – to English speakers it is simply known as the Thirstlands.

Making my escape from the jarring urban chaos of Johannesburg, I couldn’t think of a more contrasting and alluring destination. Among its natural bounty, Botswana boasts two of the world’s largest inland deltas, Karen Ross in her tribute book to the Okavango Delta aptly called it the ‘Jewel of the Kalahari’. The Okavango Delta is a giant wetland fed by the headwaters of the Kavango River that begins in Angola, and supports a vast array of wildlife and birds through it labyrinthine water channels etched in papyrus and succulent grasses. It is also the only permanent water source for migratory animals seeking some respite from the long dry months in the Kalahari. But it was not to this oasis that I was headed. I was travelling to the western edge of the country’s other great inland delta – the Makgadikgadi Pans. The Pans are the remnants of an inland sea that dried up over two thousand years ago and left only a residue of hardened light blue crust as testimony to its existence.

You may be wondering what appeal there lies in all that heat and dust, but the Kalahari is a deceptive place of haunting imagery and hidden contrasts. A myriad of seasonal miracles wait with baited breath to be unleashed by the rains. Rain, rain, rain. The country’s most precious and elusive resource - the Setswana word for rain is ‘Pula’, and ‘Pula’ is also the symbol of their national currency! But it is when the country is at its most desperate, denied of rain, during the agonizingly long dry season from April to October, that the landscape produces its most dramatic scenery.

My only companions on the long hot journey had been a few anaemic looking donkeys, some rather bored looking cows and the waltzing dust devils that loom up from the desert floor like chalk-filled tornadoes. David Dugmore, the owner of Meno A Kwena was waiting for me beside the tarred road. Despite the growing interest in this authentic safari tented camp – there was still no signpost alerting you of its presence, and I was secretly thrilled at being privy to its existence.

Meno A Kwena is a collection of rustic Meru-style tents pitched along the edge of a high calcrete cliff that stares down onto the empty scar of what was once the Boteti River. The river once served as the natural western boundary of the Makgadikgadi Pans National Park, but since it dried up over a decade ago, the government has installed a rather controversial fence to separate livestock from wildlife.

Taken from the Setswana phrase for ‘tooth of the crocodile’, Meno A Kwena owes its namesake to the last remaining deep pools of water that harboured the river’s most defiant crocodiles before it drained away into the dust and left them stranded. But not all of nature has given up on the Boteti. The largest migration of mass grazers in Southern Africa still returns every dry season, including thousands of zebra, fewer wildebeest and kudu with predators in tow, a mind-blowing variety of birds and a growing bachelor herd of rambunctious elephants.

Zebra coming to drink at the Meno A Kwena waterhole; photo by David Dugmore, Kalahari Kavango Safari Company

This spectacular congregation of wildlife all jostling for a meagre drink of water - right under the noses of residents in the camp - is what makes this camp an unmatchable unique safari experience. Were it not for the persistent efforts of Dugmore to convince the local community to include the camp in the fence line and have it aligned behind the camp – Meno A Kwena may not have existed at all. Months of council meetings with the local community leaders called ‘kgotlas’ and constant pleas to the wildlife authorities to realise the strategic importance of the camp in being able to pump water for the wildlife finally ended in victory. But the job of sustaining this fascinating ecosystem is not without its stresses. Every day of the dry season for the last four years since Meno A Kwena became established, has meant that petrol pumps installed in the riverbed have to be fuelled and monitored throughout the day in order to keep up the demand of 100 000 litres of water per day. The maintenance and fuel costs of such an undertaking have proved financially taxing, and David Dugmore has succeeded with the assistance and generosity of friends, family and visiting tourists who experience this struggle firsthand and have offered their support.

