Greetings from Botswana
We would like to wish everyone a very Happy Christmas and a great New Year. As most of you are aware we are in Botswana for six months overseeing our business interests there. We return to Amorgos at the end of April. This does not affect booking requests for next year. We are managing these from Botswana. Indeed it is encouraging that bookings for Amorgos for 2012 have already started to come in.
Amorgos
The weather for the olive pickers has been very good. A little bit of rain and occasional high winds but generally fine. It has been all hands to the pumps as usual with most families hoping to finish by Christmas but some will go on well into the New Year. The bottom of the Araklos gorge going up towards Stroumbos is a blanket of yellow crocuses. The olive groves and rocky areas are pink with cyclamen.
The 21st November was the annual festival of Panagia Hozoviotissa. As usual it was very well attended as this is seen as a pilgrimage for the many worshipers who come from all over Greece.
The island is very quiet and many establishments are now closed. Every year more and more people disappear for the winter. They either go away on holiday or back to their roots to stay with family for a well-earned rest. Some have winter business interests elsewhere. This year is no exception and we added to the exodus.
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Autumn Lambs Amorgos -
Panagia Hozoviotissa -
Crocodile -
Leopard with kill
The Okavango Delta Botswana
This really is a parallel universe to Amorgos. Although it is the summer here it is low season. Maun, the gateway town to the delta is relatively quiet now with just a few tourists. There is much more traffic than Amorgos but the goats and donkeys still compete for space on the roads even in the centre of town. The small airport has a cattle grid to stop them going into the terminal but they just walk around it or the occasional stupid one has to be rescued from the pit.
The rainy season started very late this year following a heat wave of temperatures up to 48 degrees. It is now much cooler at around 32 degrees most days and many thunderstorms. Just like Amorgos in October we were desperately awaiting the rain. Now everything is turning green again and the water levels in the delta will start to slowly rise again reaching their peak in our late summer.
Despite our concerns about crocodiles, snakes and hippos at our remote house on the river we have had no incidents ‘yet’. One croc sighting, one hippo heard and two or three snake tracks observed outside the house.Yours truly has already been in trouble with the police with his first speeding ticket ever in nearly 40 years of driving. We had only had our new car for four days!
I was punctilious in adhering to the 80 km/hr limit when I was stopped. Apparently the limit in that area was 60 – well that wasn’t my fault. There are hardly any speed restriction signs but apparently I should have been psychic. An open letter of complaint to the authorities was published the following week in the local newspaper from ‘name and address supplied’.
Kind regards,
Paul & Henri
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