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Cry of the Kalahari
Mark Owens
Top 10 Best Quotes
“The entire Blue Pride, nine in all, surrounded us, nearly all of them asleep. We were quite literally in bed with a pride of wild Kalahari lions.”
“Only when we pause to wonder do we go beyond the limits of our little lives. —Rod McKuen”
“The valley was bright with sunshine when we opened our eyes the next morning. But it was not the same malevolent sun that had scorched the Kalahari for months. Soft, mellow rays caressed the backs of several hundred springbok, nibbling grass bases succulent with glittering droplets. The storm was only a smudge on the distant horizon. From camp we could see Captain and Mate and a pair of bat-eared foxes drinking from puddles on the spongy desert floor.”
“The people of the village were hungry. We avoided the eyes of the begging children, embarrassed that we had nothing we could give them, yet knowing we were wealthy by comparison.”
“At last it was raining. Water was streaming through gaps in the window frames and trickling into our laps. “Smell it! Smell it! God, how wonderful! How beautiful!” we shouted over and over.”
“That second night we camped next to a small tree not more than six feet high, the only one for miles around. We had been irresistibly drawn to it and had actually driven quite a way off course to get to it. Though we slept inside the truck, the tree gave us a vague sense of security. Our early primate ancestors would probably have been similarly pleased to find even this mere seedling on a nearly treeless plain, after they left the safety of the forests to venture onto the vast savannas millions of years ago.”
“Most game reserves in Botswana are large tracts of totally undeveloped wilderness. There are no paved roads, fast-food stands, water fountains, campgrounds, restrooms, or any of the other “improvements” found in parks and reserves in more developed countries.”
“Especially after our Makgadikgadi experiences, we were very aware that the two absolute essentials for survival in the Kalahari were water and the truck.”
“Because of the heat and the lack of water and materials for shelter, much of the Central Kalahari has remained unexplored and unsettled. From our camp there was no village around the corner or down the road. There was no road. We had to haul our water a hundred miles through the bushveld, and without a cabin, electricity, a radio, a television, a hospital, a grocery store, or any sign of other humans and their artifacts for months at a time, we were totally cut off from the outside world.”
“Because it often receives somewhat more than ten inches of rainfall, the Central Kalahari is not a true desert. It has none of the naked, shifting sand dunes that typify the Sahara and other great deserts of the world. In some years the rains may exceed twenty—once even forty— inches, awakening a magic green paradise.”
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Book Keywords:
wild-reserve, kalahhari-after-rain, kalahari, poverty, adventure, lions, deseart, rain, water-and-truck, botswana, africa