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Published: October 8th 2006
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I crossed the border into Botswana bright and early. I had both been hoping that I would find some form of public transport at the Botswanan border post, but I soon realised that the only way I would be going anywhere was on foot. It was already hot, despite the fact that it was just 7am and my backpack seemed heavier than ever. I must have walked for about 2kms, before hearing the sound of a vehicle in the distance. I was lucky the driver stopped and gave me a lift to the river ferry. I was feeling a bit stressed as I hadn't been able to get any pula in Namibia and I hadn't seen a bank in a couple of days. To make matters worse I didn't really have many Namib dollars either. I was hoping that Botswana wouldn't be as expensive as people had warned me that it would be. When I got to the ferry I was informed that they wouldn't let me travel unless I was in a vehicle - great! There were a couple of vehicles around but none of them were heading to Seronga. After about half an hour I got a lift with
a Chinese engineer. He had a brand new landrover so I travelled in style. The road to Seronga was probably the worst I'd come across on my entire trip. Even in the landrover it took me 2 hours to cover 87kms. This came as a bit of shock as I'd read that Botswana's economy was in better shape than the economies of most of the other countries that I had visited. The Chinese man refused to take any money from me, which meant that at least I'd be able to afford to buy some dinner. I was camping at a lodge run by the Okovango Polers Trust. They organise mokoro trips in the Okovango Delta for a very reasonable sum and all the money goes directly to the poler. I could have gone to Maun and organised a trip from there but it would have cost a lot more and only a fraction of that money would have gone to the poler. Thankfully they accepted Namib dollars albeit at a terrible exchange rate. Once I had paid for the camping and the mokoro trip I was almost out of cash. I had dinner that night. They were serving local food
and I have to say that despite the fact that I was starving, it was a struggle to eat what was on my plate. There was a lily root mash and some kind of fish and samp mix. It was pretty unappealing. The next morning I set off on our mokoro trip. The delta was absolutely stunning and my poler impressed me by making hats and necklaces out of the lily pads, which he insisted I wear for at least a few minutes. Lunch was included in the cost of the trip so I ate plenty, knowing that I wouldn't be eating again until the next day. It was incredibly hot so I had a little nap after lunch. I then explored the delta for another couple of hours before returning back to the lodge. Everyone told me that I could be waiting for up to a day for transport back to the other side of the river. They couldn't believe how quickly I had got a lift the previous day. I decided to leave as early as possible the next day. I knew that there was a bus to Shakawe every day but I'd also been warned that on
some days it just didn't turn up. I was in luck the bus arrived in Seronga at about 8am. The bus was in pretty bad shape. Many of the seats were not attached to the bus at all and at the back there was a pile of seats that had obviously roled down the bus on a particular bumpy section of road. I was hoping that it would take about 3 hours to reach Shakawe so that I would be able to catch another bus to Msun. I'd been travelling for about an hour when one of the front tyres exploded. When I say exploded I'm really not exaggerating. The tyre was in shreds. To make matters worse there was no spare wheel. I soon discovered that this didn't present a problem. The bus had two front wheels and four back wheels, so the driver simply removed one of the back wheels and put it on the front. He then realised that there were no screws to hold the wheel on so he took a couple off each of the other wheels and used them to hold the front wheel in place. It was truly unbelievable. It ended up taking
7 hours to cover the 87kms to the ferry. I was incredibly dehydrated, not to mention hungry when I reached Shakawe. I'd been told that there was definitely a bank in Shakawe and I was looking forward to having a proper meal, however I soon discovered that the nearest bank was in Maun and that the last bus to Maun had already left. I headed for the main road and joined a group of locals all trying to hitch a lift. I was unlucky, 3 hours later I was still in Shakawe and it would soon be dark. There were a number of buses, which would be leaving the next morning so I spoke to one of the drivers and he agreed to let me sleep in his bus. I also asked him how much a ticket to Maun was. Having paid for the bus tickets I would have enough money for at least one meal. I headed into a little take-away place near the buses and discovered that it was run by two Pakistani brothers. They were great. They didn't speak English but they spoke Hindi. When they found out that I was muslim (at least my name sounds
muslim) they gave me free food and insisted that I sleep at their house. I was so grateful, having a proper meal made me feel much better. The next morning I headed to Maun. As it was a Sunday there was not much going on so I decided to push on to Francistown once I had picked up some money, and bought some much needed food. There wasn't much to do in Francistown and although I had money I was still pretty skint. As a result of this I decided to take the overnight train to Gaborone. The sleeper cars were out of my budget so I had to make do with third class. As you can imagine it wasn't exactly a comfortable night. I arrived in Gaborone at around 5am and of course everything was shut. A taxi driver told me that wI would be able to get a taxi at the Wimpy so he dropped me there and promised to return in an hour. Of course the Wimpy was closed and he didn't come back. Luckily I hadn't paid him for the return trip and I was able to get another taxi quite quickly. I decided to go
and see if the campsite was open. It was and I was absolutely delighted to be able to have a hot shower. I put up my tent and then headed into the cuty centre. Gaborone is completely uninspiring. I spent the last three days of my trip updating the blog and eating fried chicken. It was a shame that the end of my trip wasn't more exciting, but there's a limit to what you can do with virtually no money, especially if you're in a country that is as expensive as Botswana. On the last day I took the intercape to Jo'burg and then got a taxi to the airport. I couldn't believe that the trip was over. The three months had just flown by. I had some fantastic experiences and I hope that I'll be blogging from another corner of the world in the not to distant future.
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snozlington
Dean and Danielle
Lovin the delta
gday guys. we messaged you about your pemba/ibo blog and have been following since. we loved our two weeks in botswana, especially the delta and reading your blog bought back memories. we've since finished our african safari and after 14 months of aussie/african sun are braving(not very well) a uk winter. our blogs are months behind but yours are inspiring us to pull our finger out. thanks.