The Tswana

I always knew I could never make it from the Okavango to Rakops (the
next major village) in one day, it's about 250km. So there would need
to be a stop at some point. Problem was there weren't many options. As
I've already described my route now roughly followed the course of the
Boteti river and continues to do until Rakops. The only official
places to stay along this stretch are some of the most exclusive
safari lodges one could ever be unlucky enough to find oneself in.
These are the kind of places which don't really advertise themselves,
charge upwards of US$300 a night... for a tent and are generally
located at the far end of long deep sandy tracks. Not really very
accessible nor my kind of thing.

The reason these lodges are here is that the Boteti forms the south
western border of the Makadikadi Pans park and is a migration route
for herbivores moving between the pans and the Okavango. Migrating
herbivores are followed by predators, lots of them. As I rode along
and it got later and later I was mulling these things over in my head.
I guess the truth was I'd not really worked out a proper plan for this
night. I'd sort of assumed I might somehow spot a slightly less
exclusive lodge close enough to the road for me to access and just
walk over and ask if they would mind if I just pitched my tent, either
round the back where no one would notice me, or perhaps try and
entertain their rich guests with embelished stories of midnight
leopard wrestling and near misses with Bull Elephants.

I continued along through the disturbingly close relatively high
mopane woodland, my shadow extending further and further away to my
left, none of these lodges were standing up to be counted. Not only
that, but since crossing the river earlier in the day I'd begun to
notice that the few villages I did pass generally surrounded
themselves and their livestock with a Boma. I'd not seen this up to
now and took this as an indication that there really were hungry wild
beasts in the area.

So what to do?

The purpose of this trip was only ever partly to see new things, visit
places I'd never been before, see the sights, the primary aim was
adventure! And as I passed a small group of huts in the trees I
decided once again the time had come for adventure. There would be no
fancy lodges for me tonight. I made one of those split second
decisions and turned the bike off the road and into the trees.

Tswana huts conform pretty well to the stereotype of African mud huts
(although these particular ones were actually made of sticks). I'd
guess I'd chosen this particular spot I'd heared the sound of children
playing which I took to mean there would be a family. I pushed the
bike through the sand to the edge of their boma and called out 'Hello,
Hello' a head popped out from around the side of the nearest hut and
then a woman appeared and walked over. She spoke no english and my
tswana was no better. I made lots of signs trying to indicate what my
tent looked like, putting my palms together at the side of my face to
show sleep, flapping my arms and pointing at the road to show I would
leave tomorrow (not sure how I thought that action would make any
sense) and pointed at the sun showing it going down. I'm pretty sure
she thought I'd been out in the heat too long and looked at me a
little strangely... but didn't invite me in. Bugger! This wasn't going
well. I got out my little map showing the whole of my route which
often helped explain things in these situations. The map seemed to
mean absolutely nothing to her and I was still standing lion-side of
the boma. l, was running out of ideas and the sun had turned deep red
and was touching the tops of the trees. Last chance, I patted one of
my panniers and said coffee and pointed at her. She smiled and pulled
back the boma. I was in!

Inside the place consisted of three circular huts each about four
metres across. The Walls were made of a single layer of sticks about
the thickness of a forearm tightly packed together and since they were
not uniformly straight they left many thin gaps. The roofs were made
of thatched yellow/brown grass tapering from a central point to form a
flat cone. These were joined together by two Walls of sticks just over
shoulder height so that the central hut was joined to the other two.
The main living space lay within the area bounded by the huts and
these walls and here there was a fire and a few low wooden benches. On
the open side of the triangle formed by the huts was a very scrawny
thorn tree about twice my height. Everywhere there were chickens and
goats everywhere.