Nxai Pan - Botswana

We needed to restock the fridges and catch up with email and the website so we stayed on in Maun at the Island Safari Lodge after Ruth and J left. In the last two weeks we had had scant access to power and to make matters worse the Inverter on the Landy had packed up so we had been unable to charge the Laptop whilst on the road.

The Inverter had been supplied by Foley's and was still under warranty so we were reluctant to start fiddling with it and risk invalidating that but we needed to try and replace it if possible before we went back into the bush. Problem was Maun is hardly a metropolis so the choices were very limited and much more expensive.

While we had time Sue decided to clean out Rupert and made a start on the back box where we store the dried food and have our main fridge/freezer. The box is jammed with stuff and it is no easy task to re-organise, suddenly she shouted, she had found a little mouse seemingly dead on top of one of the boxes. When we looked closely we could see it was actually alive but was very sleepy possibly going into a state of hibernation.

He was gorgeous, grey with a fluffy tail and big ears, he looked like some sort of Dormouse. We didn't know how long he had been in the box but certainly we had seen no sign of him when we were in and out whilst on the road. He had managed to get  inside one box and nibble at bags of custard powder and rice but was probably still starving.

We took him to show the guys running the lodge and Shaun who has lived in Africa all his life and guides people in the bush admitted he had never seen one before. Looking him up in a book we established he was a Woodland Dormouse which were described as being rare and shy creatures. How he had joined us is anyone's guess but we reckon he must have snuck in the box somewhere on safari so was now a long way from home.

He must have been very dehydrated so we gave him some water on the tips of our fingers which he started to feverishly lap up , pretty soon he was much more frisky so Shane put him in a box with some straw and something to eat and we left to go into town. When we returned we found he had got out of the box and had gone up into the thatched roof where hopefully he  made a new home.

We decided to spend a few days at Nxai Pan, a smallish park about 125km from Maun. When we lived in Botswana we only went there once but it had given us our closest encounter with a Leopard so we thought we would re-visit it. Now we had no more visitors in the pipeline we could get back to suiting ourselves about where to go and how long to stay.

The only cloud on the horizon was my Mum had a fall back in February and was now deemed unable to live on her own anymore and had gone into a residential home. Talking to my sister I learnt she and my brother needed to start clearing her house in readiness for selling it to fund the cost of the home! This caused us a problem as having stayed with Mum for the last 6 months whilst we went through all the trauma's with Sue's parents we had left quite a lot of our stuff in her house.

It was starting to look as if we would have to return to the UK for a few weeks in order to sort things out both with Mum's house and our own in Sussex, as our tenants were also due to move out in July. With the visits of Carol & Ruth we had not really had time to make a decision on what to do for the best so  Nxai would allow us some quiet time to think things through.

We arrived at Nxai in the late afternoon, there are supposed to be two camping spots, North Camp and South Camp but North camp was closed indefinitely. Also we had been warned when we made our booking in Maun that there was no water at the park so we made sure our tank and jerry's were full.

Out of four sites at South camp we had been allocated site number 2 but when we arrived there was a small tour group on the site closest to us and site 4 was nicer anyway so we took that one in the hope no one would turn up and claim it.

In the 80s we camped at Nxai Pan with Dick & Jane and their small son Christopher and as we were setting up camp we heard a Leopard calling in the bush nearby. In those days the park like the whole country was very dry so people left a water tap dripping for the animals and birds to drink.

We had heard that a Leopard sometimes came to drink at night but we didn't expect to encounter it. We had just sat down to eat and the other's were chatting away, I was sitting on the end of the line when I heard a movement in the bushes nearby. I shone my torch but there was nothing there, the other's hadn't noticed anything and were still chatting away, then I heard the noise again and kept the torch on the bushes, suddenly to my amazement the head of the Leopard poked out then disappeared again, it was less than 6 ft away from me.

Jumping up I shouted to the others that the Leopard was here and turned just in time to see they had already bolted to Dick's Landrover which was parked on the other side of our camp and Jane was disappearing over the tail gate - corn on the cob still in hand.

Keeping the torch on the bushes I slowly backed up and to our amazement the Leopard walked out in full view of the lights. The annoying thing was our Landrover was parked on the other side close to the Leopard so I could not get to our cameras. Cool as you like the Leopard sniffed at our stuff and then went to our Landy where we had left the back door open. For a second she sat looking in the door and I thought she was going to jump in but she then grabbed our tent still in its bag on the floor and like a kitten with a ball of wool started to rock back and forth playing with it. Then she picked something up in her mouth and ran off into the darkness, we didn't see what she took but in the morning we found my flip flop all chewed up a short way off in the bush.

