A place of magic and giants.

Two years ago we embarked on an epic adventure with our young boys through the country of Botswana. We wanted Africa become a part of our American born sons, we wanted to see wild Lion while there still are some to see and we wanted to drop off the grid for a while. We did all of the above and more, but as we headed home, we knew that we were not yet done and needed to return.

Crossing the border into Botswana a few days ago, the kids whooped with delight - vast landscapes, the warmth of the Setswana people, living simply out of our vehicle and the thrill of adventure all lay ahead of us. As always we had made careful plans but always with room for a meander or two. Our first nights were spent somewhere new to us, but one we already hope to return to - the Goo-Moremi Gorge in the Tswapong Hills. Our campsite was pristine and perfectly simple, with a solar heated shower - a luxury we didn't take for granted, knowing what lay ahead of us. A huge tree stood at the center of our site, it's branches a canopy over us.

The Tswapong Hills are spiritually significant to the local community and have been so more as long as people have lived here due to springs that provide year round streams, waterfalls and deep, dark pools. The hills are also one of the few breeding site of the endangered Cape Vulture. A walk up the in to gorge was one of cool, green contrast to the otherwise dusty sun baked surroundings. A black and white patterned Monitor Lizard slipped away across a stream shortly after we spotted him and we watched Cape Vultutes circling high above us, before swooping through the gorge, close enough for us to see them clearly without binoculars. There was no one other than us and our guide. He moved with the languid pace of someone who knows to slow down on a hot day, pointing out trees, leaves and birds, with references to conservation, traditional medicine and magic all woven together.

Our next stop was a place that two years ago had left us needing to know better. Lekhubu Island once looked out over a vast lake, now it is perched above a vast salt pan. It is a place of magic, with a long history of inhabitatian and ritual. It is still used by local communities for supplication to rain gods and then there are the travelers like ourselves in constant pilgrimage to this vastly beautiful place. It is an outcropping of rocks in a salt pan, covered with ancient Baobab trees, cairns, stone walls and otherartifacts of ancient inhabitatian. The road there was long and hard-driving on a day of shimmering heat. We finally found ourselves driving across a dreamscape of salt pan, with Kubu Island rising above it in the far distance. We got there in time to make a cup of tea in the shade of the Baobab at the center of our campsite before walking out on to the pan to watch the sun set and dusk's gentle light envelope us. As the sun dropped low, the day's brutal heat lifted and the kids ran as far and fast as they could in every direction, while land and sky turned in to mirrors of each other. 

We took a family selfie to capture the exuberance that this beautiful and hard to get to place had rendered in us. Then we walked back to camp where another one of Africa's mighty giants was sheltering us for the night.