BILL and I have weathered many a storm on our tent travels around southern Africa but for sheer spectacle and drama there is nothing to match the storms brewed up on fiery summer afternoons in the great Kgalagadi Transfrontier Park.
The Kgalagadi is an all-seasons sort of destination. Whatever the time of year you visit it, this great, arid slab of pristine wilderness has something special to offer. Weatherwise, it is probably at its best in spring when days aren’t too hot and nights not too cold. Believe me, in winter, those Kalahari nights can be bitterly cold.
However, if you can stand the heat, there is something magical about the Kalahari Desert in the furnace-like summer months, particularly when the rains have been generous, which isn’t always the case.
The first time we did a summer trip to the Kgalagadi was in February 2008, a year of good rains. We were used to seeing the park during the cooler, drier months and we were amazed at how green and pretty it was looking. The valleys between the dunes were like little secret gardens, almost lushly green in places and decorated with generous scatterings of pastel-coloured flowers.
The days were, however, extremely hot and dry and we were often very grateful for our vehicle’s air conditioning system and for the fairly recent additions of swimming pools at both Mata Mata and Nossob public camps. Previously, there was only a pool at the main camp, Tweerivieren.
We started our Kgalagadi holiday at one the two remote campsites overlooking Mpayathutlwa pan in the Mabuasehube section of the Botswana side of the park. It is hard to find a place that rivals Mabuasehube for the unadulterated wilderness experience it offers. It is so wonderfully wild and untouched. The isolated, completely unfenced campsites are very rudimentary, each one offering only a little A-frame shelter, a longdrop toilet and, if you are lucky, a shower that might, or might not be, working. It’s hardcore camping, but worth the discomfort as a stay there is just such a privilege.
We were in this part of the park when we experienced our first Kalahari storm. We’d left our campsite soon after sun-up and had enjoyed a blissful morning of game, bird and scenery watching. As noon approached the temperature soared and the heat radiating through the windscreen almost nullified the cooling effect of the aircon. It was time for a lunch stop and, there being no shower at our campsite, our usual midday cold shower.
We stopped at an unoccupied campsite at the big Mabuasehube Pan and made a bee-line for the shade the A-frame shelter provided. After lunch, I did a load of hand washing while Bill took a shower then I went and showered as well. What bliss, the icy cold water was although sharing my open-air shower with a number of thirsty bees did make me a tad nervous. In less than an hour my laundry was as dry as a bone.
Lunch done and dusted and ablutions and laundry completed for the day we rested in the shade, hiding from the searing heat. The white sand dazzled us, reflecting the brilliant, sun-scorched ambient light. We watched the ground squirrels but even they were made languid by the hot rays of the sun. For a while a young snake eagle entertained us by doing a series of low fly-overs before soaring up and away on a thermal. Then all was silent, the desert and its creatures sensibly dozing away the hottest hours of the day.
We’d already spent three days in the park and although there had been plenty of rain before we arrived, it had been hot and dry since our arrival. Clouds had appeared in the afternoons and the sky had darkened ominously, but the rain had stayed away. We were losing hope that we would experience one of the Kgalagadi’s legendary storms.
Then, as we began to pack up to go back to our camp, we noticed a dark cloud had suddenly appeared. Big, fat rain drops struck the concrete floor of the A-frame, leaving splotches the size of R5 coins that evaporate almost immediately.
Rain in the desert! How exciting! But the big black cloud soon moved off, taking the rain drops with it.
A brisk breeze followed us back to our lovely little Mpayathutlwa Pan campsite but it died down as we arrived home. I was just beginning preparations for our evening meal when, out of nowhere, our cosy encampment appeared to have been hit by an express train. A howling, roaring, screaming wind took us completely by surprise. In minutes the sky turned a bruised purple and massive clouds rolled in. Thunder rocked the world and jagged lighting hurled itself at the earth.
This time there were no warning drops of rain. Someone turned a tap on in the sky. We migrated to the very centre of the A-frame, barely escaping a drenching as the wind-driven sheets of rain lashed us from all sides.
For half and hour we huddled, exalted, under the A-frame, mesmerised by the drama of this fiercest of storms. Then, again with no warning, the wind died to a whisper and the rain abruptly stopped. The sky lightened to a soft evening blue and a brilliant rainbow arched across Mpayathutlwa Pan.
The world was hushed and the air, cool and fresh and tinged with the uniquely African scent of rained-dampened earth. The dubbeltjies around our camp – creeping plants sporting thorns and fragile yellow ‘desert primroses’ – had taken a battering but slowly the flowers opened in the pale sunshine. In the soft light, the wet pan glistened.
Suddenly, two baby jackals came running towards us through the wet grass. Every atom of their small, sprightly bodies quivering with mischief and curiosity, they danced right up to the edge of the campsite. Then they stopped, wary of all the strange smells.
We froze. They stared back at us for a while, then their courage deserted them. They scampered off, skipping along the path through the grass back to their den on the edge of the pan.
We left Mabuasehube for the South African side of the park the next day and the rain followed us. We spent a week at Nossob camp and five days at Mata Mata, and we regularly experienced afternoon storms at both the camps. How thrilling it was to watch the those massive purple clouds roll in, heralding yet another magnificent but short-lived evening storm. As the storm advanced and the sky turned indigo, the light would take on a vivid, electric quality and the dunes would glow a strange luminous shade of bronzy yellow.
What amazing shows Mother Nature put on for us that summer, each storm such a reminder of her power, but most of all I will never forget the storm at our lovely Mpayathutiwa Pan campsite, the first desert storm we ever experienced.
