Botswana, un paradis africain entre déserts, deltas et traditions – Documentaire Voyage -

Imagine a country that is flat, dry, as big as France, without access to the sea, enclosed in the south of Africa. This is the land of the Suricates, and that of the Bushmen. It is also the land of the Tswana people and a few others. Since the independence of 1966, they are united behind a flag. The blue represents water, a real treasure in this arid land. We come from the end of the planet to discover these animal sanctuaries. But this country deserves other detours, reserves other surprises. The discovery begins in Maune, the gateway to the country's most famous site, the Okavango Delta. In the language of the San, Maune means the place where the roses are short. The city was founded in 1915, along this funny stream, the Tamalekane, which no one knows exactly where it comes from and where it goes. Because it is fed in an episodic way by the unpredictable waters of the delta. Originally, we crossed the river by this old bridge. Proof that there are not many remains in Botswana, we classified it as a national monument. Maune remained for a long time a dusty village, a kind of border town where ranchers and cattle ranchers These women were already seen in their overwhelming costumes, hereros. The hereros arrived here at the beginning of the 20th century. They fled their country, present-day Namibia, where they were threatened with genocide. The Tswanese offered them asylum in the name of a very old convention which provided, in case of need, the welcome of one people by the other. Maune quickly developed from 1970 when the delta opened to tourism. The city now has more than 75,000 inhabitants and it continues to grow. We fled everywhere to find a job, exploit an opportunity, enjoy the dynamics. The city is full of activity. This is where all the dreams of Okavango come true. The discovery of the delta involves specific means, know-how, extraordinary. In Maune, we often prepare for an extraordinary safari, of which we dream all our lives. The discovery of one of the most mythical shrines in all of Africa, the Moremi Reserve. Moremi is the Delta Reserve, its core. To access it, you have to cross difficult tracks and waterways. The 4x4 is mandatory. This animal sanctuary was created in 1963. It is the first African reserve to have been initiated by a local community. Hence its name, Moremi, that of a tribal chief. The fauna is exceptional, due in particular to the diversity of habitats. Watercourses of all sizes and innumerable cross the reserve. They make up a gigantic hydrographic network. On the ground, it is difficult to measure. From the sky, we better appreciate the formidable complexity of the delta. The Okavango River came to spread here. Instead of reaching the sea, it spread over 15,000 square kilometers. 95% of its waters will eventually evaporate, and only 2% will infiltrate the earth. It is the largest interior delta in the world. The Okavango deposits 650,000 tons of sediment each year, and the face of the delta is in perpetual evolution. In some places, it is the mainland that dominates, at least at the end of the dry season, because most of its extensions are flooded and cover when the waters of the river are at the beginning of their cycle. To get as close as possible to the reality of the delta, there is another way. Let yourself be guided by a poler in his mokoro. The mokoro is a flat-bottomed boat simply propelled by the supports of the long perch. The slip of the mokoro on the water is the only noise that comes to disturb the incredible calm of the waters. It is a unique, magical experience. But frustrating, both the mokoro and the perch have secrets so close, but which remain invisible. So you have to imagine. It is hippos that have traced all these waterways, by going through the vegetation. The water of the delta, filtered by the sands, is of an amazing purity. Today, most mokoros are made of glass fiber. In the past, they were cut into a trunk of ebony or sausage tree. As it takes 100 years to make a tree, and that we needed more and more mokoros, these species became more and more rare in the delta. The fiber of glass also has an advantage. It is durable, and therefore easier to dampen for the pollers who have to finance their boats. Because the wooden mokoros, they, only last a few years. If the activity of the mokoros is centered on tourism, the vanery, it, also finds openings with the local population. It is the privileged craft sector of the country. The women of the tribes of Lokavango excel in the art of weaving their works. They use as a raw material the fiber of the palm tree, the characteristic tree of the delta. This delta, it must be bypassed by the northwest, if you want to discover the river that feeds it. The Goudorné road passes along the banks of the Brado. They are 30, 50, sometimes 60 kilometers away. When we go back to the north, we discover a more rural Botswana, where the habitat is still often traditional. Life is hard for domestic animals, often delivered to themselves. Here, the standard of living can be very low. By cutting lichens along the road, we can just earn enough to eat. A few chickens, the currency of the country. There are nearly 400 kilometers between Maune and Shakawé, between the south of the delta and the northwest border of Botswana. Lokavango, in this place, is a real river. It has just crossed the Namibia, by cutting the band of Caprivi on about 30 kilometers. Less than 50 kilometers north is Angola, its home country, where it is called the Kubango. Before opening up in a fan in its delta, Lokavango presents, over 80 kilometers, the face that we know from Shakawé. That of a wide stream, whose banks are bordered by fields of rose water and papyrus. To designate this part of its course, the geographers used an image. It would be the handle of a pan, whose delta would be the container. This is why this region is called the Panhandle. Here, as everywhere, the height of the water varies depending