Tuesday,
25 December 2018
Another
early start today. As much as it had been too short a stay, we had to leave
Victoria Falls as we needed to catch up with our itinerary. We checked out at
05:30 and the cabbie we rode with yesterday arrived at 05:35 and drove us to
Victoria Falls Bus Terminus. It looked deceptively close on the map but we
drove more than seven minutes to get there. We paid USD5 for the cab and asked
the cabbie to help buy tickets for us to Bulawayo. There was only operator
anyway: Extracity Bus. The cabbie bought the tickets, I don’t know how much he
paid for them but we gave him USD10 each.
The
06:00 bus finally left at 06:37 and we drove through
the Zimbabwean countryside. Unlike in Zambia where we passed towns after towns,
the bus stopped practically anywhere. Some stops didn’t look like there was any
civilisation nearby and yet there were people disembarking and embarking. Oh we
did stop at a few big towns which still had commerce despite it being Christmas
Day. And Zimbabwe was so green! Yes, you do see the dry ground that was
thirsting for the rain but otherwise, it was green. And I must say the roads
were mainly good.
I went down twice to find a washroom
and was so shocked to discover a goat in one of the toilet cubicles that I
changed my mind about using it. I don’t know what I would have done if it was a
warthog instead of a goat! The next stop had me running down the bus again and, again, there were no doors on the cubicles, just like some toilets in China. I
went to the furthest cubicle and prayed hard that no one would peek in. Well,
needs must.
We finally arrived at Bulawayo bus
station at 13:40, well, it wasn’t a bus station at all but where some buses
stopped (it would probably qualify more as a bus stop, except that there was no
bus stop sign). We quickly changed buses and boarded J. H. Zikhale Motorways
bus for Francistown. We paid USD10/person again and the conductor told us the
bus was going all the way to Gaborone which was our destination and we could
travel with the bus all the way and pay an extra USD10. Nevertheless, we
decided to stick to our original plan of taking the night train from
Francistown to Gaborone as we could sleep on the train. It was then when we
realised that ‘African time’ applies over there: a 06:30 bus will not leave on
time, a 06:00 bus will depart later and so on. The bus finally left and it
started raining pretty heavily shortly after we left Bulawayo. We reached the
Plumtree border control an hour later and the earlier rain made the temperature
somewhat milder and more tolerable. We had to offload our bags and leave them by
the road. It was here where we chatted with a couple of young Zambian men who
told us they were going camping. Between the two of them, they had one gigantic
suitcase with a broken handle and one large duffel bag.
After clearing border control, we
reloaded our bags and boarded the bus again and got down a few minutes later at
Ramokgwebana Border Post. Again, we had to take down our bags and set them
aside. After clearing passport control, we collected our bags and walked
through the custom. A beautiful Botswanan lady approached us and welcomed us.
It turned out that she was a custom officer (she wasn’t dressed in uniform
though) and asked us to dip our shoes into a small container of water to get
remove any insects that may have clung to our shoe soles. I’m not sure how
effective this was but kept it to myself. Next we had to open our bags for manual inspection before
we were let through. Then we had to walk about 100 metres to the bus.
We reached Francistown after 17:00.
The bus stopped at a car dealership which was next to a pump station and we got
down. After taking our bags, we asked for directions to the train station. A guard at the car dealership discouraged us from taking the train. He said we
had to be careful as we could be robbed on our way to the station. Whoa, I
thought Botswana was the safest countries of the four that we were visiting. I
left HI to talk to him and hurried to the washroom.
We finally decided to continue with the
bus to Gaborone but we now had to pay BWP120/person for our ticket which was more than USD10. So I
paid in USD and received Pula in return. We settled in and tried to rest. It was a
good thing the bus was not full as we got to stretch out in the seats. But the
driver put on very loud music throughout like it was a moving karaoke bus and
it was miraculous if anyone could sleep at all.
We finally reached Gaborone at
midnight. I was surprised that we actually reached it on time considering the
African time that the driver observed.