She came back later on to sit and watch us for a few moments from just outside the light from our camp. She was clearly just curious and didn't mean us any harm but it was a fantastic experience for us especially as it was our very first sighting of a Leopard and even though we have seen quite a few since it remains our most memorable.

Now the water tap no longer exists, a long drop toilet is still there but in a bad state and the whole camp has been allowed to deteriorate to a disgraceful state. Even the rangers at the entrance gate seemed embarrassed at the state of the camp and had no water where they lived, telling us they relied on bowsers brought up from Maun. Probably because it is less visited than most of the other parks the powers to be deem it not worthy of serious attention - a disgrace when tourists are paying around £40 per day for the privilege!

Next morning we went out early for a game drive, there wasn't a lot of game about but we did get some nice sightings of Giraffe, back at camp by mid morning we where annoyed when the guide for the other group said they had come across some Lions on their drive,  they had turned left as they left camp and we had turned right - such is life.

As so often happens the afternoon drive was totally different, the late afternoon sun bathed everything in a beautiful mellow glow so it was lovely just to drive around.

We came across a pair of Bat Eared Foxes hunting in the long grass, Jackal like as befits their name they have huge ears and feed mainly on termites and other small insects they can hear moving about in the grass. We were very pleased to come across them, as although not uncommon and we had seen them before, these were the first we had seen on this trip.

That night we had a lovely Sunset but we had still not seen the Lions, we headed back to camp passing where they had last been seen and came across two vehicles with a load of German tourists. They were looking out across the grasslands and shouted that they had seen the Lions moving out from the bushes where they had been holed up through the day and where now out on the grass plain starting their nights hunting. We couldn't see anything in the gloom so were a bit pissed that once again we had missed them.

Their tour leader got out to ask us something about a route they were thinking off taking out the park the next day. I got out to meet him when as we were looking at his map a Lion suddenly roared in the gloom very close by, i.e. less than 20 feet. The Germans had assured us all the Lion's had moved off but clearly at least one remained in the bushes, we both jumped back in our cars so no harm was done but it could have been nasty, I was only cursing my own stupidity for taking their assurances at face value.

Next morning we were due to leave but we decided to stay on another night so we could visit Baines Baobabs at Sunset. Nxai lies about 20 miles away from a pan called Kudikam which a guy called Thomas Baines crossed in the 19th century when he accompanied people like David Livingstone on their explorations across Africa.

Baines was a physician by profession and a very keen artist who painted many scenes from his trips, many of which are now valuable and quite famous. One of these is of a group of Baobab trees situated on the edge of Kudikam pan. The scene remains almost exactly as Baines painted it back in the 1800's, on the home page is a photo we took of the Baobab's in 1986 and on this page one we took on this trip from more or less the same angle. Apart from the bush being more overgrown the view remains much the same - how many places in world can say they are remote enough to remain almost exactly as they were almost 200 years ago?

We spent an enjoyable afternoon wandering around the area, not seeing another soul. The salt pan is huge and in the wet like those in Makgadikgadi just to the South can be extremely dangerous, whole vehicles have been known to sink almost out of sight in a few moments on these pans and unless you are sure of the terrain and can see fresh tyre tracks it is strongly recommended you drive around the shoreline where the ground is firmer.

At this time of year the pan was pretty dry and we could see where people had driven so we drove out across the pan to the opposite shore to take a look. About half way we noticed some big pieces of wood sticking out of the ground, stopping I went to take a look and found that someone had obviously got badly bogged in and had frantically tried to get out before it got worse. We had heard of people who had stopped on the pans to investigate something and then turned round to see their vehicle slowly sinking so we didn't hang around.

Soon it was time to turn back to camp, the Sun was sinking fast and we still had the best part of 20 miles across some rough tracks to do. We hit the main track back to Nxai just before 6pm it would be a straight run back from here to camp in about 30 minutes.  A little way down the track we suddenly come across three more Bat Eared Fox's lying at the side of the track, none for 6 mths now we see five in less than two days, typical. We couldn't really afford the time as they can get shirty if your late back through the gate plus it was too dark for photo's but we just had to stop to watch them. We switched off the engine and watched them till they wandered off into the bush, great a nice way to end the day we thought.

I turned the key, click, nothing, shit the old problem with starting had returned and as usual at the most inopportune moment. I couldn't believe it, we had had the mod on the relay done by Arthur in Maun and it had been fine ever since. It was now dark and we were in the middle of a track which is used very little during the day so at night it was unlikely anyone would come along! I checked the fuses, all ok then felt around behind them to see if there was loose connection, with a sinking feeling I could just touch the end of a wire which was not connected, I didn't know if this had broken off or was just a spare wire but it seemed very suspicious.

