This might not make much sense if you haven’t already read parts 1 and 2.  Well… part 2, at least.

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It occurred to me at the time – I actually had the thought – that the situation we were in reminded me of one of those crazy African travel blog entries I’d read online.  Dropped off in the middle of nowhere, not really knowing where we were, where we were going, or how we were going to get there.  I had the sense that we were in the middle of a great story, but at the time all I wanted to know was how it was going to end.

A large man in a military uniform was the last person to step off the bus.  Because he stopped to purchase something from the roadside stand, he was soon the only other passenger still around.  As he passed by us on the way down the road, Oksana asked if he knew where the river was.

He gestured across the countryside, “I’m not sure,” he said. “But I think it’s three or four kilometers that way.”  His accent was thick, but perfectly understandable.

Both Oksana and I looked the way he indicated.  It looked no different than any other direction.

“Do you… um,” I began. “Do you know how we can get there?”

“I would wave at the first car you see,” he replied.  Oksana and I looked up and down the dirt road.  There were no cars.
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I wanted to write a story about what it was like to ride a bus cross-country in Africa.  I have two such stories that took place in Botswana, each interesting for different reasons.  This is the first. If some of it sounds familiar, it’s because I wrote briefly about this ride in my Thoughts on Botswana post.

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South Africa was a good introduction to the continent for us.  While still very different from what we were used to in South America, it wasn’t so strange that we had trouble getting around.  We traveled around there for a month before moving on.

On our last few days in Pretoria, Oksana met a couple Canadian college students in the shared kitchen of our hostel.  They were volunteering in Gaborone, the capital of Botswana, and had come down for the weekend to check out South Africa.  Oksana mentioned Botswana was next on our list and before we knew it, we had invitations to stay with them.  They departed ahead of us, but a few days later we hopped on a bus and joined them in Gabs.

The South African bus company we selected to get us there was both professional and efficient.  We made the 7-hour trip in surprising comfort.  It wasn’t until we traveled inside Botswana that we found the African busses I expected…and feared.

We spent just a couple days in the capital; our real plans for Botswana involved the Okavango Delta, further to the north.  Our new friends worked during the day, so we spent our time sightseeing and seeking out a prescription for anti-malarial medication.  In the evenings, we reconvened for dinner back at the dormitory house.

On our last day in Gaborone, we followed directions to the bus rank, to see about getting tickets to Maun.  Even after an explanation of what to expect, we were not prepared for what we found.

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