Nata

Nata is a small village in the Central District that lies along the Nata River. It is home to the community run Nata Bird Sanctuary but mainly a refueling and stopover place for tourists headed to Maun or Kasane, or more likely the mammoth lorries headed into Zambia. Indeed at the filling station there was hardly a Botswana number plate to be seen. In Nata we overnighted at the Nata Guest Inn - rudimentary. We were only there to sleep before heading off for Maun at around 9 after vetkoekies and biltong from the filling station and shakes and smoothies from Wimpy’s. Our drive to Maun was fairly uneventful, a much easier three hour drive than the night before from Francistown to Nata. At one point the Nxai Pan National Park was on our right and the Makgadikgadi Pans National Park to our left. We encountered more donkeys than cattle. After Gweta we saw several pairs of ostriches and even a lonely zebra. Just as often we would see the ubiquitous red and white solar powered cell phone towers. We arrived in Maun around midday; had to rush to the Okavango River Lodge to change into clothes suitable to interview Kgosigadi Moremi.