on the season, but Lokavango keeps a steady flow throughout the year. It flows with force and without history in a well-traced bed, which makes here and there some meanders. Given the importance of the current, the use of the word coral is not really suitable for the exploration of the banks. The Panhandle is first of all a paradise for birds and all those who are interested in it. The banks, covered with vegetation, offer good shelters to the fauna and the fishing waters cause all kinds of convoys. Fishing and ornithological discovery are increasingly involved in the development of this region, which has remained until now a little away from the tourist trap. While waiting to be able, perhaps, to take advantage of it one day, these women will go down to the bank to cut roses there. Roofs and walls are still often made of it. The activity is dangerous, because the banks of Lokavango are full of large crocodiles. Some have been captured and are found in the enclosures of a neighboring farm. This one, who is 50 years old and measures more than 5 meters, is on a peaceful retreat. But others serve as genitors, because here we give birth and we raise the saurians on a large scale. This means a lot of water, it is directly pumped into Lokavango nearby. There are currently more than 13,000 crocodiles in the farm. They are raised there until the age of 2 and a half. In these conditions, they grow twice as fast as in nature. They have their best market value when they reach about 2 meters. Since Botswana has banned the export of baby crocodiles, it is one of the last establishments of this kind. To attract more visitors to the region, we are rather counting on the promotion of a site which is located about 50 kilometers away, the hills of Tsodilo. It is a set of some modest reliefs which emerge on the edge of a fossil lake. There are four main hills. The highest, Mail Hill, exceeds the level of the surrounding soil by 400 meters. It is one of the highest points in the country. Tsodilo is classified as a World Heritage Site for its rock paintings. More than 4,000 have already been listed on nearly 300 sites. It is one of the world's strongest rock art concentrations. Tsodilo is said to be the Louvre of the desert. The site has been inhabited. It has a strong symbolic and religious dimension for the local communities. They see both the tomb of the gods and the place where man appeared for the first time. The origin of the paintings remains enigmatic. Some would be 20,000 years old, but most of the others would only be a few hundred years old. At the bottom of this huge rock we can see the surprising representations of a penguin and a whale. As the ocean is more than 600 kilometers away, we wonder how the artist of the San people was inspired. San people who, for the most part, are now settled in the Kalahari Desert. Chased from everywhere, they have found refuge there. It is the heart of Botswana, a region more difficult to access which has long been unnoticed by travelers. The central Kalahari is a semi-desert. It houses a varied fauna because the vegetation grows there despite the lack of water on the surface. The closure of the limits of large areas where extensive farming is carried out. But some properties are now transformed into fauna reserves. This one is 20,000 hectares. Dozens of kilometers of tracks have been traced there and a hundred kilometers of closure have been marked. It was then necessary to buy animals to complete those of origin, create water points, install pumps to feed them and finally build the observation tower of the spectacle of nature. We do not come to the central Kalahari by chance. We are here a few hours away from the first gutted road. Nothing is left to chance to satisfy a clientele of connoisseurs. The animals are attracted right in front of the lodge by the water point that has been dug there. The management of the reserve remains a challenge on a daily basis. Members of the San community are closely associated with it. This time, you have to know why this gnaw has not been entirely eaten. We hesitate between a disturbed predator and a sick prey. We are looking for bite marks. We are also looking for traces of an attack or the footprints of a predator, clues that cannot escape a bushman. For lack of probable indications, the skin of the animal is incised to facilitate the work of the vultures and to facilitate the cleaning of the carcass. If the gnaw was sick, this would limit the risk of an epidemic. The reserve still employs a few bushmen. From time to time, they take up their traditional outfits without hesitation to explain, rather with pride, some of their survival techniques. The San have been the first inhabitants of this country. They know better than anyone else the vital secret. Knowing how to find water elsewhere because it is very capricious on the surface. One day, the Boteti River, the last stream that we crossed before accessing the central Kalahari, stopped flowing. It took 20 years and torrential rains in Angola in 2009 for the waters of the delta to feed it again. The beasts come back to drink there, the men pump a little water there. But the level remains insufficient to feed again its natural exudate, To explore the spectacular region of these large salt lakes, you have to go through Gweta. Gweta is a small town of 5,000 inhabitants. You can get an idea of the daily life of the Botswanae who neither live in the capital nor in an isolated village. There is no nursery school, but as soon as they are 7 years old, all the little Botswanae go to school. In uniform, because it is the rule for everyone. School is completely free until high school. Then, families have to participate a little or ask for a scholarship. The state devotes a lot of money to education and health. The fight against AIDS, which affects 20% of the population, is a national priority. Here, all antiviral treatments are taken care of. When they come back from school, the children sometimes go to the village shop where they bring home a