Whilst Dugmore is praised for his efforts and has a full mandate from the local wildlife authorities to manage the water supply for the area, the under resourced authorities are unable to finance his endeavours. Dugmore’s passion for the area and his commitment to the upliftment of the local communities has lead to him setting up the Meno A Kwena Water for Life Fund which seeks to replace the presently volatile system with a more stable supply that will involve better quality pumps and more deep trenches dug into the riverbed. There are also plans to build a community camp site near the local village that will encourage tourists to engage with local culture and gain an authentic insight into their lifestyle. The route on which the camp lies is becoming increasingly popular as the more practical route for those self drive tourists wanting to head northward into Africa.

As the heat of the day subsides and the horizon transforms into a bruised palette of colours, the camp staff busy themselves with the task of bringing a fresh bucket of hot water to each of the individually styled open air ensuite bathrooms. With a bucket drawn up on a rope over the branch of a tree, showering under the Kalahari sky is an experience steeped in pure magic. By the time Kebofilwe – the master chef has readied dinner, the dining and lounge tent has been illuminated by dozens of hurricane lamps and Leeme, the star waiter, also recruited from the local village of Moreomaoto, is standing by to pour your drink of choice. Now all that remains is for you to watch your dinner being cooked over a campfire and watch the Kalahari night sky come alive.

Sleep comes quickly among all that fresh air and space, and I had no difficulty settling into the soft cotton and blanket bedroll in my tent, were it not for the night- time serenade. Almost every night, I heard the thunderous hooves of zebra scattering as they made way for elephants and the deep throated moan of lions calling from the other side of the riverbed.

Meno A Kwena is unique in that it does not encourage a mad flurry of scheduled activities to keep its guests busy. It is one of the few places where you can feel as anonymous as you like and disappear into a good book or some sketching. For those who can tear themselves away from the cooling haven of the rock pool built into the edge of the cliff and overlooking the waterhole there are other adventures awaiting on the Pans. Day trips to Nxai Pans for a picnic or a few hours drive to Gweta, a small but quaint village offers quad bike riding and kite sailing for the adventurous spirit. Quads are an excellent way to sensitively explore the pans with their giant stands of palm trees that appear completely out of place and instead of an azure ocean as a backdrop, give way to grassy scrubland shielding meerkats, ground squirrels and hyena. If not to seek out the wildlife then go just to experience the eerie silence and sheer infinity of space. One of my most surreal and memorable experiences from that trip was camping overnight on the pans on what felt like a moonscape. Perhaps it was the wavering mirages in the heat of the day that made it difficult to distinguish where the salt pans ended and the sky began but I have never felt more free, more alone and more exhilarated than I did there.

I’ve heard from David Dugmore since that this rainy season has brought the highest level of rain to the area in decades and I can imagine the tangle of riverine bush below his camp transformed into a luminescent green more vibrant and thick than what I witnessed a couple of seasons ago. I can imagine all the girls shuddering with the explosion of insects, beetles, scorpions and solifugids hatching out of the sand. A solifugid is a sandy coloured false spider that can span up to 12 centimetres and has been clocked chasing its prey at speeds of up to 250km per hour! No wonder it’s been nicknamed the Kalahari Ferrari.

It is still too early to tell whether the rains will be able to sustain the zebra migration on their return trek eastwards to the pans with adequate grazing and water to last them through the dry season. David is not one to put his faith in hope. Already he has set about engaging researchers and engineers in the planning and building of a more effective water supply.

The Kalahari is not a trip to be taken once in a lifetime. It is a place that gets under your skin and makes you yearn for it when you are away. I have made four trips to Botswana and am still mesmerised and spurred on by what I have still not seen. I have never for instance witnessed the arrival of the flamingos, pelicans and cranes onto the Pans when the rains have been kind and the millions of shrimp and algae blooms lying dormant in the sand spring to life to feed these migrant birds. Perhaps too, the generous rains spell the end of a long drought cycle that has crippled the area for so long and the Boteti may once gain flow and become the lifeblood of the Kalahari.

Kristina Gubic ©2006

Kristina Gubic is a freelance environmental writer and former Editor of Progress Magazine - The Sustainable Development Quarterly, published by Picasso Headline. Kristina travels around Southern and East Africa continuously to research development, cultural and environmental stories. You can email her at africanscribe@yebo.co.za