Maun, Botswana: passing pigs by the pool – Explore Southern Africa – Day 03

The plan for the day was to make it to Maun.

In summary, the previous day, we sat. To sum up the day, that was all activity performed during the previous 24h. Nothing else, nothing more. Despite this, I slept like a rock. So well, that I even thought I was back at home a couple of times when I woke up. Without a doubt, it is amazing how good are for your sleep two straight nights of sleep deprivation.

First thing we did after waking up was pack everything (in the dark). Then, I actually wished I would have remembered to pack it all the previous night. However, there was nothing else I could do at the moment. In any case, we packed everything, took down the campsite and proceeded to have breakfast. Like the previous day, Ir had prepared for us another banquet. There were several types of cereals, milk, yogurt, eggs, jam, fruit… Almost anything you can think of.

They remembered!

Considering that the previous day I had for lunch a beautiful cheese sandwich that I could not eat, I was skeptical about breakfast. This time, fortunately, they remembered to get me soy milk for breakfast. As they did for the rest of the trip. We had an amazing breakfast, slightly bothered by the beetles from the previous night, but uneventful whatsoever.

An instant of WIFI

At that time, it was 6.30 and we were all sitting inside the white elephant ready to head to Maun. All dishes were clean and everything was placed on the back truck. We were ready to roll.

While we were driving towards the entrance of the park to do the check out, we saw another wildebeest, and one wild boar (also known as Pumba). They were just having breakfast by the road.

Once we arrived to the exit gate, we had to stop for about a minute to properly check out. During that time, I had the exact minutes needed to connect to the WiFi and send a message to my family with one “I’m fine”. You see, I told them I would not have lots of access to internet so I would only contact them once a day to let them know that everything was ok. After I got the second check mark from Whasapp, we left. And I lost internet again.

Silver lining: The battery of my phone lasted an average of 5 days. One of the perks of not having internet connection and not using your phone!

Eight hours in a box from hell to Maun

Right after leaving the camping site, our driver, E, stopped the truck. There, by the road, was a whole family of spotted dogs run over. All three of them had been killed through the night. Although sad on itself, this was specially dramatic because this species is about to disappear, mostly because of how they are often killed in roads at night.

Then, we continued. Like during the previous day, the sun got up in the sky quite fast. And the temperature inside the truck got really hot. Really fast. Our drive was supposed to last seven to eight hours in what ended up being one of the warmest days of the trip.

Borders to stop the spread of foot and mouth disease on our way to Maun

Something that we saw often in Botswana was small borders to separate sections of land. According to our guides and the signs there, it was to limit the spread of this disease across large sections of land. It was interesting to observe and not much of a hassle. We had to cross quite a few of them on our way to Maun.

Jwaneng diamond mine

While we were driving to Maun, G got up at some point and pointed to a flat and funny looking mountain far away. Interestingly, it was the biggest diamond open sky mine in the country. G explained to us that a decade ago all money in the country came from tourism. Currently, he said, about 5% of all money produced in the country comes from dealings with diamonds from that mine. Pretty impressive if you ask me.

Bushy bushy next to the Makgadikgadi salt panes in the Kalahari desert

A little bit after that, we stopped next to a traffic sign pointing to the Kalahari desert. In fact, we were next to the Makgadikgadi salt pans. These, now salt pans, were a few thousand years ago a lake larger than Switzerland. So you get an idea of its dimensions. We took some pictures by the sign, we heard some history about the area, went bushy bushy (natural toilets) and soon after that we are again on the road to Maun.

After leaving, a few of us wondered why we were so familiar with the term “Kalahari Desert”. I did think that it may have been because of movies, but, to date, I still do not know.

Arriving to Maun, Botswana, the getaway of Chobe National Park

After a long trip, we made it to Maun. It is the second biggest city in the country and, between us, it is a really small town. Later, we made it to the camping site for the night. Ir prepared a small buffet for DIY lunch and we enjoyed some sandwiches. At that point, we were all sweaty and stinky, so when they told us that we had a pool… The group morale went quite high.

After the frugal lunch, we mounted the tents, all of us trying to get underneath the few shadow spots in the camp. Which were not many. Later, we headed back to the White Elephant and went to Maun to buy snacks for the following two days as well as water. While during all the trip we had water stored in the back of the truck, since we were to be in the middle of nowhere in the Okavango Delta, we needed to carry our own water. They recommended us to go with up to 10L per head. And we were so good at it that we finished with the water bottles of three independent supermarkets!

First scam?

Next to one of these supermarkets, there was a bureau of change. Some people exchanged their currency there, while some of us went to the ATM and just got some pulas. Once we were finished, we all sat by the supermarket and wait to be picked up. Interestingly, it was at that time when they tried to scam us for the first time. With the typical “donation for a fundraiser” one. A very insistent guy who could not speak. Funny how I have seen the same scam in three different continents: Maun, Venice and Thailand!

The alcohol stop in Maun

Later, a little bit after this situation happened, E and Ir came to pick us up to take us back to the camp. Next to the camping, we made the first (of many) alcohol stops. The truck dropped us by a liquor store that looked exactly like jail. Unfortunately, all alcohol was behind solid iron bars and you could only point to it and someone would give it to you. In my opinion, it all looked very weird and suspicious. Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on how you look at it, they did not have wine and I don’t like spirits or beer… So I did not get anything.

The pool, finally chilling in Botswana

Once we left the liquor store and made it back to the camp, most of us, went to the pool. The couple of Americans J &T as well as A, the other American girl, did not bring any swimsuit and so they decided to stay behind and chat. Which, by the way, was also a nice option, although much warmer.

The pool was not big. There were a couple of stairs, and dozens of dead bugs floating. And it was perfection. Although the water was actually very cold, the 40ºC (104ºF) outside made the contrast fantastic. It was the first time during the whole trip that I was not feeling too hot since we started the trip.

Yes, I know it had been only a couple of days, but it felt like a couple of very hot and long days.

An afternoon in Maun passing the the pigs

Once we were all cold and fresh, we ended up gathering together in one of the tables with some drinks. Some of us discussed that we had some cards, and then Scottish R showed us the pigs. By all means, a very simple but fun game. This ridiculously simple game consists on throwing two pigs and depending on how they stand on the table you win more or less points. Even though we were all quite uninterested in the beginning, by the end of it, we were 12 people screaming at the table uhhhh, almoooost, yeaaaah. Honestly, I know we were the main entertainment of the pool that evening, but we had some fun. So, who cares?

Dinner, plan and bed

After going back and have a quick shower to get the chlorine off our skins, we headed back to the truck. During the time that we chilled by the pool, Ir had prepared a nice pumpkin soup (that I could not eat) and pasta Bolognese.Although I had a side salad to compensate for the soup, so it was all fantastic.

While our mouths were full, G started with what was going to be one of our most sacred rituals: telling us the plan for following day. Of course, followed by N asking about whether the following morning there would be coffee.

After finishing with dinner and doing the dishes, we stayed by the fire chatting for a bit. Soon later, at around 9 pm, we were all off to sleep.

Finally, thank you for reading up until here of this travel journal! In case you want to read more, Here you can find all the entries included for the trip. Additionally, here you have the previous one. In addition, if you are enjoying this series, check out the next, because, I promise you, it will be one of the best of the trip.

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