bag of rice or flour. But they are deprived of the water supply. All houses do not have running water, but there is always a tap nearby. At the Gweta hair salon, there is both tap water and electricity at the counter. When there are no customers in the salon, the boss goes to the room next door to iron or sew. We recently inaugurated a library here, where everyone can come and use the computers or consult the books. Many never come here. They prefer to find themselves in the small house that houses the beer bar. In the morning, we come here to drink shibuku, the traditional drink made from fermented wild berries. But we come to Gweta to know another drunkenness, the one we feel when we discover the large salt pans. The pans of the Makadikadi extend over 12,000 square kilometers. It is a network of several salt lakes, and it is the largest in the world. The deeper we go into the gigantic clay pot, the rarer men and animals become. And then, this profile soon out of sight, a wide, all white. There used to be a huge lake here, which covered 60,000 square kilometers and extended to the shores of the Chaubet and the Okavango. Ten thousand years ago, a climate change caused the evaporation of all the water. The salt remains that cracks under the feet. It is a unique sensation to be in the heart of this lunar landscape, in this immense desolation. At the eastern border of the pan region, a well-tracked track crosses the Nata sanctuary. It is a protected space. It was created by the local communities to preserve this particular ecosystem, because further south, the salt of the pans is exploited in an industrial way. It is a sanctuary rather dedicated to birds. It hosts, in particular, a large Flemish colony. In the dry season, they stay very far from the mirador, where there is a little water left. Before the protected space becomes a reality, it was first necessary to move the 3,500 heads of cattle who were used to eating there. One cannot imagine the effort that was made for all the small breeders. They then keep their animals more than anything else in the world. Botswana has more heads of cattle than inhabitants. This country is traditionally a land of cattle breeding. Animals that feed freely on more or less closed spaces are grouped together from time to time at gathering points to be sold. Botswanese meat is of great quality. Its reputation has largely crossed borders. Most of the production is exported. It is one of the national riches. But a wealth threatened by the hafta fever, a very contagious viral disease that is transmitted to animals with their skin melted, whether wild or domestic. To control and limit the development of the disease, Botswana has put in place veterinary barriers. All vehicles coming from an infected area are forced to pass through disinfectant baths. Pedestrians also have to clean their soles. These controls were established when Europe banned the importation of Botswanese meat due to health risks. Today, everything is back in order and the cattle have returned to the country's raw domestic product. However, it is not with its agricultural production that Botswana finances the construction of roads or its ambitious policy on education or health. It is thanks to the diamond product. When these diamond deposits were discovered in 1967, Botswana was one of the poorest countries. Today, it is the largest diamond producer in the world. As soon as it exploited this unexpected treasure, it experienced for 30 years the strongest growth on the planet. Sign outside of this prosperity, the capital in the south of the country. These buildings pushed in the middle of nowhere to the location of a large village which bore the name of its chief, Gaborone. It is this village that was chosen at the time of independence to make it the capital of the brand new country. Gaborone had two advantages. It was only a few kilometers from the South African border and was located on the railway line that crossed Australia. Gaborone, here it is called Gabs. As it was created anyway, it does not have many souls. It has 200,000 inhabitants. Half are civil servants and work in ministries and services. Botswana makes good use of the fortune brought by the diamond, especially since it is one of the least corrupt countries in the world. In Gaborone, the standard of living is high. Employees and civil servants frequent the shopping malls that flourished outside the city and they live in the West. Here we are far from the Okavango, the Kalahari and the San people. But the Bushmen are only 10,000 in the country, while 60% of the 2 million Botswanans are citizens. 80% of the Botswanan population is concentrated in the cities that have developed in a radius of 200 kilometers around Gaborone. These are in fact large villages that have become urbanized. Traditional houses have been abandoned and we are seduced by the codes of modernity. Botswanans import almost everything from South Africa. They have practically no factories and there are only shops and services to get jobs. Artisanal production remains marginal. About 20 kilometers from Gaborone, in the small town of Gabane, this structure is the exception. Pottery is made there. Lavender is the other artisanal specialty of the country. The products are very simple and the raw material is made in the courtyard with the earth collected right next to it. Here we often work every day, without stopping for a month or a little more, and then we have a few days of consecutive rest. An organization that allows the Botswanans who have come to settle in the city to leave from time to time to see their families in their original village. Which means 9 times out of 10, to take the north road again. They cross the country from bottom to top. All to the north, they lead to Kazan, the second tourist city in the country, on the banks of the Chobé River. When you get closer, the fauna becomes very present. Even outside the protected areas which already occupy 20% of the country's total surface. In Kazan, we are 900 kilometers