Day 21 Botswana - Tsodilo Hills & Bird Watching

You would think that being on holiday on a houseboat on the Okavango Delta, one would be able to sleep in but no. Our guides like getting up early. The generator started at 6 AM and that was our wake-up call. There was hot water for a morning shower too! Breakfast was at 6:30 and we were on the 15 seater speed boat by 7 AM.

Our destination was the Tsodilo Hills. After a 10 minute boat ride, we had 30 k’s of pavement, then 40 k’s on rough gravel. When we reached the gates of Tsodilo, there was another 5 kilometers of even rougher roads after which I reached for my Ibuprophen.

Tsodilo Hills is a World Heritage Site (since 2001) with the richest concentration of San Rock Paintings in the world. It has been inhabited for about 30,000 years and home to more than 4,000 San Bushman paintings.  A guide took us on a walking trail around what is known as the female mountain.

We saw about 25-30 of the paintings as well as some caves where the San people slept and used as living quarters. The rocks were quite beautiful, even the ones without paintings because of their natural coloring.

The paintings were red and done with a combination of blood, animal fat and urine. Yikes! Who concocted that recipe?! Remarkably they have lasted for 3,000 years. Newer, white paintings have been done over top of some of the older ones.

After our hour and a half walk we went thru their museum, then headed to a place in the village where women sell crafts. Anton, our guide, suggested we patronize them because selling crafts is their primary source of income. We drove through the village and down a road to a fenced group of traditional buildings. Very soon, several women were there with some blankets and proceeded to display their crafts.

There were lots of beautiful necklaces and I purchased 2 of them as well as a keychain. It is made from coconut and an elephant, giraffe, acacia tree and an aboriginal hunter carved into it.

Soon more women came and many children gathered around. Someone asked for permission to take a photo and when it was granted, I followed suit. One little girl in particular, was not camera shy at all and managed to be in every one of my photos! I always show the photo to my subjects after shooting and they were tickled pink! I would have liked to stay longer but it we had to go.

We stopped in Shakawe at a grocery store for some snacks then went back to our houseboat via speedboat for lunch. After lunch, the houseboat headed back to where we first started from. At 4PM we got on board the speedboat once again for a bird watching excursion.

We saw a good variety of birds as well as crocodiles and hippos in the water.

With a moving boat and flighty birds, it was difficult to get good clear photos.

Oh well. I enjoyed the warm breeze, the peace and quiet, and the beautiful blue of the water and sky.

Although our guides said it was guinea fowl, supper was chicken I think. It is a warm evening but I expect it will cool off during the night again.