BOTSWANA: EXPLORE MAKGADIKGADI PANS NATIONAL PARK, MEERKATS AND ATV ADVENTURE, A NIGHT UNDER THE STARS

Eerie desert shadows

This morning, right after an incredible breakfast...and how do they manage with no electricity?...we took a jeep ride out to the meerkat family.  The little creatures are tame, seem to be rather fond of humans, and act very much like tiny prairie dogs.  We were instructed to let them get acquainted with us and soon they would be climbing up on our shoulders and hat-covered heads!  This proved to be true!

 

Zebras digging for water in the desert

Two of my favorite New Yorkers on our trip!

 Later in the day we took a jeep safari deeper into the salt pans located in the middle of the Botswana savanna!  This was the beginning of one of the most adventuresome days of my lifetime and, I'm sure, many of the others in our small group.  Once we disembarked from our jeeps, each twosome was provided with an all terrain vehicle and some rudimentary instructions on how to drive them.  We literally rode into the most exquisite sunset I'd ever seen.  The word ZEN is the best way to describe it.  We stopped and quietly walked to our own lone spot in this incredible desert.  No speaking....only the quiet and the amazing sunset.  Behind us, the sky was an iridescent aqua that blended into a monochromatic "blue scape."  It was a prayer of sunlight and the birth of the evening stars beyond.  

ATV caravan about to embark on a magical mystery tour

 

Sitting in the warmth of the bonfire as we await our dinner

Dinner by kerosene lanterns out on the salt pans

I believe that the most exciting adventure of this entire "trip of a lifetime" was spending the night out in the salt pans of the Kalahari desert under billions of stars.  I tried to stay awake as long as possible, but the evening was so relaxing and soporific that this was difficult.  I believe I was the first person awake the following morning and I watched the sunrise in the east from my comfy iron bed!  Absolutely magical! 

Our beds in the Kalahari Desert