I really didn't want to have to dismantle the fuse box here and now, it could have been something entirely unconnected, if we could just get running again we could get back to camp and look at it in the light of day. By sheer good luck we were on a slight  incline, if Sue could give me enough of a push to roll us backwards then maybe, just maybe I could bump start Rupert in reverse gear.

The slope was shallow and very short so I knew we would have only one crack at this before we would level off then no one would be able to push Rupert especially on a sandy track. Switching on the ignition and getting in reverse I gave Sue the nod, luckily the engine was well warmed up so as I let the clutch out with a huge sigh of relief Rupert fired up. Now we had to get back as fast as we could and make sure whatever happened we didn't stall the engine.

Thankfully we got back in one piece but I knew once I switched the engine off we wouldn't be able to get Rup re-started again.  The camp site was mostly flat so with Rup's weight it was impossible for us to push him far enough to get it started. The group who were there when we had arrived had left that day but luckily a guy and two women had come into camp only that morning and we had been chatting to them after we returned from our morning game drive.

It turned out they had been to Baines the day before so I told them we where going to visit them that afternoon. When by the time it got dark we still hadn't returned  they had started to get worried and where preparing to come out to look for us when they saw our headlights come into view. I told them what had happened and we arranged for them to give us a pull start before they headed off in the morning. If they hadn't been around then we would have just had to sit it out till someone turned up as we were too far from the ranger camp to risk walking there for help.

Next morning we got up earlier than usual to start packing up camp as we didn't want to hold the others up once they were ready to leave. Even so when it was time for them to go we still weren't quite ready so we got them to give us a tow start then waved them off goodbye - thanks Chris. We were now alone so whatever happened we had to make sure the engine didn't cut out. 

Thankfully we made it back to Maun and as we neared the town I called Arthur, the auto electrician, on his mobile.  It was a Saturday and he had just closed up for the weekend but when I told him of our predicament he immediately told me to drive straight to his workshop where he would head back to meet us.

Arthur wasn't there when we pulled up but he soon appeared, he was due to go watch his kid play football so he quickly got to work and ascertained that the loose wire I had felt behind the fuse box the night before was as I suspected the one to the starter relay.  It had broken away from the fuse holder but try as he might Arthur could not get the remnants out of the holder so he had to cut the other wires and mount a new one.

The road to Baines is very bumpy in places so we assumed all the bouncing around had broken the wire, however when Arthur looked more closely he could see the end of the wire and the remnants still in the fuse holder where green with corrosion. All we could assume is Foleys had used an old wiring loom which over time had started to corrode or had been affected on the sea journey to Cape Town but Arthur was pretty certain the corrosion had increased the resistance for the current to the starter motor and was probably behind all of our problems with  starting.  We couldn't say for sure but certainly since we ran a new wire we have had no further problems.

It took Arthur about an hour in all to sort everything out and all he wanted was £10 for his trouble! If your ever in need of a good auto electrician when in Botswana then Arthur's your man, his workshop is in the road behind Leshedi motor's the local Landy dealer, Leshedi can help contact him.

Back to Island Safari for the night, after all our travails it was good to relax after a hot shower and something to eat with a Gin Riokey or three. We had decided we would return to the UK in early July so spent the next two day's in Maun booking our flights via the T'Internet and stocking up. We would hold off getting a new inverter till we got back to the UK and would send the old one back to Foley's to get it repaired or get a refund.

We would be flying back from Livingstone in Zambia, (a) because it was cheaper than flying out of Maun and (b) because Botswana being part of the Southern Africa Common Customs area (along with RSA, Namibia & Lesotho) you are not allowed to leave your vehicle whilst on a Carnet for more than 30 days. We would be away just over 30 days so we didn't want to take any chances.

The big question was what to do during the intervening few weeks, we could not stray too far from Livingstone so we decided this was an ideal opportunity to re-visit the Makgadikgadi Pans and Deception Valley in the Central Kalahari. Two of the remotest areas in Botswana. We had last visited Deception in 2000 and had had to escape when the torrential rains which had flooded out Mozambique hit, it had pretty much spoilt our trip then so we needed to give Deception a second chance.

Next day we left Island for their camp at LeRoo- La- Tau and then onto the Makgadikgadi Pans and the Central Kalahari. We would be going remote so we hoped the problems with Rupert were done with as it was unlikely we would see many people where we were going.