Salt Pans

July 1st was Sir Seretse Khama day, a day to celebrate the first president of Botswana and a day off work.  So it meant a long weekend and a chance to explore more of Botswana.  We traveled about 600 km to the northern central part of the country to see the salt pans.  Makgadikgadi Pan comprises several smaller salt pans and is one of the largest salt flats in the world (6,200 square miles). Millions of years ago the Makgadikgadi lake was there but as it dried up it left behind a salty desert.

 After a drive to edge of the pans, we took quad bikes through the pans.  It was amazing to look around and see nothing but open salt pan for miles! Our guide led us to a "campsite" where they built a fire and cooked a delicious dinner.  After some guitar playing by Matt, singing, dancing, and s'mores around the campfire, we tucked ourselves into bed rolls (mattress with tons of blankets all in a canvas zipping bag to fend of the cold desert night) for the night.  No tents just an unobstructed view of the sky!  It was cloudy so though we did not see any stars, we did wake up to a gorgeous sunrise in the morning

The desert is home to the Meerkats (only found in the Kalahari desert)

So the next morning we quad biked back to the safari vehicle and went to visit meerkats.  These adorable animals live in family groups.  At least one always acts as the "sentry" (like the one above) keeping look out for predators while the others look for food.  They eat mostly insects and other small animals, but they also seemed to take time out from searching to play fight.

There is a guide who spends his days following around this family of meerkats, so that they will not be too scared of humans.  So when sitting still in the middle of them they will sometimes use you as a large rock from which to get a better view, or simply crawl over your foot.

We then ventured to the largest baobab tree in the region. Chapman's Baobab.  It was used by explorers hundreds of years ago as a landmark and "post office" (apparently they left letters for each other in it's holes) on the Cape Town to Cairo route.  Baobab trees are amazing, they store water in their swollen trunk (up to 120,000 litres (32,000 gallons)) in order to survive the desert dry seasons.  This one is supposedly thousands of years old.

 The fruit of the baobab is interesting.  The outside is a hard shell covered in a soft stringy material.  As I am always game to try new things (right, Dad?) I decided to crack it open and see what was inside.  I found seeds covered in a white substance and stingy fibers.  I asked one of the staff at the lodge and was told that you eat the white substance that surrounds the seeds.  I cannot say it was my favorite thing, in fact it tasted like a sour sawdust, but apparently it is really rich in vitamin C and calcium....
After a night at the lodge, watching some incredible though sad world cup games (the Ghana loss).  We began to make our way back to Gaborone.  On the way we stopped at the Nata Bird Sanctuary.  We were shocked to find a lake with pelicans and flamingos.  If you squint you can see the pink flamingos in the middle of this bunch (they were really far away).

Since Botswana is a landlocked country this is the closet we can come to a "beach."  We had a nice stroll along the muddy beach and spotted a heron, a few little brown jobies (sorry, mom can't name them all ;), and a scorpion.