Unfortunately, since almost a year a I travel alone. A very different experience, but nonetheless a very interesting one.
Where travelling in couple gives the opportunity to share your discoveries with the one you love and create lifelong memories, travelling alone makes you think a lot. Sometimes the travel is action packed and you have no time but most of the times there are a lot of empty moments in which a lone traveler is confronted with himself, his past and his future.

A trip to the Kalahari desert definitely has a lot of quiet times, be it the 14h bus ride from Cape Town to Upington, the 300Km from Upington to the entrance gate, the many Km you game drive looking for animals or and foremost the sunsets and the nights under the most beautiful star dotted sky you can imagine. Wonderful occasions to spend time with yourself and try to understand what is going on. Definitely something I’ll try to do more often hen I’ll be back in our beautiful alps.

But now lets tell a bit about the actual trip…

The Kalahari desert, is a large semi-arid sandy savannah. To myself, it is an amazing place. Wild, cold, hot, windy, beautiful, harsh, fascinating and with some really really cool animals.
Guided by Maureen and Thys a wonderful couple married since 30 years that still ties each-other’s shoelaces and feels like has been married since 30 minutes, I stayed 3 days in the Kgalagadi transfrontiernational park, a 3.6 millions hectares National park in Botswana and South Africa. We slept both night in an unfenced campsite on the Botswana side of the park called Rooiputs. In the park there are any number of accommodations ranging from where I was to super nice lodges. Most of them are fenced, but staying in an unfenced camp was much more interesting I think.
Before going to bed in my tent, I would sit on top of the little wooden sun shade and dream. Then a lion roar would wake e up and I would shine my torch around to see if it maybe was visible. Then I would stay there a bit more just to make sure he wouldn’t be too close to walk to my tent :) I might be braveish at times but only when I’m in control of the situation :)

During the days we would drive around to spot animals and to witness the wonderful scenery around us but for this I’ll let the pictures talk…

As a final note, if you’d like to visit the park, I would suggest to stay at least 4 nights so you get to go further north. As for doing it without guide, it is no problem, you just need to book your camps in advance, and absolutely get a 4wd, not because the road is bad (beside the 4×4 roads only) but because the road is low and you’ll just see grass. As well having a guide will allow you to enjoy the scenery much more since you don’t have to drive. I can highly suggest to hire Maureen and Thys directly without going through a company that will just charge you more and pay them less for the same service since they own all their gear. You can find them at:
KalahariTau on facebook or per email at debelta __AT__ vodamail.co.za

Friday early afternoon, I’m standing right next to Tim discussing a new message dispatcher framework for InaSAFE, he looks sickish and it’s unfortunate because we’re just about to leave for a two nights wilderness trip. He decides not to go, but his two buddies take us with them, around 15.00 we’re ready, lets go and find out what Bosmansoos wilderness reserve has to offer us :)

A short drive, an hour and a half of walking on a very nice trail and we reach the river, yes that is going to be our playground for the next two days, but for now lets camp here. Hammocks up and we start making a nice fire, a perfect fire for grilling a steak, if I only didn’t misunderstand Tim about the fire size… I only have freaking 2min noodles :(
A nice wood fire evening, some night shots at the river and we are all ready for bed, well hammock :)
It’s an amazing night, an amazing almost full moon, a comfy hammock, no technology (I decided that these five weeks I’ll be without cellphone to reduce the amount of emails bothering all the time) the only noise we hear is the river and well Werner seems to be having interesting dreams :)

Saturday “early morning” (10 :)) a smoke wave reaches my nose and I get out to go eat my cheese and pumpernickel.

Time for action, the mission today is going upstream till we like it :) the first section will be a wet section, veeeery wet and cooooold. Reluctantly I take off my clothes and put on my surf shorts… pity it’s autumn, the temperature is around 20°C and the river 14… whatever, we go… uhhhh ahhh ihhhh brrrrr… the canyon becomes bizarrely noisy :) the water stings the skin and cuts your breath but eh… wanted it wild? here u go :) Potty and I decide to go as fast as we can through the various pools and not to wait for John and Werner which due to material issues (no nice bag and no water shoes) are slower. We’ll make a very appreciated fire after the wet section.
After some more walking we reach a super nice spot where we set camp, it is mid afternoon, we start some water and after “first ascending” my first south African boulder problem my noodle marathon starts again :)

After going to bed pretty early, I woke up at 7 but decided that my new sleeping bag is way too nice and so I “turned around” and kept on sleeping till 10 :) wow, this no technology thing works, a 12h night :) fire, breakfast, packing and we’re on our way downstream, I feel super fit so i kind of start running from rock to rock, nice and fast. we eventually get to the wet section and even more reluctantly I get ready, what a surprise, the water is warmer warmer today, mmm no wait a second, it is just that outside is colder (17°C) and the water is only 3°C colder today… whatever. I’ll run through it!

Another warm up nd tea break and we’re on our way up the ravine to get back to the main trail, I’m still fit and I decide to keep on running the ravine and then to go 15min further without my bag while the others still walk up gently.

What a nice feeling, running around the south African Fynbos with no obligations and stress, definitely to redo :)
foremost since the reward was sooo good ;)