Botswana and Beyond!
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Into Botswana
July
4 - July 5
The bus ride from Windhoek to Maun, well, they picked us up and
dropped us off, with very little trouble. The only problem we
faced all day long was the fact that we didn't have any real
food with us. So for nine hours and lunch, we ate the worst crackers
in creation, the absolute worst. One box was like bad, generic,
onion crackers, and the other was the packing material used in
Crate and Barrel boxes. I am not kidding. There was a nice British
couple in the bus and a teenage brat who was a white Zimbabwean,
but I'm not sure any country on earth would want to claim her.
But she had a rough life; she was going to school in Windhoek,
and instead of a boarding house, she was living at a Backpacker's
Hostel. Yeah, that's where I want my 17 year old daughter to
learn about life. We celebrated the Fourth (an American holiday
celebrating its independece for those non-USA folks reading)
by going through customs from Namibia into Botswana, hurray!
The Sedea Hotel in Maun, that's where we stayed after our nine hour bus ride. It had a TV, but the DSTV, the Digital Satellite Television, feed was down. Dinner took hours to order and get, and when it did arrive, it was dreadful. The soup, Campbell's Mushroom soup, masquerading as Supreme Vegetable soup, was the best part of the meal. Not saying much, no, not all. I am never going to want to eat out again, ever, once this trip is over. The next day, July 5, I thought the tour with Phakawe Tours would start, but it didn't. So we had a day off, and I am so grateful! We had to phone a taxi and the nice people at Sedea let us do it all by ourselves. Hence Laura ran into many difficulties and finally she reminded them that they live here and not her. They finally helped and we got our taxi.
We finally met up with Sarah at Phakawe after many months of email conversations, and she was nice, and the company was well run. Laura and I walked into town and waved at the people as we walked. The people of Botswana are nice, except for those working at the Sedea Hotel and at the banks. Last year, Miss Universe was from Botswana, yes, that's true, but that was because the government went through and found her while picking out the meanest people in their country to work at the bank. We changed money, too little, and then ate our best meal in Africa, at Hilary's, a German café run by a very Californian-style cook. The food made us forget about the mean people at the bank, but we were soon sad again when the bill came. The Botswana Pula is the strongest currency in Africa, and our money wasn't going as far as it had. I did get my hair cut for 15 Pula, a little under $3, so it still wasn't bad. The barber had a pair of clippers hooked up to a car battery and there wasn't a pair of scissors in sight. I think I was the first white guy he had ever worked on, but his smile drew me in, and Laura helped him determine how to cut the front. Sarah at Phakawe told us to check out the local museum in Maun, and we did, and it was a museum cum arts and crafts display, and we walked out with three of the most beautiful baskets in Africa, at least of the five countries we've seen. Botwana's baskets are known world round aparently. Botswana's economy is doing well, they have diamond mines, they have high-cost low-volume tourism, and their women know how to weave a basket. Yes, they certainly do.
Better than the baskets, though, was the DSTV, and I settled in and watched The Simpsons, the movie Highlander, and then an episode of Star Trek:Voyager.