Long: Surprisingly, after rearranging the car, we were able to fit Damon and Jo into the back of the car with little effort. It really doesn’t look comfortable, but they assure us they have experienced much worse on Namibian public transport (e.g., squeezing 30 people in a minivan). The drive from Windhoek to Maun is paved, but very long, and we have decided to stop along the way to camp. We arrived at the Botswana border around noon and, once again, had absolutely no issues and very little wait. Once in Botswana we stopped in a few towns to find a general store, or restaurant, but found nothing…lunch would have to wait. The drive is fairly boring, the only exception being the large number of livestock that freely roam the sides of the road. Botswana allows farmers to use the sides of the roads for grazing and you must be alert at all times for animals, particularly goats and cattle.
After driving eight hours, all of us were tired and we decided to pull into D’kar, a very small town 250km’s south of Maun, for the night. Our guidebook indicated D’Kar offered “campsites as well as culture and safari tours”. As we are quickly finding out, things change every day in Africa and many of the guidebooks and maps are incorrect. We stopped at the general store to ask for directions to the campground and were informed the camp had been moved 40 km’s away. This is despite the signs in the village that direct you to campsites and other services. We were told we had to ask permission from the “Priest,” Hendrik, in order to camp in, or near, town. When I asked where we could find the Priest, I was told “he just drives around and should drive by shortly”, and so we waited. In the meantime, a group of children from the village made their way over to us and began to dance to the music coming from the general store (Picture below). We showed them the picture we took, which always leads to a lot of laughs and giggles.
Sure enough, after a short wait, Hendrik drove up the road and told us we could camp at a campsite that was currently under development. We followed him back to the main road and then down a windy dirt road to a secluded campground outside of the village. He briefly pointed out a hose that we could use for fresh water, and then headed off. In the brief discussions we had we learned that he is a “Reverend,” not a Priest, and he had been sent to the village nine years ago from South Africa. Our guidebook highlights that much of the Botswanan population has been converted to Christianity over the last century, and a number of missions are spread throughout the country. This was very evident in this case.
With an hour of sunlight left all of us went looking for wood, which was difficult given the dry environment. Damon and I decided to use our ax for the first time. The ax worked well, as we were able to cut down the branches of a sizeable, dead tree; however we both also managed to get numerous sharp thorns stuck in our hands. It took me a day to slowly remove all of them with the end of a corkscrew. After collecting wood we started a fire, cooked a large pot of pasta with meat sauce, and then just relaxed. We learned that Damon is a Jeweler/Artist from Perth, and Jo is a nurse, originally from Adelaide. They will be traveling throughout eastern Africa until November. When we ran out of wood, we remembered that many people still use cow dung for fuel, and so we collected a wheel barrow full of dry cow shit from the area. If you ever need a good fuel, dry cow shit does the trick…it burned wonderfully.
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