A Self-Drive Tour Around Botswana for Mid-Sem Break

Hello Botswana! (And hello to my blog again, it’s been a while ….).

After 7 weeks of uni, several stressful assignments, late nights at library and lots of procrastinating, it was time for the mid-semester break to begin! What is planned? A 10 day self-drive tour around Botswana (and partly Namibia and Zimbabwe) with my dad! After spending a couple of days with him in Johannesburg, we traded in the BMW hire car (BMW cause no Toyota Corollas were available), and caught a flight to Maun, Botswana.

We left a cold and wet Johannesburg for a warm and sunny Maun. The plane we were on (Air Botswana) was considerably smaller than expected, but the flight was pretty comfortable. Everyone on the plane was white, and apart from a few children, I think I was the youngest person there. Every other person was at least 30 years old, or quite a bit older. We were met at the airport by a man who was trying to get us to our car hire place (there was some confusion, I don’t really know what was happening but anyways) and we were soon off to the hire car place. The airport was full of tourists and tour guides, while outsides safari vehicles and 4x4's lined the road. Driving around Africa is big business. 

After signing stuff, being told a lot of stuff and inspecting a lot of stuff, we got into our home for the next 10 days, a Ford Ranger. It’s pretty impressive, with two tents on top and is fully equipped with a fridge, cutlery, gas stove, sleeping bags, pillows … it was all very exciting. It’s a manual so I can’t drive it, but it is very new and very comfortable, with good air-conditioning. 

We drove around Maun buying supplies for the next few days. Plenty of water, lots of food and a few other things. The town itself is very busy, lots of cabs driving around and lots of people in big cars. The day was warm (30 degrees) and we bought a considerable amount of things before making our way to Audi Camp, just outside of Maun. There we set up our tents and made dinner (well I did). Dinner was fun to make on the gas stove, except it was dark and we don’t have a proper light so I had to carry around a torch and do everything one handed, but soon spaghetti was made and we settled in for the night. 

Tomorrow we drive a few hundred kilometers, drop the car somewhere, and head out on a boat to an island on the Okavango Delta … tonight however I’ll sleep the sound of donkey making it’s weird eeyore (?) noises (donkeys and cows are the only animals seen so far unfortunately).

 (P.S happy birthday Abraham … not that you ever read my blog …)