Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
Traditional drinks are plentiful. Legal home brews include the common
bojalwa,
an in-
expensive sprouted-sorghum beer that is brewed commercially as Chibuku. Another seri-
ous drink is made from fermented marula fruit. Light and nonintoxicating
mageu
is made
from mealies or sorghum mash. Another is
madila,
a thickened sour milk that is used as a
relish or drunk ('eaten' would be a more appropriate term) plain.
Mosukujane tea and lengane tea are used to treat headaches/nausea and arthritis re-
spectively. They're a bit strong in flavour, but locals faithfully tout their remedial proper-
ties.
Environment
The Land
Botswana is the geographic heart of sub-Saharan Africa, extending over 1100km from
north to south and 960km from east to west, an area of 582,000 sq km that's equivalent in
size to France. The country is entirely landlocked, and is bordered to the south and south-
east by South Africa, across the Limpopo and Molopo Rivers; to the northeast by Zimbab-
we; and to the north and west by Namibia.
THE KALAHARI
Around 100 million years ago the supercontinent Gondwanaland dramatically broke up.
As the land mass ripped apart, the edges of the African continent rose up, forming the
mountain ranges of Southern and Central Africa. Over the millennia, water and wind
weathered these highlands, carrying the fine dust inland to the Kalahari Basin . At 2.5 mil-
lion sq km, it's the earth's largest unbroken tract of sand, stretching from northern South
Africa to eastern Namibia and Angola, and to Zambia and Zimbabwe in the west.
Depending on who you believe, between 68% and 85% of the country, including the
entire central and southwestern regions, is taken up by the Kalahari. The shifting sand
dunes that compose a traditional desert are found only in the far southwest, in the
Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park. In the northeast are the great salty deserts of the
Makgadikgadi Pans; in ancient times part of a vast super-lake, they're now the largest
(about 12,000 sq km) complex of salt pans in the world and considered to be part of the
Kalahari.
In Botswana, large tracts of the Kalahari are protected, with at least five protected areas
(listed from north to south):
