The morning is clear and transparent, filled with freshness, sharply revealing the curves of Johannesburg's contours that were invisible just yesterday. Today we are flying to Botswana and then to the Kalahari. The car is ready. Gray — our driver — is hurrying us, explaining the urgency by the possibility of hitting traffic and being late for the flight. We say goodbye to Shelly and Charlie — the owners of the guesthouse where we spent, or rather, flew through, two amazing days. Their hospitality and warmth were so genuine that we cannot leave simply by saying the customary "goodbye." Shelly and Charlie are also upset. But they are used to it. That’s their job. And today, other guests will arrive.
Gray's concerns were not unfounded: we barely made it to the flight, getting stuck in a traffic jam that we had to navigate around on parallel roads.
Tambo Airport in Johannesburg is huge, both in area and in volume of service. Every 30 seconds, a plane takes off or lands here.
Check-in, passport control — everything is very quick, without queues or fuss. Our plane is small, with about fifty seats.
Almost all the passengers are Americans and Brits. And we, five Kyrgyz — Olga Gubaeva, Larisa Dudashvili, Svetlana Poluektova, Viktor Kadyrov, and I — the author of this chronicle.
The flight duration is just over an hour. Outside the window, the ocean of warm blue skies and fantastically beautiful white clouds. Looking out the window, I watch with interest how their "architecture" changes, how white spheres transform into minarets and towers, islands and lines.
But then, through the white-blue space, the city of Maun appeared. It is considered the second largest settlement in Botswana after Gaborone — the capital of the country.
Everything happened quickly from there. We were met by representatives of the tour operator in Botswana, and we are boarding again.
The airport in Maun is small — only two or three international flights. However, there are many small colorful planes that, like dragonflies, buzzed in the air, landing and taking off in different directions. They transport tourists to camps, or as they are called here, lodges, scattered across the expanses of Botswana and its national parks. One of these planes is prepared for us. It has five seats, and there are five of us.
Quickly gaining altitude, our "butterfly," swaying on the air waves, headed south. Somewhere there, in the very heart of the Kalahari, is our first refuge, "Tau Pan."
"Tau Pan" is located on a slight elevation amidst tall grasses and acacias. Eight houses, resembling the shapes of elephants, lined up in a row, peeked their roofs out from the gray-green bush. This is what they call the overgrown shrub areas here. Each house is a comfortable dwelling with all the amenities of civilization, porches for relaxation and contemplation. The magnificent nature of the savannah and enchanting views of the Kalahari open right from the rooms. Besides the residential houses, there is a restaurant, a large terrace with a fire pit, comfortable loungers, a bar, and a swimming pool. In short, the "Tau Pan" camp is a little paradise created in the very center of the Kalahari. During the day, the heat reigns in the desert. Therefore, safaris are offered early in the morning and in the evening when nature and its inhabitants are most active.
After unpacking our things and not yet having the chance to enjoy the comforts of the camp, we set off on a safari. The unusual nature surrounds us, creating a good mood. The main goal of the safari is to observe the animals.
Time flew by rapidly. Events changed even faster. Landscapes, enchanting views, animals, their diversity, the expanses of the desert, clouds rising from the horizon, a sunset burned with fantastic colors, dinner on the terrace by the fire, songs and dances of real Bushmen, harmonizing with all the nature visible to us... everything fit into this first fantastic day.
At night, I could not fall asleep. There were so many impressions, and the different time zone and season added to it. My thoughts drifted somewhere into the past. As a boy, I sat in an empty village library, in a cold winter reading room. And I read about David Livingstone and his journey through the Kalahari desert. I read, imagining the pictures of Africa and dreaming of someday seeing all of this... I searched for something else about the Kalahari. I found Louis Boussenar's book "The Diamond Thieves." It's fiction, but it resonates with what Livingstone writes about.
And here I am in Africa, in the very heart of the greatest desert in the world, the Kalahari. There is something magical, attractive, and mysterious about this word. It is here, just beyond the wall, I see it through the open terrace, I see the stars burning, I hear its sounds... I want dawn to come quickly.
Up at six in the morning. Quick coffee, but before the car sets off, I return to the house for my camera.
It rained at night. The air is piercing and one hundred percent transparent. From the terrace — a magical view. The nearby bushes are all in tears, drops from the tall acacias. Even a faint sobbing is barely audible. The Kalahari is crying, I thought...
It began to dawn, and it became cool. The early morning was unsettling. Climbing into the car, I saw how low clouds lit up in the east. The car, swaying on the waves of the desert, drove toward the sunrise, the cool wind hitting my face with the scent of the savannah.
