More than forty years before she was to write the worldwide success “The Song of the Crayfish”, the American zoologist Delia Owens traveled to the Central Kalahari of Botswana with her husband Mark. In 1974 they set up camp in Deception Valley for a few months to study the life of brown hyenas. This turned into seven years and a bestseller: “Cry of the Kalahari” describes the research and life of the Owens in one of the loneliest, most inhospitable and at the same time most beautiful spots on earth. Anyone who has read the book can’t get the images out of their heads, and when you rumble towards Deception Valley yourself in a jeep, with camping equipment, 150 liters of water and four petrol cans, the excitement rises: What if it’s not so magical , as one has always imagined? After hours, the thorn bushes thin out, at the foot of a hill it lies in front of you and is nothing less than: the dream of Africa. A fossil river course in the shape of a huge pan, overgrown with high grass after the rainy season, in it herds of springbok, oryx antelope, wildebeest and a few jackals. The Deception Valley is now part of the Central Kalahari Game Reserve, one of the five largest nature reserves in the world, and has hardly been developed for tourism. Sundowners on the roof of the jeep, hyenas howling in the distance. You’ve never been closer to the wilderness.
Africa Journey: Into the Central Kalahari – Journey
