February 21, 2011

 I went camping on Saturday with some fellow international students in Kapang. Initially the cab driver told us he knew where to take us for a horseback riding and camping area approximately 50km outside of Gaborone.  About fifteen minutes into the drive, however, it was clear that this was not the case. It ended up taking about 2 frustrating hours to get there, and we got lost several times along the way.

^{The area itself was very beautiful and seemingly untouched by much human inhabitance. We went for miles without seeing any sort of infrastructure, only occasionally seeing sporadic settlements of traditional houses. All sorts of livestock was on the road, including donkeys, cattle, and goats.}

^{The camping area itself was very beautiful. We decided against riding the horses, as they appeared exhausted and starving. I fed them some apples instead. Care for animals doesn't seem to preoccupy many people here. I wonder what people here think of the pet obsession in America.} 

 ^{We gathered firewood, which in Botswana, is always difficult to find, as much of the vegetation is short, thin, and thorny. We gathered enough to have a small fire for several hours, however, prepared a meal, and watched the sunset. We decided to sleep outside to admire the incredible African night sky and the moon, but awoke around 3am to a thunderstorm, so we retreated for cover.}

^{We left the next day around noon, and spent the morning working on our plans for Swaziland and Mozambique. We read about a ceremony held in December in Swaziland  in which all the women present themselves topless in the main city for the King as he selects his new wife.}

^{We hope to travel as far north as Tofo in Mozambique, though we are afraid we may be restricted by time. It also sounds as though it becomes more difficult to travel as the country becomes less and less developed, and many of the roads require a 4 wheel drive vehicle. The cultural diversity and history sounds fascinating from what we’ve read. We were initially hoping to travel farther north, especially to Mozambique Island, which dates as far back as the 15th century for being a place of commercial trade for different countries. Mozambique was formerly a Portuguese colony, so the influence there remains very visible from what we’ve read. Portuguese is the main language spoken. There are also influences from Arabic and Italian as well. Parts of the northern country still remain largely undeveloped. We recently found an article about a jungle in northern Mozambique that was just discovered. It seems like a country I would like to explore again and to a greater extent in the future.}