Botswana: Entering Botswana and on to Kang

Thursday 19th February 2009  

Molly cooked us a big breakfast and also managed to change some rand into Pula (Botswana currency) so we could pay the P50 car fee on arrival. She also had immigration forms and even completed them for us. We then departed Springbokpan at 9am. McCarthy’s Rest is the border crossing into Botswana and it was only a 6 km drive. It is a quiet border post and formalities were taken care of very quickly by the South African officials, and a few hundred metres further on, the Botswana immigration was equally speedy and extremely welcoming. It took 20 minutes to complete all formalities, for both countries. One is reminded of the AIDS epidemic by signs such as ‘do you know your sexual network’ and also the free supply of condoms at immigration booths. After entering Botswana, we drove to the nearest town of Tshabong, about 10kms away. There, we fuelled up and attempted to get some local currency. Barclays is the only bank in town. We went to the ATM machine and I was unlucky with both my UK & Irish cards. John however had a visa debit card and it happily poured out money to him. Meanwhile, I am in the bank attempting to change sterling notes but they tell me they haven’t got the current exchange rate and can I do it at the next big town. That’s Maun as far as I can see and it must be almost 1000kms away, at the top of the country! We were travelling the west side of the country, away from Gabarone & Francistown. Never fear however, if there’s an Indian shopkeeper in town your troubles are over and I quickly got £200 changed at a very favourable rate. I also got a sim card & I guess he was on commission because he sold me the newest provider but it looks like it only works in certain areas. Still, for £2 it’s hard to worry so at our night stopping town of Kang, I managed to purchase a different provider and it seems fine. Now we are ready for the road and set off for Kang, a distance of 540 kms. We could see on the map that it was possible to take a short cut to avoid going through the town of Sekoma. This involved leaving the tarred surface behind and taking to a gravel road. As it turned out it reduced our trip distance to 420 kms, a saving of 120kms. The road was very dusty and we left huge clouds of dust in our wake. Overall it was quite good and it was not difficult motoring except for the occasional gravel build up that would have you slipping and sliding a little. Along the way, we came across an accident site where a small bakkie (pick up truck) had left the road and rolled. There was another bakkie there with quite a few men and they flagged us down. I asked if everyone was ok as the cab was smashed up a bit. One of the men said they'd been taken to hospital and asked if we had a wheel winch to take off the spare tyre. As seasoned tyre repair men we quickly cottoned on to the fact that all these guys wanted to do was to strip the vehicle in the absence of the rightful owner. We declined to help, proving we are selective in our good deeds. We stopped for our first roadside snack and used our folding table for the first time.

From Dust and Diesel

 We made two cheese and onion rolls, finally starting to use some of the provisions we bought in Kathu, the town in SA where we had our wiring job done. By the end of this trip, we will have become experts at the cheese & onion roll. Fully recharged, we headed for Kang. It’s a bit of a one horse town and we quickly found accommodation for the night at Kang Lodge, a small complex by the side of the main A3. Trucks were passing by all night but after a dinner at Echo lodge nearby, we were not really disturbed until early morning.