Kalahari — ‘outsized’

The first segment of our 3-month self-drive Southern African odyssey a few years ago took us from Johannesburg to Botswana through the Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park in our rented 4X4 Toyota camping-equipped truck. The best description for the four weeks spent driving across the Kalahari Desert and through the remote northern Kalahari would be “outsized.” The terrain, the animals, the people — all well beyond expectations.

There is an informative book by Mike Main, “Visitors’ Guide to Botswana” (1999, New Holland Publishers. ISBN 186812579), which gives excellent advice to self-drivers. Another interesting book is “Cry of the Kalahari” (1985, Mariner Books. ISBN 9780395647806) by Mark and Delia Owens, two young American researchers who spent eight years in the Kalahari studying the brown hyena.

ROBERT G. JUHRE
Kettle Falls, WA