from Gaborone and on the northern border of Botswana. It is not these closures that mark the limits of the country. Here, it is a river, the Kwando. It comes from Angola. Here, it is called the Chobé. It is an influence of the Zambezi. On the other bank, it is the Namibia. We are here at the intersection of four countries. The borders of Zambia and Zimbabwe are only a few kilometers away. The road that diverts Kazan and crosses the city is parallel to the river. The animals of the savannah around must therefore cross it to go drinking. Baboons and falcons probably see the good side of human presence. They always offer them opportunities. There is a forgotten seed, an exploitable waste, something to forget about traffic and its dangers. The real problem is the elephants. They must be housed. Avoid as much as possible to find them in the city. But still allow them to access the water. These elephants, who live in the small forest next door, cross the road at least twice a day. To channel the flow of pachyderms, a closure was addressed parallel to the bank in which access was arranged. A somewhat benevolent approach, because it is not a question here to take radical measures against animals. They make the city rich. Kazan has a little more than 10,000 inhabitants. It is the second tourist city in the country. For a simple reason, it is the gateway to one of the richest regions in wildlife on the planet. Here, everyone, or almost everyone, works directly or indirectly for tourism. The river is the privileged means to access the animal kingdom. Along the banks, you can see a real fleet of boats of all kinds and all capacities. Whatever the chosen boat, any cruise begins with a mandatory passage, the registration of passengers at the pontoon of the National Park. We are a few kilometers upstream of the city, at the point of access of a protected area of more than 10,000 square kilometers. The Chauvet National Park, which extends south of the river, is the size of countries like Lebanon, Qatar or Jamaica. It was created in 1968. It was the first national park in Botswana. This area, called the river front, is one of the most accessible to observe closely the abundance of wildlife. The Chauvet always has a good flow, even in the heart of the dry season. So, we observe there both species completely related to water and others that depend on it in a vital way. The park houses the strongest concentration of elephants in the world. There are more than 50,000 here. They exert a huge pressure on the environment. Some consider that they jeopardize the balance of the ecosystem and that the number of elephants should be limited. This causes debate in Botswana. There has long been another subject of discussion on its banks, the Cedoudou Island. For years, Namibia and Botswana have disputed this very flat area in the middle of the Chauvet river. For the most part, because it is an inundable area that presents no war of interest, except for the elephants and buffalos that live there. Finally, the international court of Lae has decided. Referring to the depth of the water in the two arms that surround it, she judged that the island was Botswanese. It is at dawn that the soft light gives the Chauvet all its charm. It is at this moment also that the animals are the most numerous. All the boats left at almost the same time to return to Kazan at sunset. The early morning is the ideal time to fill a frustration. Discover what the park looks like when you go through it from the inside. The sandy track is rather chaotic, but it quickly reserves a nice surprise. A wild dog, one of the rarest predators. The guides are tempted to follow him, but it will be a lost cause. The animal will disappear very quickly in the mist. The Chauvet Park is famous for its predators. It houses a large population of hyenas, and its lions are known to attack elephants. They left the remains of a huge carcass there. A few hundred meters further, vehicles stop to observe this time the animal most sought after by tourists, the leopard. With its unique north of the common and its political stability, Botswana attracts a wealthy international clientele. It is the chosen choice of this landscape. Avoid mass tourism, environmental destroyers, and take advantage of its nature as well as its other riches. Do not count only on the diamond, of which we know that the course, in the past, has already fallen. We are used to the reverse of fortune here. Everyone knows the story of Francis Town. In 1869, gold was discovered in this small river very close to the border of Zimbabwe. The thread immediately attracted a crowd in search of fortune, and a city developed along the Tati River. From that time, there are only a few street names left. Blue Jacket, it's the name of a famous prospector. And then, little by little, the thread got tired, and we ended up closing the last gold mine. The city declined, and everyone went back to his little job. But in 1970, the luck turned again. We discovered in the region copper and nickel deposits. Francis Town then experienced a real economic boom and a new growth. It became the second city in the country. It has more than 150,000 inhabitants. Today, we come from the nearby Zimbabwe to do our shopping there. The atmosphere is vibrant, warm. The city is much more attractive than the capital. But the temptation of a life in the West becomes omnipresent here too. To show its success, we get married to the American on the banks of the Tati River. Signs of the times, signs that the links are distant with ancestral customs, traditional dances, yet already modernized, are not in rhythm. Botswana, day after day, irrevocably turns its back on its history of poor countries and without perspective. First diamond producer in the world, it shares its wealth quite reasonably. In the end, only the first people of the country, the San people, who feel a little apart. Often despised, not really integrated, the Bushmen cling to their know-how, trying to keep at least the memory of their tradition.