Tale guide

Don’t get stuck in the sand!

Botswana lies between the Orange river on its southern border and the Zambezi in the North. It is 2.4 times larger than the United Kingdom and covers an area of about 582, 000 square kilometres.

About 70 percent of the country is made up of the Kalahari Desert which continues to slowly creep across its borders into Namibia in the West and Zimbabwe in the East.

It is one of the most sparsely populated countries in the world with over 12% of its population living in its Capital, Gaborone.

Botswana is a very wealthy country primarily because of its enormous diamond reserves and a thriving tourism industry.

Moreover, Northern Botswana is a wildlife paradise that in many respects surpasses the Masai Mara and Serengeti wildernesses of East Africa with its incredible diversity.

The immense power of the Chobe river and the Unesco World heritage spectacle of the Okavango swamps combine to provide a vital corridor for the many thousands of elephants that tread ancient paths between North Eastern Zimbabwe and Southern Angola. Its no wonder that the region is considered one of the seven natural wonders of Africa.

During the first quarter of the 21st century Ann and I together with our friends, Ken and Inge Symmons, decided to take to the road on a tour of this exciting land.

In those days we drove a 3.2 litre, 4 x 4 Pajero and towed an Explorer off road caravan.

This combination was widely regarded as state-of-the-art bush camping kit, equipped with everything one would need to traverse the sand, bush and wetlands of Africa with the least amount of risk of becoming stuck.

I suppose I should have mentioned at the start, that in those days, legend had it in off road circles, that Pajero and Toyota tool kits were in fact carried in order to provide assistance to all the Land Rovers they would find broken down along the road.

Ken and Inge, on the other hand, drove a two-wheel drive, Mercedes Discoverer, camping car about which I had some serious doubts as to its off-road capabilities.

Notwithstanding, we went ahead and meticulously planned our journey and, in the process, considered that where the terrain dictated, we would park the camping car and travel together in the Pajero.

The first part of the journey took us through Gaborone to Francistown where we camped in a camp site in the manicured grounds of the Francistown (now Cresta Marang) hotel.

The camp had been cleverly designed for caravans and their vehicles to park along an outside circle making access and egress easy. The middle of the campsite was cordoned off with a line of logs balanced on low cross log posts.

This area was well lawned and shady and deliberately reserved for tents and similar light equipment.

The timing of our outward bound journey coincided with the end of a school holiday and we found ourselves having to contend with an unusually busy overnight stay as a result of an influx of South African campers who were on their way back home from various locations in the north.

We had pitched camp earlier in the afternoon and were quietly enjoying a sundowner when the vehicles started to arrive, and it wasn’t long before the camp was almost full.

We sat bemused at the goings on when in drove a Toyota Landcruiser with a massive caravan and stopped in front of us.

A pretty large, sun tanned chap jumped out of the driver’s seat and proceeded to lift one of the poles off its mountings and move it to one side, whereupon he drove his rig onto the manicured lawn.

The total disregard of its designated purpose and the fact that he seemed quite evidently, somewhat harassed, combined with the fact that he walked around with a kind of swagger of a man who wanted all to know that he was ‘the man’, or “I’m a proper bushman!”, if you get my drift, intrigued me.

I stood up and walked across to introduce myself and perhaps offer some guidance.

Once we made our brief acquaintance, and as he rubbed his forearm across his perspiring forehead, he boasted with an air of exasperation, that he had driven over seven hundred kilometres on off-road terrain that day and was really stuffed!

His presentation and general demeanour instantly inspired my evil sense of humour and I said innocently “Good heavens man, why on earth did you not use the tarred roads?”

He didn’t see the funny side and I chose to keep my guidance to myself.

Roughly halfway between Francistown and Kasane lies a little village of Nata and the famous Nata lodge, where we had planned to stay for a couple of days before travelling further north along the Elephant road.

Nata lies on the edge of the Makgadikgadi Salt Pans which are the largest salt pans in the world and are in fact the last remains of Africa’s largest inland sea which, tens of thousands of years ago, made up an area larger than Switzerland.

Recent studies suggest that Homo Sapiens first evolved there over 200, 000 years ago.

The main water supply is the Nata river whose source lies in Zimbabwe and during the rainy season large shallow waters appear on the flat salt pans where thousands of water birds descend én route from where and to where, nobody entirely understands.

These salt pans cover over 16,000 km2 and are an amazing sight to behold.

The only problem was that I was aware that the camping sites adjacent to the lodge are located in Mokolwane Palms and soft desert sand that is generally not suitable for two-wheel drive vehicles. It was thus with this in mind that once we had reported our arrival at the lodge, that I called a briefing.

Inge was in the driving seat at the time and was gung-ho to throw caution to the wind and tackle the soft sand despite my obvious and informed concerns.

Under the circumstances I moved to plan ‘B’ and recommended that she take the camper van and lead us into the camp site and that I would follow with my 4 x 4 fully engaged. “But,” I emphasised with as much authority as I could muster, “please do not stop, under any circumstances. Identify your preferred site and drive straight in. If you stop, your van will sink into the sand and it will take forever to get you out”.

With this stern warning still ringing in her ears, Inge and Ken jumped into their campervan and set off down the sandy track into the oasis. Satisfied in my own mind that the message had been received, we followed suit not two car lengths behind.

The convoy travelled steadily but quite slowly over the soft sand and all went well as our momentum allowed the wheels to glide over the surface with little resistance.

This continued smoothly until the track swung to the left. Inge took the corner, drove up fifty meters before eyeing a perfectly shady spot to her left and stopped!

I had no choice but to bring my rig’s combined weight of close on 5,000 kilograms to a halt to avoid driving into the back of the camper van.

The Pajero and Explorer sank into the sand!

As if to rub salt into the wound, Inge then engaged first gear and swung her camper van deftly under the palms of her chosen site.

Ann and I however spent at least thirty minutes in 40 degrees Celsius heat, and used every trick in the book to get out of the sand to no avail.

It grieves me greatly to have to finally admit what happened next, but eventually I had to seek assistance from the lodge manager who graciously and promptly agreed to tow me out of our predicament.

Ten minutes later, the lodge manager arrived in his old beaten up (wait for it!) Land Rover: hitched my Pajero with the Explorer in tow and pulled us both out of the sand without a second glance back.

An embarrassment I have never been able to live down to this very day!

You will forgive the absence of a photograph of this event for reasons of self-preservation.🙃