Maun to Kasane

Jo and I spent the day in transit. Three hour bus from Maun to Nata and then five hours hitching from Nata to Kasane. Two truckers from Zimbabwe, Webster and Terrance, took us the whole second leg. They were taking 40 tons of food and 30 tons of matches to the Dominican Republic of Congo. Their trucks - built in the early 70s - never exceeded 75 kilometers per hour. They got just two kilometers per liter, and carried 2200 liters of fuel each. Webster and I blasted Conga music throughout much of north eastern Botswana as we casually rolled over the pot holes, and large stretches of unpaved road. Fun to negotiate this stuff in a truck hauling two fully loaded trailers.

In Botswana, it is not uncommon for animals to bring traffic to a complete stop. On the road from Sepupa to Maun, we were often stopped by vast numbers of cows, donkeys, and goats. The grass beside the road is open for all to use for grazing. This is arguably better than Namibia's use of public labour to cut the grass, but is a nuisance in terms of transit times.

On the road from Maun to Kasane we were stopped many times by cows, donkeys, and goats - but also now by elephants, baboons, and wart-hogs. I counted 57 elephants on the drive - most of them just a few meters off the road. At one point, more than 200 baboons stopped us. At another point, Webster said "You can't see that at night!" pointing out the window into the bush. I followed the line of his finger but saw nothing. Then I saw the male elephant barreling out of the bush to charge the truck. That takes balls.

Jo and I are now safely in Kasane, staying just on Botswana's side of the intersection of Zambia, Zimbabwe, Namibia, and Botswana. There is an island shared by all four countries just a few kilometers from here.

Jo is on a tight timeline to return for a semester in Cape Town, so he plans to hitch to Big Falls in Zimbabwe tomorrow morning. If Zambia beats Nigeria tonight in the African Cup quarter finals, then I'll go with him to be in Zambia for the semi-finals. I think it would be fun to see a local crowd. If Nigeria wins, I'll head south into Chobe National Park and then to Victoria Falls later in the week. If I time it right, I may see the rainbow around the full moon caused by the mist of the falls. Mini-epic.