Friday was a day off from school, so Russ and I left Thursday afternoon via caravan with Raphael and Rosemary, Zane and Helen towards Kutse near the Central Kalahari Game Reserve. Basically heading more into the desert than we already were. We had two hours on paved road, followed by 1.5 hours on a bumpy dirt road passing countless donkey carts, goats, and cattle, followed by an hour in sometimes really deep sand to get to our campsite. Needless to say, we put our tiny Rav4 4wd into a tough test not to mention ourselves. The car handled fine, but this was some serious technical off-roading better suited for a larger car with higher clearance and larger wheels. More about that in a minute.
We were the last to arrive and hurridly set up camp with everything borrowed before it was dark. And then the magic began. Much like our trip to the dam a few weeks ago, the African night sky did not disappoint. Absolutely brilliant with distant planets changing colors, stars shooting across the sky, galaxies from a far far away covering large swaths of nightsky.
The temperature also dropped so that we were quite comfortable under a blanket in the tent Zane loaned to us. Normally we don't sleep under covers so it felt particularly nice. Right around 5 am on Friday morning we heard lions in the distance. Kutse is known for its lions. We waited and waited on Friday during the late afternoon for them to arrive at the watering hole without any luck. But we did see a number of quite shy and rarely seen animals during our drive arounds. Most notably, a den of bat-earred fox including seven babies which we visited every day, and a brown hyena. We also saw a black-back jackal, several springbok and steenbok, a few giraffe, and mongooses. On the birding side (and we are lucky to have Helen as an avid bird-watcher) we saw secretariat and korribusters (both really large flying birds), ostrich, a marshall eagle at our campsite as well as a few hornbills.
This is an easy group to travel with and we spent a lot of time lolling under the shady camel thorn trees at camp, telling stories, reading or talking. We were thankful for the shade as it was incredibly hot. We seemed to drink quite a bit of water and snack throughout the day. Even with all the water though, it seemed we were always thirsty. We kept the beer cold through Saturday and that tasted pretty good too. It was a dusty and sandy campsite and yet also incredibly lovely.
For as awestruck we were with the night sky, the horizon during the day was equally beautiful. Typical of southern Africa at this time of year, the sky was a vivid light blue with several puffy clouds giving the impression that they were carefully painted.
We ended up leaving earlier than expected on Saturday because while out in Zane's Pajaro (like a Landcruiser or Landrover), his oil light came on and some kind of oil was dripping pretty steadily. We drove back to camp to find the vehicle not running smoothly. So, here we are, thirty kilometers from the main gate which will take us an hour to reach. We packed up everything into the other two cars, left his at the campsite with hopes that someone could pull it out. In the meantime, we drove a further hour and half to find a mechanic who could come back to the game park's main gate to fix it. Zane stayed with the mechanic who then drove him back to the car and the rest of us headed back. Now, twenty-four hours later, we found out that Zane lost several bearings, that he had to leave the car there for the week, and is hitching a ride back. It does seem as though it is fixable. Zane is a pretty laid back guy, but the clear lesson of the story for the rest of us is that it is always better to take more than one car out when going on a drive about.
I was glad for the getaway. It is a beautiful part of the country and the camping was enjoyable. It is raining now, and that is another blessing of the day. Lightning and thunder however prevent me from typing anymore!
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