Gcwihaba Cultural festival returns
Nnasaretha Kgamanyane | Friday January 20, 2017 14:23
This year, the annual event will take place on March 24-26. In an interview with Arts & Culture, BTO marketing executive in the department of Sport and Adventure Product, Thabang Segaetsho said the event serves as a gateway for tourists to appreciate the cultural heritage of communities living in the area.
He said on Saturday, the participants will be treated to beautiful dances by the tribes that live in the area such as Basarwa, Bambukushu and Baherero.
Segaetsho pointed out that the main aim of the event is to promote tourism in the area, saying that entrance will be free. He however pointed out that campers will be expected to pay for camping sites.
When this event started last year, it was intended to enable tourists to learn about Basarwa and Baherero’s way of life. Segaetsho said the world tourism reports revealed that tourists looked forward to touring places where communities’ cultural heritage and history were valued. Apart from the rich culture in the area, there are also several interesting caverns that include the Gcwihaba caves located underneath the Gcwihaba Hills.
According to Botswana Safari website, Gcwihaba caves are one of the wildest and most remote destinations in Botswana. It states that Gcwihaba is an underground maze of caverns and pits, linked passages, stalagmite and stalactite formations, and flowstones that appear like waterfalls of rock.
“The main cavern is called ‘Drotsky’s cavern. Gcwihaba is a National Monument and a proposed UNESCO World Heritage Site. The Gcwihaba caves cover an area of about 2500 square kilometres. The most common species in these caves are the Commerson’s leaf-nosed bat, the tiny dent’s horseshoe hat and the Egyptian slitfaced bat. The caves are located in the North West Botswana in the Ngamiland district,” it notes.
The website further states that animals that can be found in the park include, porcupine, leopard, hyena, tortoises, barking geckos while the bird species found there include Ruepel’s parrot. Due to the isolated nature of these dolomite hills with its caves, a special flora and fauna has developed.
According to UNESCO website on Gcwihaba Caves, some Aloe species and the Namaqua Fig, Ficus Cordata, are only found in these hills.
“Of particular interest is the latter as it appears to be dependent on its roots access to the more humid cave space below. These roots create beautiful curtains inside the caves. This tree in its turn is the home of the Ruepels parrot (Poicephalus ruepelli), which is also restricted to this area of Botswana.
The area has quite a variety of bird species and also big mammals such as elephant, but perhaps scientifically more important biodiversity-wise is the invertebrate fauna surrounding as well as inside the caves,” it notes. For years, besides tourists, the caverns had been said to be an attraction site to researchers from all over the world. It further noted that the development of the facilities will go a long way in increasing the visits, and revenue for the local community.
Despite its rough terrain and remoteness, the place received an average of about 1,000 visitors per year.
Gcwihaba caves were declared national monument in 2006 because of their unique geological formation of beauty containing stalagmites and stalactites that also support unusually large colonies of four resident bat species.