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Africa Travel Newsletters > Botswana
1. Botswana Emerges as an Up Market Safari DestinationBotswana is a country of
seemingly endless open spaces.
Though it occupies an area the size of
France, the human population is only 1.6 million. This is one country
where wildlife does not face stiff
competition for land resources from
man. As a result the animals have multiplied with a flourish. Botswana
can justifiably claim to host some of the
finest game sanctuaries in
Africa. The worlds' largest exporter of diamonds by value, the country
is not under pressure to get in more tourists. And
the government has
adopted a deliberate policy of keeping visitor numbers low. The hidden
hand of the market has responded by adjusting the price to
reflect this
reality. Botswana has therefore emerged as an exclusive up market
safari destination.
Bill Clinton, together with his wife went
on
a
Botswana safari in 1998. The power couple was greatly fascinated by
the wildlife, and the serious games of
life and death they play.
Affirming his position on top of the food chain, the president ate for
dinner some of the animal species he had watched
earlier. His evening
buffet included zebra, crocodile, impala in monkey sauce, and giraffe.
"I tried it all", he declared with satisfaction.
But the former
American president is only one in a long line of heavy hitters to enjoy
the wildlife havens of Botswana. Hollywood legends, Richard
Burton and
Elizabeth Taylor chose to remarry here, for example.
Botswana
is dominated by the Kalahari Desert. It occupies 84% of the land area,
mostly in the west, central and north of the country.
But the Kalahari
is not a desert in the Sahara sense. You find the occasional sand dune,
but also substantial vegetation in the form of short thorn and
scrub
bush, trees and grasslands. Very little water though, and hence the
desert tag. To the northwest, you find Okavango, the world's
largest
inland delta. The northeast is a land of gently rolling tablelands
interrupted by granite hills and rock formations. The east and
southeast,
where 80% of the people live has more varied relief. And the
rain clouds linger more and unburden themselves more freely, relative
to the rest of the
country.
Today Botswana is a peaceful,
well-managed and relatively prosperous country. The country wealth per
man indicator places among
middle-income nations alongside Mexico and
Russia and ahead of Brazil. But it has not always been so and the
country has come along way. The San people
(otherwise known bushmen)
are believed to be the original inhabitants of Botswana. Their
descendants survive to this day, some living as their
forefathers did
for most of the 30,000 years historians guess they have been around.
Later -much later, Bantu groups, prominent of which were the
Tswana,
became the masters of these realms.
The modern Botswana nation
has been shaped by the alliances made in response to
historical
currents swirling in southern Africa in the eighteenth century. The
rulers at the time aligned their interests with those of the
British
against the Boers who were approaching from the south and the Germans
from the west. For the British, the value of the alliance was
strategic
and not much was expected in terms of economic advantage. And that is
how the relationship resulted in the Bechuanaland Protectorate -
the
precursor of modern Botswana. The British remained in charge until
independence in 1966.
The visitor to Botswana is drawn by
the
credible intelligence that abounds about the quality of its pristine
wildlife sanctuaries. Chobe National Park, one of the finest game parks
in
Africa is located to the north east of the country. The park has the
greatest variety of game anywhere in the country. That is why the busy
Bill
Clinton found himself at Chobe for his short
safari. Wildlife
thrives among the swamps and grasslands that stretch along the flood
plains of the Chobe
River. Occupying 10,560 square kilometers, it is
particularly renowned for the great concentration and sheer abundance
of its elephants, estimated to
number 80,000.
Help and More
Information for Botswana!
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African safari in Botswana?
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