Botswana – The Kalahari – Deception Valley

A friend and I ventured into the Kalahari on our own – usually considered not to be a smart idea due to the vastness, the wildness, and the desertedness of the place. However naive I may have been, I was unconcerned, trusting the competence and experience of my friend.

We made a stop in Deception Valley, a place where Mark and Delia Owens lived for 7 years while studying the brown hyena. They wrote a book about their experience, Cry of the Kalahari. The Owens had long been gone by the time we got there. In fact, this place could be called Deserted Valley. It was empty of sentient life, as far as I could tell. In fact, it seemed empty of any life that could voluntarily move on its own. All that was there was sand, rocks, a few bits of grass, random solitary bush/trees and the sun … and me and a camp chair and Gypsy, a jack russell terrier. My friend had taken the car and all our gear and gone on a mission.

At first I covered my nervousness – normal for me – "act like you know what you're doing" – yeah, I know how to do that. Being alone in the middle of nowhere and in the middle of profound silence – no problem – no wind, no grass rustling, dog not even panting – nothing I could hear – I mean nothing. So I exhaled and made a plan for what I was going to do if a brown hyena happened by and saw me as food (which it might very well do).

I walked around doing nothing, hearing nothing – and nothing was happening. Very weird. It was like being in a blank space. Little by little, I eased into this blank space, became a part of this blank space. It was peaceful here, not blank. *I* was peaceful. I belonged here. I was part of 'here.'

It was a big lesson for me. A lesson about what's on offer underneath all the 'noise' of civilization – that I can ease into any 'here' and be present to my belonging-ness.

PS The pic above is of Deception Valley, but where I was, there was very little grass, mostly just sand and rocks and the occasional scrubby tree with bark that would lacerate your skin if you tried to climb it.