13 Apr 2016

Gchwihaba cultural festival serves as a gateway for tourists to appreciate the cultural heritage of communities living in the area.

Speaking at the first annual festival in Gcwihaba, Botswana Tourism Organisation chief executive officer, Thabo Dithebe, said the festival enabled tourists to learn about Basarwa and Baherero’s way of life.

He said world tourism reports had shown that tourists looked forward to touring places where communities’ cultural heritage and history was valued.

‘’Tourists nowadays value such places and refer to them as authentic products as indicated in a guided cultural walk we took in the morning.’’ Dithebe said the festival featured 12 dance groups from seven villages in the Okavango.

Furthermore, he pointed out that apart from the rich culture, there were several interesting caverns in the area that included the qcwihaba caves located underneath the Qcwihaba Hills.

‘’While in Gcwihaba they took time to tour the caves and enjoyed their beauty with their fascinating stalagmites and stalactites,” he said. Dithebe said what was special about Qcwihaba was not only the caves but also the fact that it was situated near two world heritage sites, the Okavango Delta and Tsodilo hills.

He said the campsite at Qcwihaba catered for 60 people and each campsite had a special service to make tourists feel comfortable. The director of national museum, Gaogakwe Phorano, said it took more more than a kilometre to tour the Qcwihaba caves that was made possible by the Botswana Defence Force and other departmets who cleaned and made them accessible.

He said the museum, especially the geology department, was doing research in the caves to see what else could be of value.

He said they also discovered three caves in Konaka, which were not yet open for the public.Phorano said a lodge would accommodate tourists and create employment for the community and also thanked the Botswana Tourism Organisation for their continued support of promoting tourism. ENDS