Gweta is a small village in
Botswana
Botswana, officially the Republic of Botswana, is a landlocked country in Southern Africa. Botswana is topographically flat, with approximately 70 percent of its territory part of the Kalahari Desert. It is bordered by South Africa to the sou ...
. It lies about away from
Maun and about from
Nata.
Etymology
Generally considered the gateway to the
Makgadikgadi Pans
The Makgadikgadi Pan (Tswana pronunciation ), a salt pan situated in the middle of the dry savanna of north-eastern Botswana, is one of the largest salt flats in the world. The pan is all that remains of the formerly enormous Lake Makgadik ...
, Gweta derived its name from the sound of croaking bullfrogs which bury themselves in the sand until the rainy season arrives and they emerge to mate.
Animals
The huge expanse of the Makgadikgadi Pans is bigger than Switzerland. Once a large river-fed lake, the Makgadikgadi Pans now lie saline and empty.
Baobabs
In the area around Gweta are national monuments in the form of
baobabs. Greens Baobab, 27 km south of Gweta was inscribed by the 19th-century hunters and traders
Frederick Thomas Green
Frederick Thomas (Fred) Green (April 4, 1829 – May 5, 1876) was an explorer, hunter and trader in what is now Namibia and Botswana. From 1850 to 1853 he operated in the Lake Ngami area with his older brother Charles Alexander Green, Charles. Aft ...
and Hendrik Matthys van Zyl as well as other people.
About 11 km further south of Green's Baobab is the turn-off to the Chapman's Baobab, named after South African hunter
James Chapman which has a circumference of 25m and was historically used as a navigation beacon.
It was also used as an early post office by passing explorers, traders and travellers, many of whom left inscriptions on its trunk. On the 7th of January 2016, Chapman's Baobab fell.
It is not as yet clear what caused Chapman's to fall, or whether the tree is still alive.
References
Works cited
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See also
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Mathangwane Village
{{Botswana largest cities
Villages in Botswana