- nounA continent south of Europe and between the Atlantic and Indian oceans.About 11,700,000 sq. mi. (30,303,000 sq. km.)
- adjectiveAfrican
Botswana – [bots-swah-nuh]
noun
a republic in
southern Africa: formerly a British protectorate; gained
independence in 1966; member of the Commonwealth of Nations.
275,000
sq. mi. (712,250 sq. km.). Capital:
Gaborone.
Botswana is full of
animal and cultural diversity. It is home to meerkats, the white
rhinos, and the highest concentration of elephants in the world.
Maun is a small city in the north of the country.
We were here back
in January with my Aunt and cousin. (there was a video made, but I
did not get permission to put it on The Weekly Post Video Bar.) This
time it was kinda boring. (previously we did a fly over [a video of
this is currently in processing]) We did horse back riding. Let me
say that I cannot horse ride well and leave it at that. Also which I
thought was kinda odd, was that in the cafe by the areoport (Maun
Internation Areoport) there are two North Carolina license plates.
One with the NC State logo and the other a plain one.
Either way we moved
on to Guma Lagoon Camp next. In order to get to this place you have
to drive thirty minutes on a 4x4 track or take a charter fight to an
air strip and take a two hour boat ride. We drove. The day after we
got there we went to Tsodilo Hills. Here is some background info on
Tsodilo Hills. It was declared a World Heritage Site in 2004 and is
home to over 3000 rock paintings. These paintings were created by
the San people. The witch doctors would go into trances and when the
came out they would paint what they saw in the trances.
Later we did a boat
cruise which was nice, but if you are very pale, you can get lots of
sunburn like I did. Regardless, we did fishing and birdwatching.
Moving on we went
back though Maun to Gweta, Botswana. Gweta is a small village that
doesn't really consist of anything but Gweta Lodge. I talked about
this on a previous post. This time instead of staying in the lodge,
we did the night out on the pans.
The image above
shows an aerial shot of Gweta, and the Magdigadi Pans (the big white
things). In the winter (April – August south of the equator) there
is no water in the white parts. In the summer you cannot drive out
their because you will get stuck. Since it was the end of winter we
could. The other group we were with was a group of Spaniards who
were overflow of the Planet Baobab lodge (just down the road). It
was interesting because it was cold and the really warm when we got
in our sleeping bags (provided by the lodge). After that interesting experience we moved on to our final destination, Nata.
Just down the road
from Gweta, Nata has a little bit more than just one lodge. It is
also home to Nata Bird Sanctuary. Nata Bird Sanctuary was created by
the three nearby villages. We did a game drive out there in the
evening.
That's all for this
recent trip. BTW, for thoughs of you who do not know, I have been
extended through December. I will probably be back in Raleigh a few
days before New Years though.
Be sure to check out the Weekly Post Google+ page.
Also, I'm looking
for feedback on some of my own songs. You can listen to them on the
Weekly Post Video Bar or go to my YouTube channel (02CD406).
That's all for now
Cheers!
Matt
Handley
Special thanks to :
Dictionary.com and Bing Maps
Post No. 13012
No comments:
Post a Comment