On the way, we met the dawn. The enormous, ruby-red sun swiftly rolled out from behind the edge of the earth, and the Kalahari came alive, stirred, spoke, and burst into colors. Through the narrow track among the tall grasses, we moved away from the camp into the depths of the savannah. The awakened animals peacefully grazed or wandered in search of new places for temporary shelter. There were particularly many oryxes and antelopes, herds of which numbered in the hundreds. A family of giraffes peacefully nibbled leaves from the tops of the trees. Startled by uninvited guests, a marabou took off from a tree. It flew, wings spread, over a pair of lions sprawled in the soft grass. They seemed to have no interest in the giraffes or the agitated bird circling above the clearing. They were resting, digesting their prey after a night of hunting.
The further we drove, the more interesting nature became. The landscapes changed unpredictably. The Kalahari spread in waves of golden grasses, replaced by thickets of thorny bushes, opening up with domes of acacias. In search of a family of cheetahs, we didn’t notice how noon arrived. The sun, having climbed to the highest point, filled the desert with heat. At such times, animals prefer to stay in the shade of their homes. It would be better for us to return to the gentle embrace of the camp.
Stepping onto the terrace of my cabin, I saw the Kalahari again. I remembered the morning picture of the crying desert. Was it really so? Or was this vision a result of overly excited impressions? It definitely was. The Cry of Kalahari is a reality, and I was lucky to witness the "weakness" of the great desert.
The Valley of Ghosts
As I prepared to go to the Kalahari, I envisioned endless red-yellow sands, dunes and ridges, and saw Bushmen wrapped in scarves... Upon arriving in the Kalahari, to my surprise, I saw neither sands, nor dunes, nor Bushmen. More precisely, we didn't have to search for Bushmen in the desert. They lived and worked in our camp as rangers, guides, drivers, cooks... In short, the entire staff of "Tau Pan" are hereditary Bushmen, whose ancestors have lived in the expanses of the Kalahari for millennia.
Bushmen are short, with copper-yellow skin. They have curly hair on their heads, but none on their bodies. They speak a strange clicking language. Two types of clicks are full-fledged sounds of their speech.
The name "Bushmen" was given to this people by colonists. In English, it means "man from the bushes."
The Bushman has no home, no yard, no homeland, no livestock, no cows or goats that he could call his own. All his possessions are contained in a fur bag, which constantly holds a short spear (assagay) with a metal tip, a small bow with a flexible string made from the intestines of a wild cat, a quiver made of aloe bark and leather, and a sinister bunch of poisoned arrows made from reeds. Besides weapons, the Bushman's bag always contains a stick for digging in the sand, tinder, and flint.
The Bushman arranges his dwelling under rocks in empty anthills, in the burrows of porcupines and anteaters, or weaves a nest for himself in the bushes by tying branches above him. Without food, he can survive four to five days, but when he has an excess, he rewards himself for such restraint. The Bushman is distinguished by remarkable health and simply fantastic endurance. He can relentlessly pursue an antelope for thirty to forty kilometers. In case of need, he feeds on the roots of grasses growing in the sandy soil of the Kalahari; the Bushmen catch game with enviable skill using closed traps into which they insert sharp poisoned arrows. They kill partridges and guinea fowl in flight or on the run. So, the Bushmen feel quite comfortable in the harsh conditions of the desert, where a European would surely perish from hunger and deprivation on the very first day of their stay.
Our guide is Kiji. On one of the walks through the desert, he demonstrated astonishing survival skills in the Kalahari conditions. Without leaving our stopping place and finding the stem of some creeping plant, he used a bamboo stick to dig up a significant-sized root shaped like a pumpkin, filled with drinking water. Then he dug up a carrot-shaped root, which he immediately ate. Organizing a semblance of a dwelling under a bush, he set a trap and caught a bird. He obtained a spark using tinder and flint and started a fire. All this could not help but evoke admiration and respect for this amazing man of nature.
The Kalahari turned out to be nothing like the deserts I had in mind. People do not live here. In vast territories, there is no water, and numerous animals are in constant migration in search of remaining water bodies. The characteristic extensive depressions (pans) with flat clay bottoms fill with water after rare rains. They are usually covered with a fairly dense low-growing grassy carpet.
Geographically, the Kalahari has always been considered a desert, while botanically it has been classified as a savannah. Future exploration of these areas will show whether it can be called a true desert or will turn out to be a grassy savannah.
As we moved south and southwest, the vegetation increasingly took on a desert appearance. The grasses and trees here have undergone a long evolution to adapt to harsh conditions. The finely undulating sandy plains are replaced by high sand dunes. In the west, the edge of the Kalahari lies at an altitude of 1500 m above sea level, while in the east — even higher; the lowest point of the desert is at an altitude of 840 m above sea level. Thus, the Kalahari desert has clearly defined borders and its own "face."
