23 Nov 2023

The annual Tsodilo Hills Heritage Walk continues its series this weekend with another flagship walk billed for November 24-25.  

Adventurers will be looking forward to reminisce and remind themselves of the rich culture and history as they walk around the Tsodilo Hills, the world heritage site located in north-west Botswana in the Okavango District.

In an interview, Tsodilo Hills Trust manager, Seadimo Sethwara said this year’s walk comprised two categories of 15 kilometres and 31 kilometres with Chobe Holdings managing director, Lempheditse ‘MC’ Odumetse expected to be guest walker.

Sethwara added that the event would also include an exhibition, sports fiesta and cultural night, which will all take place on Saturday.

“The exhibition is meant to cater for attendants who are not keen to participate in the walk. Attendants would then be treated to a football and netball fiesta in the afternoon and subsequently, a cultural night,” he said.

About 10 traditional groups are expected to entertain during the cultural night and dish out contemporary music with Cultural Spears as the main act as well as Okavango artistes Koolkat Motyiko and Nature BW among others.

Sethwara said in 2021, the heritage walk continued through support from the Department of National Museum and Monument.

This year,  he said the walk would be facilitated by the Tsodilo Hills Trust and sponsored, in-kind, by different organisation including Khoemacau Mine, Sandfire, Ministry of Environment and Tourism and National Museum and Monument.

Consequently, Sethwara appealed to Batswana to attend in large numbers to appreciate the beauty of Tsodilo Hills, which would help develop local tourism and the tourism products offered.

He said proceeds from this year’s event would be channelled towards construction of an Information and Communication Technology (ICT) laboratory at a primary school in Tsodilo to assist pupils in the remote area to have access to technology. 

The Tsodilo Heritage walk was incepted in 2018 with the aim of expanding ways for the Tsodilo Hills Trust to generate income in addition to camping and the Tsodilo Heritage site trails.

At that time, the walk was sponsored by United Nations Development Programme for two consecutive years but took a hiatus in 2020 due to the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic. ENDS