Kubu Island, the Island in the Middle of a "Sea" of Salt

 

 

10 August 2008

 

It’s the dawn of a new day.

To be precise, it’s the fourteenth day since my companions and I arrived in Botswana.

The morning chill is still quite biting, and the warmth of my sleeping bag tempts me to linger a little longer in my protective cocoon.

It feels strange to speak of cold in Africa, a continent often associated with heat and sunshine. Yet, even here, the cold has its place and makes itself known.

 

The first light of day has already flooded the interior of the tent, signalling that it’s time to start the day.

It is well known that in Africa, whether you are a lion or a gazelle, as soon as the sun rises, you must start running to eat and survive. And this applies to travellers too.

Here, you cannot think of having breakfast in a hotel dining room or at the café around the corner.

So, this morning as every morning, we have to get busy to eat: dismantling the camp, taking out the provisions, lighting the fires, and preparing breakfast.

To protect our supplies from the savannah’s animals, we must dismantle the kitchen and erase all traces of food every time we finish a meal.

Anything edible or that smells of food must be meticulously stored inside the sturdy trailer hitched to our vehicle.

 

Last night, as soon as we retreated to the tents and the camp was left free of humans, the animals of the savannah came to investigate, attracted by the lingering odours of our dinner.

I can’t say which animals roamed around the tents during the night. However, I distinctly heard the call of a hyena very close by before falling asleep. It felt as if the creature, often deemed fearsome and fierce, was just beyond the thin fabric of my tent.

We’re used to hearing the calls of animals common to our northern latitudes, but the cry of a hyena is unfamiliar. Its high-pitched, grating howl almost resembles the wail of a malevolent spirit. Being defenseless, and hearing this hostile sound so close, admittedly gave me a sense of unease.

 

This morning, clear feline tracks surround the tents.

Could His Majesty the “Lion King” have visited us during the night?

If he did, at least he had the courtesy—or cunning—to do so silently.

 

From the Khumaga campsite, where we spent the night, it will take us about eight hours to reach Kubu Island, today’s destination.

We’ll venture into the Makgadikgadi Pan, the largest salt pan in the world.

This vast expanse consists only of arid savannahs and salt lakes. For this reason, the first explorers who ventured here in the past described it as the “Land of Thirst.”

 

As our journey begins, the slanting dawn light quickly gives way to a dominant sun that uniformly illuminates the landscape.

The temperature rises rapidly. The early morning chill is gone, and the heat soon forces us to shed our heavier clothing.

Sunglasses, hats, and scarves are essential today. We need protection from heatstroke, blinding light, and the fine white sand, as soft as talcum powder, that seeps into everything.

 

The common name for these areas is “pan,” which, when translated literally from English, means “frying pan.”

The name is an apt description of the terrain. We are crossing an endless, perfectly flat expanse that, in ancient times, was the bed of one of Africa’s largest lakes.

During dry seasons, the pan presents itself as a blinding mantle of salt, occasionally interrupted by vast sandy areas.

Every place on Earth should be seen in different seasons, in light and darkness, and under varying weather conditions.

This assertion is especially true for this desert, which undergoes sudden transformations. A single rainfall turns the white salt surface into a reflective pool that mirrors the blue sky. What was once a desert becomes a savannah. The ground is covered in vegetation, and the water attracts countless wild animals of various species.

 

We are in awe! In the completely empty environment surrounding us, the silence is surreal, occasionally broken by gentle gusts of wind.

If I were a flat-earther, I might think we were approaching the edge of the Earth, beyond which lies a void where we would fall endlessly into the infinite universe.

But fear not, dear reader—I know full well that the planet is round like an orange.

 

In the presence of such primordial nature, time ceases to exist. It’s the 2000s, but we could just as easily be in far more ancient times, and the landscape would look exactly the same.

We feel as if we’re at the edge of the world, with our gaze lost in the horizon. The unique and pristine spectacle of this ethereal desert environment fills us with countless emotions. Memories are etched into our minds, destined to remain indelible over time.

 

Our driver seems perfectly familiar with the areas we’re crossing. However, we can’t help but wonder how he’s so sure of the direction, given that there are no visible tracks, the landscape looks the same everywhere, and he uses no technological devices.

Perhaps the occasional acacia tree, which interrupts the continuity of the landscape now and then, serves as a reference point for orientation.

 

We make a stop at Gweta, a small urban settlement with the atmosphere of a dusty frontier town.

Its name comes from the croaking of bullfrogs, which resembles the bellowing of cattle.

These large amphibians wait, buried in the sand, for the rainy season, when they emerge to mate.

