This is not an adventure for the faint of heart...The roads are rough and the search for these nomadic tribes can be difficult, however if you can find the elusive bushman tribes, they will usually welcome you and allow you to enjoy their culture and…Read More

This is not an adventure for the faint of heart...The roads are rough and the search for these nomadic tribes can be difficult, however if you can find the elusive bushman tribes, they will usually welcome you and allow you to enjoy their culture and have the experience of a lifetime. My goal to study these tribes lead me on a chase throughout southern Botswana that I will gladly share with you on the condition that if you visit them, you treat them with respect and don't exploit them in any way.

The best route I have found from Johannesburg is to take the N4 into Botswana at the Pioneer border gate. The border patrol officers here are very friendly and easygoing due to the lack of traffic at this post. Get on the A2 in Lobatse and fill up your gas tank and any portable tank you can find. Continue northwest on the A2 through Kanye and Jwaneng until you reach Sekoma. Head south on the dirt road to Khakhea for approximately 50km. Turn south at Khakhea with a compass and start asking locals where you can find the nomadic bushman.

A 4x4 is required, or I guess you could hike from Sekoma however there are wild animals. For a reasonable fee ($1.00 per day) you can hire a local to come along in case you get lost or get into trouble. Word of mouth gets around fast and you will find many places to sleep in local villages. If you are willing to invest a week or so, you can find the bushman tribes of Botswana.

Close

But we lived to tell the tale (the LONG, DRAWN OUT tale,' many of you are thinking). Despite Pilot's prediction I don't think I ended up coming out 'top lady.' I pretty much got the prize for nerves, and Dan, of course, got…Read More

But we lived to tell the tale (the LONG, DRAWN OUT tale,' many of you are thinking). Despite Pilot's prediction I don't think I ended up coming out 'top lady.' I pretty much got the prize for nerves, and Dan, of course, got the prize for calmness. When all of us gladly heeded the guide's command to get back when the Cape buffalo came too close to our campfire, Dan hung out to help the guide redirect the herd.

When all of us gladly heeded the guide's command to stay zipped tight in our tents all night long no matter what, Dan had a mind to peek outside the tent to see the roaring male lion one meter away or to see the hyenas slurping up the shower water just an arm's length away. When four of us ran back from the hole-in-the-ground bathroom to escape the leopard found there, Dan jumped up to search for it. When I freaked out that we were sitting on the roof rack of our land rover when it parked directly under the tree branch on which a leopard lounged, Dan was happy to see the animal from such a close distance.

We were incredibly lucky to be in a group of fabulous people - three from Australia, 4 of us from the US, and then our two Botswanan guides. And we were lucky enough to be on one of the best game drives our guide had ever been on - in just one day we saw a pack of endangered wild dogs, leopards, and a cheetah. The next morning we saw a leopard stalk kill an African wild cat. All in all it was an incredible trip and gave us quite a case of wanderlust.

Close

Pre-safari I was a RATIONAL animal, on safari I am a rational ANIMAL. Realizing that I'm actually one of them marks the difference between going to a zoo and going on safari. We all know about zoo viewing.…Read More

Pre-safari I was a RATIONAL animal, on safari I am a rational ANIMAL. Realizing that I'm actually one of them marks the difference between going to a zoo and going on safari. We all know about zoo viewing. Zoo viewing belongs in the same genre as cafe viewing insofar as you are extremely interested in the caged gorilla/strange person ordering a cappuccino but retain a certain mental distance from their activities. But what I did was called fear viewing.

Fear viewing invites you into the very mind of the sharp-toothed, frothy-mouthed lion so that you can find the loophole in his plan of attack and design your grand escape accordingly. I think this mental activity may be used to do what our Bostwanan guide Pilot liked to call 'making up your own stories.' After observing my race-to-the-car reaction to the first night's run-in with a herd of Cape buffalo (also known as 100 gleaming eyes reflected in my flashlight beam), Pilot told me that I was 'too nervous' but reassured me that in the end I'd 'come out top lady.'

But it was Pilot himself who instilled the Cape buffalo fear in me that very day with the story of his uncle who was almost mauled to death while hunting. 'Well, the Cape buffalo is the animal I'm most afraid of because it'll charge you without any warning at all. In fact you should all practice climbing a tree by leaping at the highest branch you can grasp since that would be your only escape. My uncle tried to run zigzag [another supposed defensive strategy] and it failed.' Seeing the wild look on my non-tree-climbing face, Dan promised me that he'd hoist me up into the tree if (I mean 'when') I was in danger.

My pre-safari self did not place the Cape buffalo within her fear zone. They look so silly just chewing on the grass and all. But my pre-safari self did set squarely within the fear range the hyena and the big cats. Apparently my pre-safari self didn't know how on target her fear zone was in that regard. A friend of a friend of a woman on our safari had been killed in his pencil case by a pack of ten Zimbabwean lions the week before we left. Apparently Dan's dad read about it in time to tell us before we left, but Dan's mom held his tongue. But we did have our own run-in with the King of the Jungle. Here's the deal. Dan thought it would be better to put our tent in the shade away from the others. When I expressed hesitation, he exclaimed, 'C'mon - don't be boring!'

Okay, he really knows how to get me. Our tent seemed to magically inch farther and farther away from the others as night fell. We soon found ourselves nylon-encased hitchhikers on the feline super highway. Which brings us full circle to full body sweat, complete paralyzation, dry mouth, heart beating even in the parts of my body they claim are dead.

Close

Question: So what's a safari like anyway? Answer: full body sweat, complete paralyzation, dry mouth, heart beating even in the parts of my body they claim are dead - e.g. fingernails and hair. Not that I wasn't forewarned, mind you. The…Read More

Question: So what's a safari like anyway?

Answer: full body sweat, complete paralyzation, dry mouth, heart beating even in the parts of my body they claim are dead - e.g. fingernails and hair. Not that I wasn't forewarned, mind you. The safari guide does have a section entitled 'Wild Animals', the last sentence of which states, 'Please note that our camps are unfenced.'

Some quibbles: the title 'Wild Animals' appears underlined and in huge font, but that the animals are wild is not at all a stunning fact. Hello? We are going on a safari after all, right? Even my grandmother who thought the safari animals were kept in cages was aware of the fact that the animals were wild. The stunning fact is the following: my meaty body, enclosed in a small nylon pencil case (that's elephantese for 'tent'), is made available to the wild animals. Do you think that animals at the zoo would respect such flimsy packaging on their food? I mean, c'mon, even a dog who is certain of her next meal will bite into the bag of dogfood if given the opportunity.

Close