Another cellphone tower where only ET can phone home from??!! This cellphone tower was put up as part of a network designed to give continuous cellphone coverage from Maun all the way through to Kasane via Mababe, Savuti and Kachikau. It would have been a significant step in upgrading Botswana's cellphone network coverage, and we think an important one as it would have given a communication link through some of the most muddy and sandy (depending on the time of year) parts of the remote route through the Chobe National Park. Over the years in different sections of the route there has been a necessity to fly a number of rescue missions, searching out people who have been stuck in the mud or broken down near this location, and sometimes supplies have had to be airdropped to people until they can be rescued on the ground. We ourselves have also on numerous occasions over the last 20+ years helped out people on the ground when they have been stuck in the mud, stuck in the sand or broken down. The road has been significantly improved from the early days but it still has its challenges, and these towers would have provided a valuable emergency link to the outside world for anyone experiencing a problem, mechanically, physically or otherwise - the benefit for the tourism industry, be they mobile tour operators or self-drive tourists would have been immense in this regard. However, one very selfish man, who lives in the town of Kasane and is very rarely out in the remote bush himself, and is someone who has very likely never driven this section of the road in the last 20 years deemed the cellphone tower in Savuti to be an eyesore, and therefore used his influence to have it taken down - thus breaking the link through the bush to Maun on the one side and Kasane on the other. The position of the Savuti tower had in fact been put in a good place, in the middle of the Savuti infrastructure of the three lodges, the public campsite and the wildlife department, where there are already a good number of man-made objects - poles, aerials, lightning conductors, water towers etc. etc. - already breaking the skyline. The modern day traveller barely even notices structures such as these as they are so common, and with todays photo techniques a rare photo taken in the vicinity of this tourist hubs that may have included part of the cellphone tower could have been easily removed with a few clicks of a mouse. As such, a number of years later we still have no cellphone communications in the remote parts of one of Botswana's prime tourist areas. We feel very sorry for the communications company who invested so much time and money in installing the three towers and the very expensive equipment that goes with them. The Savuti tower has now been dismantled to its current level, but the other two (this being one of them) are in still place, but all three are totally defunct and waiting to maybe one day finally be commissioned.