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23rd april - 9th may

Overlanding across Afica in our Land Rover Defender: Botswana

Andy Lees
2006-05-16 15:19:02

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kasane - 23rd april

we were glad to be in botswana. glad just to have made it through the border from zimbabwe. we only had about one pound to spare and any unforeseen charges could have put us in serious trouble. but once through, all our worries were over. we made use of the atms and well stocked supermarkets and booked ourselves in for some up-market camping at the chobe safari lodge. the lodge's bar faced the setting sun and the chobe river. booze-cruise and safari boats criss-crossed the waterway, jostling for position before the giant, red circle of sun oozed into the horizon and dragged back its oranges and pinks across the rippling water.

we decided to take a day by the pool, relax, enjoy the location and the facilities. we'd been touring national parks since livingstone, three weeks before, and camping rough for most of that time. we wanted to take a couple of days break before entering chobe, otherwise i don't think we could have fully appreciated its wilderness charms.

but the next day we never made it back to the pool. the land rover needed a bit of servicing and a slow puncture added another task to the list. we have inner tubes in our tyres and i always repair them myself. i reckon the practice is good in case of an emergency situation and i thought i was getting it down to a fine art.

for one frustrating reason or another i ended up taking the tyre on and off six times. in between there was much swearing and throwing of tyre levers around the campsite. fortunately no-one was injured but it wasn't the relaxing day we'd planned.

despite being next to chobe park gate, we were also required to make a telephone reservation for the park, via the head office in maun. this ended up having to be done via the capital gabarone, and was an expensive and frustrating experience which didn't result in us getting the faxed confirmation we'd been promised.

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