Botswana .Lessons

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April 25 and 26, 2007 Botswana….Lessons

That was quite the day and a half. There were two main purposes for this trip and a few smaller. First Molly (Jenni’s car) needed a new battery and I needed to pay for our trip through Hwange and Victoria Falls and Livingstone in US dollars. Nobody can access US dollars here in Zimbabwe and I didn’t bring enough to cover it so off we go to Botswana. Jenni, her friend Aruna, Dakotah and I headed out about 10 am with sandwiches packed in the boot and bottles of water for the drive. The travel time will be about three hours. While traveling under the 120 km per hour speed limit we were pulled over at one of the numerous police road checks in this country. The officer asked Jenni to show him her drivers license. So, she is searching in her purse and pulls out her British Council Library card in attempt to uncover the license. The officer looks at the library card and says OK you can go. We had a good laugh over that one. When we got to the Zimbabwe side of the border it was quiet. There were no cues so it was a little confusing what we had to do there. Its good we were traveling with some seasoned travelers. At the borders here everyone has to get out of their vehicles and go into immigration then customs, have your passports stamped and show that you have Police clearance for the vehicle to leave the country. Police Clearance has to be obtained beforehand from the motor vehicle branch. So we did all that and obtained our gate pass and proceeded through the gate, through no man’s land and on to the Botswana immigration and customs. We parked the car and went into the building. There was a bit of a cue on this side so we filled out the immigration forms and got our passports stamped again, registered the vehicle and paid the road tax 140 Pula. You have to ensure that you have Pula before you get to the border there. Off we go again to the next gate. We all had to get out again to wash our shoes and Molly had to drive through a dip as well to stop the transfer of foot and mouth disease. That took us less than an hour to get across the border to Botswana. This sounds rather simple; wait until you read about the way back.

One hour down the road we reached Francis Town First thing, we met up with Aruna’s husband’s cousins who own a shoe shop there. Aruna was going to sleep there for the night. We got directions to a few accommodation places for Jenni, Dakotah and I. One place we found, Satellite Guest House was within the budget (the available Pula in hand) for a double room. It had one queen bed and a carpeted floor, so we would have slept two in the bed and one on the floor (we brought the sleeping bags) but they wouldn’t let us have three people in a double room. It was crazy, he wanted us to rent the double room and a single room. The man helping us was somewhat less than friendly so we left that place. We could not afford any of the places so we headed off to the campground and we were going to pay 44 Pula each and sleep in the car. We went to the SPAR Grocery store for some price checking and to get some food for the night, then took Aruna back to the Shoe Shop so that she could go home with them. Also, Aruna asked her cousin if he had a tent we could borrow. Hearing that we were going to sleep in the car he offered to put us up for the night at their house too. Aruna is Indian as are her Cousins, Jen and Pam. They invited us back to their home and Pam cooked a fantastic Indian chicken dinner. Boy did that beat sleeping in the car and eating the cold grocery store pizza, apples and potato crisps that we had planned for dinner. We also had a chance to get to know these cousins. They are involved with the Lions Club and are doing a lot of great things in the community particularly with the street kids of Francis Town. While visiting that night they told me that I might have some troubles at the bank the next day as it is month end and the banks will be busy. Aruna had met a lady who works at Barkleys Bank which was supposed to be the best Bank to go to. When I arrived in the morning she arranged for some special treatment. I was able to skip to the front of the cue to figure out my finances. We knew that we had to withdraw Pula first then buy US dollars with the Pula. I wanted to withdraw the Pula with my bank card. Nope that wouldn’t work. So I handed over my credit cards, then she advised me that I could only get 3000 Pula for each card per day. It took nearly forty five minutes for this to happen. So with the 6000 I got, I asked her to change that to US. Nope they only have $670 US and she advised me to go to the currency exchange store to change the rest to US. So I took all that and proceeded to the next bank to get more Pula. After standing in the cue for nearly an hour the machine would not take my bank card or mastercard so I got the max on my Visa and proceeded to the next bank’s cue and each bank had different limits. Jenni and Aruna were wandering around town all that time price checking and making little purposes while Dakotah and I were walking around town for most of the day gathering up all the cash standing in cue after cue. I met a nice person in one of the cues though and the girl standing beside Dakotah asked her if she could come home with us and help out around the house. Four banks later I guessed that I had enough Pula (because I didn’t know what rate I would get) so Dakotah and I met up with Jenni and Aruna and we went to the currency exchange store. THEY didn’t have any US. They had just taken all of their US to the Steinbeck Bank so suggested that we go there instead. Off we go again. Steinbeck Bank was a dream. I wish I had gone there first. There are card swipe machines at the tellers so I would have been able to use my bank card right away and they had air conditioning and a TV with soccer playing. And they had my US. It took from 9:30 am to 3 pm to get what I needed. Once the US dollar mission was accomplished we went shopping.

The stores in Botswana actually have full shelves, there are product choices there, there are bulk packages and you can choose which products to buy. It was so foreign after being in Zimbabwe for that time. Jenni says that the prices in Bots had gone up too but the last time she was there was two years ago. The selection of lunch meats was a good example. When we were heading out from Bulawayo, we stopped at a grocery store to pick up some meat for our rolls for the travel. The only sandwich meat there was Chicken Polony (Bologna) for $40 000 Zim. So the shopping experience was quite exciting for all of us. And Cheese, mmm, I miss cheese. Its just too expensive or unavailable in Zimbabwe. We got all of the nessessary items and headed back to Jen and Pam’s house so re could repack the car and had tea after that long day. I didn’t get to buy the workbooks for the school, I’ll havet o arrange for that in Zimbabwe. We said our goodbyes and let Pam know again how grateful we were for her hospitality. We stopped at the service station to fill up Molly’s tank and spend our Pula coins on cold drinks. Molly got a new heart and a full tank of fuel out of this trip. Jenni said she hadn’t had a full tank in over 2 years. How exciting! On to the border. We went as fast as Molly would take us since it was getting late and we didn’t want any more combi’s or busses to pass us with their many people they carry. We arrived at the Bots side of the border crossing and joined the cue for Immigration and customs. This cue was out of the building and around the corner. We had waited about 2 hours to have our passports stamped out of the country, filled out the customs forms stating that we had nothing to declare. Got the gate pass stamped for the car and drove through the gate after being harassed by the guard because Jenni neglected the stop sign on the road. On to the Zim side. We parked and joined another cue line. It only took us about half an hour to get to the front of that cue then another 20 minutes for the agent to fill out the visas for Dakotah and I. We both needed new $65 visas to get back into Zimbabwe. We filled in the customs forms and paid the road tax for Zimbabwe and we were out of there. On the way back to Bulawayo we were stopped in two more Police road checks. Each one manned with an officer smelling suspiciously of alcohol. They both let us go with a smile. We arrived home at 10pm. That 180km took us six hours to travel. Ah, the bed was nice that night a peaceful sleep without dogs barking and rock rabbits chirping all night.

This segment of the trip might seem like bad publicity but really you could take it as a learning experience. Here’s a few tips. Go through he border either way around noon not 6pm. Go to Steinbeck Bank in Francis town. Don’t go at month end because both countries are getting paid and town and borders will be busy. Canadians should buy a multiple entry visa going into Zimbabwe because you have to leave the country to get more money and with the economy how it is you can never guess how much to bring. You need to get Pula out of the machines the night before to avoid the cues then use Steinbeck’s to change your currency, the currency exchange places require you to reserve US dollars in advance. Bring a tent -save lots of dollars. And bring sunscreen. One of the cues had no shade. Oh and SPAR and Trade Center are the cheapest places to shop.

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