17 Apr Loch Maree-Hotazel
Although the sun is shining when we take our leave of Hotazel, the puddles on the gravel road haven’t dried out yet, but then we’ve got used to mud by now. Today we are supposed to push deep into the Kalahari, the Great Thirst to the San people who first inhabited it. Sprawling across Botswana, Namibia and North-Western South Africa over a surface area close to 930,000 square kilometers, it ranks among the largest on earth. The San, or Bushmen, roamed the rolling sand dunes for 20,000 years, hunting game with poisoned arrows and gathering plants, berries and insects for food. The gravel road we are driving on cuts deep among tall sand dunes, as expected. But it’s green dunes, the sand covered by a carpet of bright yellow little flowers. It’s been raining so much of late that the desert actually looks very much like golf links! We are priviledged to witness a pretty rare phenomenon, we know. But can’t help feeling a little disappointed!