No lights

The latest leg of our adventure has taken us through vast landscapes with few signs of human impact and few people, even travelers such as ourselves are very few. We have driven for hours without passing another human being and had close encounters with lion - with only us and them and all of us a similar shade of dusty-grey, from head to toe.

Campsites are few, spread apart, without water and very hard to get to. There is no one to call for help if needed, but there is also no one to disturb the sounds of the African night as it descends. We are deep in the Central Kalahari, a vast and relatively inhospitable place where annual evaporation exceeds annual rainfall. We are very far from powerlines, cell towers or paved roads. I found myself looking at the sky last night and picturing night-time satellite images of Earth, where continents and cities are mapped out by lines and clusters of light on an otherwise dark planet.

I realized the the various places I have called home, have always been identified up by a cacophony of lights.  This time I would find my location by seeking out a vast area of darkness in the middle of Africa. No lights, just a deep dark night sky above us and the African night enveloping us.

 If you look on a map, there we are, right in the middle, looking up at the Milky Way.