Final Botswana posting

 August 16

Our final morning in Botswana started with a wake up call provided by nearby lions roaring, but then overtaken by very loud elephant trumpeting right at our water hole. As it was still dark, we had to speculate on the cause but it seemed to be a mother elephant becoming exasperated with her young one when it was time for the herd to move on. As the light improved, we could see that the mother finally had to  push her recalcitrant baby with her trunk.  We also watched several sets of mother-and-young warthogs at a water hole. Ironically the young warthogs have white whiskers missing from the adults. The mothers are very protective and chase others (even other warthogs) away while their babies drink. The young ones seemed to say “oh look, mom chases things, we could do that too” and set off to chase impala just for fun. 

Some general reflections on the trip and the areas we saw.  The people of Botswana are warm, welcoming and fun. As a former British colony, there is a lot of English influence in Botswana, from driving on the left to afternoon tea to an appreciation of irony and sarcasm. There are 20 local dialects of the native language, so in school most classes are taught in English. This certainly helps the comfort level for visitors. 

Botswana only has about two million inhabitants and most of those are in cities. The Okavango region if very sparsely inhabited. There are huge areas of protected land, and a few farms that are only inhabited and filled during the rainy season. While raising beef cattle is a major industry, for many years the risk of malaria and tsetse flies (sleeping sickness) protected the Okavango from development. A second inhibitor is the lack of ground transport. While we could have driven from Gomoti to Maun for our outbound flight, there are no roads connecting Linyanti or jacana with Gomoti.  Ecotourism is the key to the economic health of the delta and the surrounding regions. 

On trips like this you learn so much about the interconnectedness of nature.  While the role of vultures in preventing the spread of disease is well known, the role of hyenas may be less so. Hyenas can break up, consume and digest bone (except skulls usually); this not only cleans up the landscape but their (white) droppings provide calcium to other creatures. Termites are a keystone species— they also help recycle debris, provide food for creatures like the aardvark, and their abandoned nests provide homes for many species including dwarf mongoose. In the area around Jacana, the wooded islands that rise above the floods and stay dry all year are based on termite mounds. 

Pictured: warthog, dwarf mongoose