On The Road In Botswana

And so we drove on in Botswana, some 800 kilometers, on decent if busy roads, from Martin's Drift, stopping for provisions in Francistown, the 2nd largest city, on to Kasane, and the Senyati Safari Lodge there, where we would spend several nights. Among the memorable features: trucks and sand. Botswana is perhaps the most affluent of southern African nations, and there is much traffic, commercial as well as tourist. Big trucks. Big buses too. Much of Botswana lies on the Kalahari, not a desert, technically (mostly woodland), but sandy to the point that even expert drivers get stuck. Sometimes even 4x4's have to be pulled out of the sand. We got stuck twice off the pavement, en route to Senyati, but Howard and Jenny generously advised and/or pushed us out.

Warthogs have right of way

Just over the border into Botswana...many of the trucks here
are 26 wheelers...

This one of particular interest:

Will, when you come to proselytize the trucking industry in
southern Africa next year, you've got to enlist Dung Beetle
Logistics!

Compound, huts

Campground for our 2nd night in Botswana

Other fork...sand

Reception, store

Camp rules

Stay on marked trails; seriously; they came over in the mid-1800s
with the thousands of Indians, indentured laborers, who worked
the sugar cane fields near Durban; many of the Indians stayed...

Another compound; OK, the (relative) wealth is maybe not
well distributed

Alongside the road every now and then

They also have right of way

Free range elephants

This is at a rest area; seriously; one good thing about a motorhome
is you can stop, get up, stretch, walk around, even have a picnic,
and never leave the safety of the vehicle; Vicki reminds me: none
of the rest areas have facilities beyond maybe a table and benches;
it is unclear whether they are for human or animal picnics

The Nata Lodge, in whose campground we spent our third night
in Botswana; really nice place, big pool, lounge, restaurant;
really sandy campsites (pitches)