If you ain't got no money, take your broke "ass" home

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Information regarding how best to get into Botswana has been tediously restricted by self-interest on the part of the people I've asked, but the most economical option would appear to be a shared taxi to the border. Unfortunately I need a taxi to get to the shared taxi departure point, but I then have a piece of luck - a bus belonging to one of Vic Falls' whitewater rafting companies is about to head to the border to pick up a group of customers, and my taxi guy tells me that the bus driver will take me for a "very low price".

Unfortunately the price negotiations are conducted not with the driver but with a rep for the rafting company. The greedy bastard wants $30, i.e. even more than the cost for a private taxi. I resist the urge to tell him where to shove it and instead plead poverty, which brings the price down to $10. It's still more than a shared taxi but infinitely more comfortable (four passengers into sixty seats = plenty of space). We pass buffalo, a hyena, and a (dead) honey badger on the way to the border, which we reach in an hour. Immigration on both sides is effortless.

I then need to reach the nearby town of Kasane. Having read of Botswana's economic status in sub-Saharan Africa (essentially the second most prosperous state after South Africa), the public transport to Kasane is an enormous disappointment - people are crammed in Tanzania-style and there's no luggage space so I have to sit with my rucksack on my lap. The only positive is that my lack of pula (the Botswana currency) is shrugged off and I end up paying in $.

Kasane irritates the hell out of me in my first two hours. Firstly, none of its banks' ATMs will yield to the entreaties of my Mastercard ATM card. A peculiarly African annoyance on my travels has been the difficulties I've encountered with the simple act of accessing money here, and on this subject my fuse has burned worryingly short. I have enough rand to get by for a day or two courtesy of FX bureaux, but really - how can money be an issue in one of the most touristy towns of one of the most touristy countries in Africa? I am soon to realise that Kasane - and in fact Botswana in general - does not really want visitors who don't come already armed with thousands of $.

Next up is the lack of accommodation availability. Quite possibly my least favourite aspect of travelling is having to carry my rucksack around. I abso-bloody-lutely hate it. So traipsing from one hotel to another being knocked back at all of them raises my blood pressure to vein-bursting levels. I eventually find success at the smallest of the places I visit, a respectable enough hotel but still over $60 per night.

It's a twenty minute walk from town, and on my third plod along this route, a guy stops to offer me a lift. He says he's seen me before and warns me that the road is dangerous. I query if he means muggers but he says no - elephant and buffalo. Only in Africa. I pass the Number 1 Lady Travel Agency, though who's to say if it was inspired by Alexander McCall Smith or vice versa. The supermarket has impala for sale.

At the hotel, I'm asked in the middle of the afternoon to order my dinner, so I request a simple and cheap dish that has been my standby through most of the continent, namely rice and beans. Despite the three hour lead time, and with only one other guest in the hotel, it arrives an hour late and my order has somehow mutated to pumpkin, carrots, sauteed green beans and onions, and chips, and in enough quantities to feed a family. My enjoyment of the meal disappears somewhat when I'm presented with the bill - $11. It seems that dinner is a fixed price affair, and having already declined what would've been the most expensive part of it by saying I didn't want meat, the staff have jazzed up the veg so as to make its value slightly approach the price I'm going to be charged anyway. In what's regarded as one of the least corrupt countries in Africa, I guess I still need to be on my toes.

That evening, after discovering that the cable channels are dominated by religious programming a la Mozambique, I have a look through the Botswanan money I've acquired. It's a curious country where what appears to be a fish eagle is relegated to a 50 thebe piece (~7 cents) yet a caterpillar crawls across the reverse of the 5 pula coin (~75 cents).

Kasane is famous for being the gateway to Chobe National Park, Botswana' premier game reserve, but my game-viewing days are behind me until at least 2015. Safaris can be thrilling affairs but - like drunken nights out and unlike bars of Dairy Milk - they only maintain their impact if done in moderation. This is the same reason why I won't be visiting Kruger.

Hence I leave Kasane in short order.

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Photos

Lightbulb moment
Liya Guest Lodge

Stork (?)
Liya Guest Lodge