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Southern Africa, February 2012

Jack's Camp, Kalahari Desert

This page is my "work table" where I am assembling the "ingredients" for the Jack's Camp, Kalahari desert, Botswana, part of my report on a trip to South Africa and Botswana. You may want to visit the main index to that report, if you haven't been there before. Among other things, it has links to the work tables for the other two parts of my trip.

Jack's Camp, Kalahari Desert... I had seen the area it is in from the air... and now I've see it "up close and personal"... and some of the San people (bushmen), and, many old friends which I looked forward to seeing again enormously... especially the elephants. In the case of the elephants, I could literally have seen "old friends" again... they migrate between the Kalahari and the Okavango, where I'd been before the trip this report is about.(Wikipedia: Kalahari)



But first: Meeting with meerkats!

I don't know if my US readers will be as meerkat crazy as my UK readers. In the UK, there's been a long running, funny, popular ad series by www.compare-the-market.com (remove the hyphens if you REALLY want to go THERE). In the series, a harried meerkat, Aleksandr, has been doggedly trying to educate all the silly peoples who go to compare-the-market when they were trying to get to the hilarious http://comparethemeerkat.com/... Do give it a try! (He is a UK analog of the US Geico gecko.)

ANYWAY... a good friend here is severely afflicted with meerkat-itis, and I wanted to see his face when he saw the following photos, hence the delay in posting them here.

Just before we get to the photos: "To every question, there is a simple answer... and it is wrong."

Yes, I agree that feeding bears at Yellowstone is a Bad Idea. However not all habituation of wildlife is unacceptable. The people at Jack's Camp are being sensible, and I have no complaint with their "tame" meerkat colony, and the way they "use" it....

We went along at dawn, just before the meerkats "got up" for the day. They live down an extensive burrow, with many exits, like prairie dogs.

© TK Boyd 2/12

We got there at the perfect time... saw the first one come above ground. They have been habituated to tourists, and everyone in the group I was with was sensible. The meerkats are not "morning people", and take a while to wake up, not least because they have to warm up a bit, having been underground all night.

Baby meerkat... we saw it brought a scorpion for breakfast. I have a video clip I will try to post.

© TK Boyd 2/12

The area is quite flat, quite windswept. What the meerkats like is what you see below... The tourist makes a nice windbreak (the wind was from behind me, the sun in front of me... meerkat heaven, that combination. And the odd (as in occasional) human makes quite a good vantage point, in the ceaseless vigil for (the many) meerkativores.

© TK Boyd 2/12

... and if, when you stand up, you do it slowly and smoothly, Aleksandr is quite happy of the extra height. They sometimes move upward, to perch on the guest's head....


© TK Boyd 2/12

So now you know about my meerkat encounter. (It wasn't the only time we saw meerkats, but it was the only time we were that close to them!)

The other photos, below, have been up on the site for some time.




Jack's Camp from air

© TK Boyd 2/12

My first view of Jack's Camp. It is strung out in the last line of palms on the northern rim of the Makgadikgadi salt pans, which you see stretching away to the south (or perhaps southwest). The camp stretches from the left side of the image to about half way across. Below the plane, and to the north of the camp: grass and palms and (some) water, and wildlife. Extraordinarily enough, there is also wildlife on the pans... but it is a hard life out there, and some of the wildlife on the pans is passing through...or trying to. Not everything that enters the pans leave them.

map of Makgadikgadi
salt pans

In the Google Maps image to the right, Jack's Camp is at "A".



map of SE UK
salt pans

(For comparison)




zebra herd running

©TK Boyd 2/12

The zebra migration in the Kalahari rivals the more famous wildebeest migration of the Serengeti. This photo taken in first minutes at Jack's camp, en route from airstrip to camp.



We were taken into the bush on foot by five bushmen, and shown many things. More photos from this fascinating morning to come.


©TK Boyd 2/12


"Livingstone's"... (or is it "Chapman's?") baobab. The internet is remarkably lacking in information about this and others! Our guide, whom I would trust not to embellish, told us that Livingstone camped here. The vastness of these trees made them important beacons in the days before GPS. There are some fun things about baobab's at a page by encounter.co.za, "za" being the top level domain for South Africa. Wikipedia's entry is very cautious. Turn to Google, and even "baobab livingstone" will give you too many things to investigate... it seems that there are many "Livingstone's Baobabs" around Africa... and why not?

Whatever the facts may be, the tree was magnificent. The people you see in the photo are still approaching the tree, they aren't as close to it as you might imagine.


©TK Boyd 2/12

One evening we went out on the Makgadikgadi pans. There was nothing, in any direction. This would be a bad place to wander into without a compass in the day time. The "pan" wasn't "salty", contrary to my ill informed presupposition. More like a compacted, damp, chalky white mud. (There had been rain, hence the "damp".) The surface... for hundreds of yards in every direction... was similar to what a mason might leave after using a trowel to smooth concrete for a cellar floor.. but not "rock" hard. A "special" place... much like being out on a dead calm sea, out of sight of land.


©TK Boyd 2/12

My "humble abode", while in the care of Jack's Camp. Yes... this is the interior of a tent. Most of the furniture was, if not "antique", certainly not Ikea. From the "glory days" of the big game hunters who went into the bush "in style", with Jack himself. Beautifully made, hence the longevity. And, I believe, most of it handed down though Jack's family, from the "good old days" to the "still doing it right" owners and staff of Jack's Camp today.

Don't let the fan fool you... that was the only electrically operated device in the tent. Camera batteries, etc, had to be recharged up in the central communal area. And delightful it was to be leading the simple life.


©TK Boyd 2/12



With a little help from a friend ("my" guide Super), I got my Bushnell TrophyCam set up on the path to the camp's "cage" for food waste, etc.

You should be able to get a clip short clip of a honey badger on his way to see if he can get into the cage to play from the window below. If you can't, please let me know? And give me some details of your system? (I'm trying something new on this page.) The clip has no soundtrack.

(If that didn't work for you, you should be able see the same clip by going to http://www.youtube.com/embed/sXSwvtzWILA)







zebra panorama

©TK Boyd 2/12

That's a lot of zebra (above).... Below: a subsection of the above....


zebra panorama

©TK Boyd 2/12

So! How many zebra? I've done a separate page about how you could count the zebra. Please someone read it, although I accept that not everyone will be interested in this particular gem.

Return to trip's overview page





This page © TK Boyd 2/11. Click here to contact him.

You are also invited to Tom Boyd's homepage, including software for schools, kids, and others.




Valid HTML 4.01 Transitional Page will be tested for compliance with INDUSTRY (not MS-only) standards, using the free, publicly accessible validator at validator.w3.org. An early draft of the page was valid apart from several things inside the code to embed the video clip of the ocelots.

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