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Botswana is a great
country. The Botswana border was
exceptionally well organized so we passed through without any hassles.
Our first night in this beautiful country was
spent bush camping next to the road towards Maun. The next morning it was bitterly
cold - the coldest it had ever been.
This time the Land Rover refused to start due to a part of the starter
motor which was not gripping properly. Finally the starter
motor gripped and the trustworthy diesel putted into life.
Upon arriving in
Maun, we had the start motor repaired, which cost us over double the
price it should have. Our first campsite was the Audi camp -
what a change after being in the open Namibian campsites - this
campsite was humming. The
next few evenings were spent at the Island Safari campsite. We had
driven to every campsite in Maun, exploring the differences. The
best campsite is the Audi camp, followed by Island Safari. Audi
is great for the festive vibe and Island Safari for its mellowness.
 With Nata and the Makgadikgadi
pans calling,
we packed up and tackled the extremely straight road to
Nata. The journey is a boring one, as the road is tarred,
straight and only one small village allows for a refreshing cold coke. At one point
we saw many vultures circling ahead. Upon arriving at the spot,
the vultures had settled down to devour a dead donkey. It's an
uncommon sight to see a dead donkey. It seems that over time,
they have learnt to stay clear of vehicles, but dogs, forget it, no
road sense.
Nata has three camp
sites for this really small town. Our first night was spent at
the Nata Sanctuary, which is located on the Makgadikgadi pans.
When I first visited Nata, this camp site was very new and an ideal
spot for a peaceful
rest. This time, the place was very run down - no hot water and
the toilets hardly worked. Our next evening was spent at Nata
Lodge - this
is a very popular campsite, and offers brilliant food, good swimming
and an excellent bar area.
The pans are
excellent. In 1993, when I first saw the pans, they had about
30cm of water. This time, not a drop of water. This was a
lot of fun, as we turned the Land Rovers hand-throttle up and just
drove chasing the sun. Lee-Anne was sitting on the front fender
and I was standing holding onto the roof-rack.
The sunset was
wonderful as it stretched widely across the horizon. The pans made
us realize that we do live in a big world, and that we are small
beings in it. So often, we would forget that as we drove to
work, and continued in our life-cycle of work, eat and sLee-Annep!
A day later, Romeo
and Beat arrived. They had explored Etosha, the Caprivi Strip
and Vic Falls. That evening, sitting around the camp fire, we
started to plan again. The idea crossed our mind to head towards
Kubu Island, in the Makgadikgadi pans. The next day, saw us
fueled up, watered up and all ready to tackle the route to the
island. The GPS was set and then we set off.
Somehow, just
following the GPS resulted in us traveling in the middle of
no-where. We drove on paths which only just allowed the Land
Rover to fit through. We did manage to lose a side mirror after
colliding with a tree. It
 was
good fun knowing that we were in the middle of Botswana - not another
soul around for 50km!
Finally we found a
road running parallel to the pans. We were traveling along very
comfortably when we decided we would make better time by traveling on
the pans. A bit of bundu-bashing through the veld and we hit the pans. The Land
Rover was in the lead when we began to notice that the pans were
getting soft and that the Land Rover was feeling sluggish. Too late
for the Toyota Land Cruiser to turn around and so it sunk axle deep into
the mud. Time for the sand ladders, spades and luck....
The
story continues....
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