Gweta is the last chance to refuel with petrol and drinking water.

We also take advantage of the stop to add a few more provisions to our already well-stocked pantry.

 

From this point onward, the landscape we’ll traverse will once again be characterised by emptiness until tomorrow afternoon, when we return to "civilisation" and reach the town of Nata.

Even the animals seem to have disappeared.

Only a few carcasses, now reduced to white bones gleaming under the sun, testify to the presence of living beings—though these we see are no longer alive.

 

Yesterday afternoon, however, during a game drive in a bushy savannah near Khumaga, we had our fill of wildlife sightings.

Herds of numerous zebras, a few wildebeests, and several elephants drank at sunset along the shores of the Boteti River, which, during this dry season, is reduced to a few waterholes.

In a small lake known as the “Hippo Pool,” we also observed a group of large hippos lazily dozing in the muddy water.

 

While crossing the pan, we ask our driver to stop the Jeep for a break.

Once on the ground, we’re amused by the crunching sound of the salt crust beneath our feet. Like children unleashed in a public park, we move about energetically, stretching our legs and finding creative poses for souvenir photos.

However, the fun doesn’t last long, as the scorching midday sun quickly drives us back into the vehicle.

We make another stop only when we come across a solitary acacia tree.

Huddling within the small shadow cast by the tree, we prepare our midday snack.

Before heading straight to our final destination, we pause one last time to gather wood for tonight’s fire.

 

The track we follow is bumpy and dusty. The fine sand, stirred by the wind and by our vehicle’s passage, envelops us and everything else in a persistent whitish cloud.

By early afternoon, we notice a change in the familiar landscape.

On the horizon, some irregularities begin to stand out from the flat salt plain.

As we get closer, the silhouette of an island becomes increasingly distinct.

It is adorned with unique and peculiar vegetation, featuring stout, twisted baobabs with few leaves and contorted, knotted branches that resemble roots.

No other tree in Africa, like the ancient baobab, evokes the magic of the African continent.

An African legend says that the baobab once had lush, green foliage, so beautiful that it continually boasted about it. To punish its vanity, God uprooted it and replanted it upside down, with its leaves underground, leaving its ungainly roots to form its crown.

 

Kubu Island is a cluster of granite rocks rising about ten metres high and stretching roughly a kilometre long. These features alone make it an island in a “sea” of salt. But it truly was an island in ancient times when it was surrounded by the waters of a massive lake.

 

We will spend the night here.

We camp around a massive baobab that seems to welcome and protect us, as if we were nestled in the arms of a generous and motherly African figure.

The island’s accommodations consist of a very basic campsite with undefined boundaries. The facilities are minimal, lacking both electricity and water.

In the final hour of daylight, we explore Kubu Island.

The baobabs, in all shapes and sizes, are the recurring theme defining the island.

The salt pan stretching endlessly in all directions never grows monotonous, and each panoramic view delivers new emotions.

The rocky formations are clearly shaped by the elements, with the strong winds that often blow here playing a significant role in smoothing the stones.

The wave motion of the waters that once lapped against the island also contributed, rounding the pebbles that can still be found along Kubu Island’s ancient shorelines.

The sun sets quickly on the horizon. As it sinks lower, the colours of the landscape ignite with vivid hues, ranging from yellow to fiery red.

Even the baobabs, whose bark varies from grey to brick red, glow with intense shades.

As shadows lengthen, contrasts sharpen, highlighting details that remain invisible under the blinding midday sun.

But perhaps the most breathtaking spectacle of the day is reserved for the night.

 

Dinner has been consumed, and the campsite tidied up.

The crackling fire has dwindled into a wide, sleepy bed of embers.

With the electric floodlight, powered by the Jeep’s battery, switched off, the darkness is absolute, drawing our gaze irresistibly to the sky.

The Moon is absent, and the celestial vault is a blanket of stars, too numerous to count.

The blackness of the night is the deepest black I have ever seen, and the vibrant specks of light scattered across the sky evoke a sense of infinite depth.

There are no more boundaries, and even the imagination is free to wander.

The stars feel so close that I seem to be among them. It feels less like being in a remote part of planet Earth and more like drifting in the endless expanse of space.

In the absolute silence, we sit around the embers to ward off the returning African chill of the night.

 

Now is the time for relaxation and camaraderie, with the final chats of the day.

When fatigue finally takes over, we each retire one by one to our tents.

As our chatter fades, it is Nature’s voice that begins to tell its story.

© Aldo Lardizzone 2020

CREATIVE COMMONS