Serowe, the tombs of the Khamas and the stupidity of humans

It was a very relaxed start this morning. I'd been instructed I needed
to wait until eight for somebody to come and pick me up (so I don't
get eaten by a Rhino!). I've become pretty used to early starts by now
and woke naturally just before five. This was great, up to now I'd not
really had much time to just relax with nothing particular to do.

Though I'd not been visited by any maneating Rhinos in the night I was
far from alone. The previous evening a number of different species of
bird had taken an interest in my presence so I'd left a moderate sized
pile of oats outside my tent to see what I might tempt into turning up
in the morning. I was not disappointed. The nights were now not so
cold nearer the edge of the desert so I'd been able to just close the
tent's net screen, not the full opaque door. This meant I was able to
just roll over and see any early morning visitors without fear of
disturbing them. A bit like being in a hide I guess.

My first guests were a pair of yellowbilled hornbills. These are very
common along the roads and pretty much the only constant companions
I've had since Swakupmond (excluding the true Namib where there truely
was nothing). They usually leave it till I'm within about twenty
metres before flying away. So this was vy far the closest I'd been
able to get to them. They were literally about thirty centimetres from
me. I sat munching biscuits and dried fruit whilst other birds
including cape glossy starlings, crimson breasted shrikes, some sort
of partridge, fork tailed drongo and also tree squirrels took turns
with the oats. A lone impala even walked past at one point. They were
evidently used to this kind of treatment and stayed quite close even
when I got out of the tent and struck camp. It was a shame when I
heard the sound of the approaching vehicle three hours later, coming
to whisk me away.

John had told me that soon after the Rhinos the edge of the Kalahari
plateau is reached. You need to remember that although I'd been
crossing a hot flat environment I'd actually been riding at over a
thousand metres altitude since the climb out of Windhoek. John was not
wrong. Barely two kilometers later the road began to slope away and I
rolled eight kilometers downhill for the first time in two weeks. The
hill was not too steep, I only lost about two hundred metres altitude,
but it was enough for me to be able to just sit back and cruise along
enjoying the views which began opening out ahead of me.

The slow changes I'd begun to observe in the natural world over the
last few days now really began to accelerate as I descended. New and
greener species of trees, many more flowers and butterflies and lots
more birds. At the base of the hill I rolled through a village called
Paje. This was beautiful. The majority of houses were still thatched
mud huts, but they now tended to be square and with small gardens and
well tended little hedges. Dotted all around the village as though
Capability Brown had personally selected their locations were tall
leafy trees. It appeared there may have even been some rainfall within
the last few days as there was a thin hint of green grass covering the
red dusty soil.