In the evening, we had an amazing idea. Since the camp operates on an all-inclusive basis, we decided to forgo the traditional safari around the camp and set off on a long journey through the Kalahari to the Valley of Ghosts, located two hundred kilometers south of the camp. Kiji, who happily agreed to accompany us on this journey, told us about this valley.
And here it is, morning. Although no — still night. The Kalahari is covered with a cloak of shimmering stars. But on the eastern horizon, the jagged line of the sunrise is already outlined. Born as a thin thread, it relentlessly grows, compressing the night shadows. And here it is, the moment of changing the guard! Day and night. A wonderful gift of nature.
The sky is clear, not a cloud in sight. And this promises that the day will be hot. For now, it is very comfortable; the cool wind does not let go of its embrace. But as soon as you stop, the heat immediately penetrates, seeping through the skin. The unfolding pictures are simply stunning. The expanses of lowlands, overgrown with yellow-golden grasses, green rounded thickets of shrubs, towering sprawling crowns of acacias, silvery waves of grasses, reddish spots of sand peeking through the holes of the green-yellow cover...
How to accurately describe the landscapes of this boundless desert?
Words are lacking. More precisely, there are many, but none that hit the mark.
For the Bushmen, everything is simpler — they call these pictures "bush." Look, there’s the bush, see over there. And everything is clear to them. Perhaps when the English brought this concept to the Kalahari, it simply meant shrubbery. Now it is something more — a view of the landscape that can only be seen here, in Central Kalahari.
The valley spills golden grasses, and beyond it, the green thicket of bush stretches across all visible spaces. Round cushions of green, seemingly defenseless shrubs are pressed to the ground; they are surprisingly calm, having nothing to fear from numerous animals, as sharp spikes of thorns stick out from beneath the green fluff. Here it is, the amazing diversity of nature adapted to the conditions of difficult life. But the main charm of the landscapes is given by the towering acacias, under whose shade numerous animals find refuge.
However, the Kalahari only seems like a plant oasis on the surface. In reality, it is an extreme zone. And it is indeed a desert — harsh and merciless.
The further we drove through the bush, the deeper we ventured into the desert, the more we understood this.
Yes, the Kalahari is unlike its sisters — the Karakum, Taklamakan, Sahara, Wadi Rum, and others, where you are surrounded by endless sands and the main danger is running out of water. In the Kalahari, a person faces much greater dangers. Along with the typical desert fear of running out of water, here is the danger of becoming prey to ever-hungry predators. The bushes and grasses are full of lions and cheetahs, hyenas and jackals. Drier areas are suitable for spiders and venomous snakes, while rare water bodies and puddles teem with mosquitoes and gnats. Only the Bushmen, whose lives are inseparable from nature, can survive in the Kalahari.
The sun blazed, spreading across the ground. The heat filled the open lowlands, pushing out the remnants of moisture, rising in the forms of wavering ghosts. The barely noticeable track of the road curved around the lowlands bathed in golden light. Behind us were Tau Pan (Lion Valley), San Pan (San Valley — a tribe that once lived in these places), Pakudi Pan (Jackal Valley). As we moved deeper into the desert, we distanced ourselves further from our camp. The beauty of the Kalahari was mesmerizing. Just a few more kilometers, and here it is — the Valley of Ghosts.
In these remote areas of the desert, the influence of man on nature is minimal. There are no signs, not a single human soul — only the expanses of the Kalahari. This is the only place on Earth where the philosophy of silence reigns, where the design of existence is fully felt, and the energy of absolute knowledge descends upon you.
This is true wild Africa! The Kalahari Desert! An endless untouched savannah with peaks of solitary dried trees with their dry branches reaching up to the sky. Here they are, the ghosts of the Kalahari desert. Dead, but still holding hope for life, the rulers of the savannah. Climbing to the crest of a rise, we got out of the car. Underfoot, beneath a thin layer of dried grasses, reddish-yellow sand peeked through. Kiji, tracking something, delved into the bush, but soon appeared again, inviting us to follow him. In the thicket, he showed us the enormous skeleton of a snake that had died here. The skeleton had already begun to crumble, but the spine, ribs, and skull indicated that the snake was of enormous size.
After taking pictures, we followed Kiji further. Soon he stopped in amazement; the sounds and smells of tens of thousands of animals wafted in with the light breeze! As far as the eye could see, the plain was covered with a multitude of wildebeests, impalas, and oryxes. They grazed peacefully around a round, barrel-like waterhole. From time to time, stallions fought each other, raising clouds of dust, while the wildebeests emitted strange mooing sounds — signals of alarm.
Looking at this wonder, I felt a strange thrilling sensation. Even if we never see anything like this again, all the troubles associated with the trip, the last spent money — all of it is worth one grand spectacle of primitive Africa!