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the end of the road

Overlanding across Afica in our Land Rover Defender: South Africa 2

Andy Lees
2006-05-16 15:28:57

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kalagadi national park - 13th may

one more early start in the kalagadi national park. but this time we weren't hoping for lions, leopards or cheetahs. we weren't even going looking for game. we had a border to cross. the last one of all.

in reality it wasn't one border but two, or was it three. our predicament had become frustratingly confused and i wasn't entirely convinced about our chances of sorting it out. though we had no choice but to try.

to recap, the day before we'd been in botswana. we'd been persuaded to abandon our chosen route in favour of a more scenic route which followed a dry river bed between the sand dunes, a route which traced the botswana / south africa border. however, at the point we should have crossed we weren't able to get a stamp in our carnet, and were forced to continue to the next border, twee riverine, in the kalagadi park. we still didn't have a proper stamp, but it looked like all we were going to get. having been advised against using the badly surfaced road on the sa side of the border we would return back along the river bed on the botswana side and cross at the same place we'd tried the previous day. on top of this agro, we'd stayed on the sa side of the border, but hadn't stamped out of botswana. the border guards had been relaxed the day before, assuring us that it would be the easiest way, and our eagerness to end the day's driving had lowered our guard and we belived them. now our paperwork was in a mess and we had three borders to cross, as well as having to re-trace our route - which i hate.

step one - getting out of sa. easy. a good start.

step two - getting back into botswana. not the same guard as the day before. not good. several conversations, some waking people up (it was dawn), some misunderstandings and a bit of suspicion but we made it through.

step three - back into sa. this really was ...