Wednesday, 26 December 2018
I only booked hotel for one night in
Gaborone and as we were pondering what to do and where to go, the driver told
us we could stay and sleep in the bus. We decided this would be safer – being
in the bus instead of out and about at midnight in a foreign African city – so after
consulting the two Zambian boys, we gratefully accepted the driver’s offer. If
the Zambian boys had decided to leave, we might have left too. Safety in
numbers and all that. I had read that Gaborone is a very safe city but still, I
wasn’t about to go wandering at midnight when I had just arrived. I moved seats
to a three-seater and stretched out. There was a window open to let the air in
– and after a short while, the mosquitoes too. I covered my face with my shawl
and tried to sleep. I must have managed somehow despite the situation and the
noisy buzz of mosquitoes.
When I woke up, it was already light
and consulting my watch, I determined it was just after 05:00. I slowly sat up
and checked that the others were already awake. We stayed in the bus for a
little while before going down. One of the bus staff came and we asked him to
open the luggage compartment for us to get our bags and after getting our bags,
we parted ways with the Zambian boys. A cab arrived disgorging passengers and we
took it to Cresta President Hotel. We arrived at the hotel just after 06:00 and
after paying the cabbie 30 Pula, we went in to the check-in counter. To our
surprise and delight, we were allowed to check in that early (woohoo!) and we
went up to our room gratefully.
We
rested for a while and having showered and freshened up, went out to the Main
Mall behind the hotel. We headed first to the Shell station on the other side
of Main Mall. This is where we were to wait for the bus to our next and final
destination the following morning. After having determined the stop, we went to
find a tour operator but alas, all offices were closed. We walked up and down Main
Mall (it was really just two long parallel blocks of buildings sandwiching a
public rectangle) until we reached Nando’s where HI declared she wanted to sit
down and have breakfast. Oh, the restaurants around Main Mall serve halal food
(except for the pizzeria) and by halal food, I mean halal chicken. Nando’s had
opened but it would only operate at 10:00 so I wandered off alone. It was about
09:30 then and already felt like noon! It was so hot, hot, hot and bright. I
walked along Pula Circle then came to the National Museum and Art Gallery
(alas, also closed although when I read the info board, it was only supposed to
close during Easter, Ascension Day and Christmas Day. I took some pictures
before returning to Nando’s.
At the Main Mall. The locals call Gaborone by its short name ‘Gabs’
Outside the National Museum and Art Gallery
After
that, we went back to the hotel and asked the lady at reception if she could
help contact some places where we could visit. We were told that the Gaborone
Game Reserve was fully booked for the day. The Lion Park contains a theme park,
water park and animal park so we decided it was not a priority and the lady
promised to help us contact Mokolodi Nature Reserve and let us know. I decided
to check out the supermarkets and shops again and went out alone. I bought some
vegetarian pasta from a supermarket before returning to the room.
The
lady at the reception rang our room phone and told us that we could visit
Mokolodi Nature Reserve and the available slot was at 14:00. We would need to
take a cab there and the hotel arranged for a cab and driver who would wait for
us until we finished. It cost almost USD100 for both of us, the bulk being the
cab and driver’s time.
We
rested before leaving the hotel at 13:00. The cabbie came shortly after and led
us to the vehicle and we drove the 20 km or so to Mokolodi. The cabbie told us that
the rich people stayed on the way to the reserve and pointed out some sprawling
properties. We arrived just before 13:30 and went to pay 150 Pula each for our
14:00 game drive tour. I didn’t know it could get hotter but it did.
The
jeep came and we boarded it. We were the only ones on the 14:00 game drive tour
and it took us close to two hours. We saw a lot of animals: female kudu, a
small impala, a scrub hare hopping away, warthogs, giraffes either resting or
eating, groups of zebras, more giraffes, a glimpse of ostriches, Oryx and
impala and waterbucks. We were at first told not to expect too much as it was
the hottest part of the day and the animals would normally be resting then but Alhamdulillah,
we managed to view some so we left feeling very satisfied.
Lake Gwithian (man-made)
We
asked the driver to show us one of the mosques in Gaborone and he obligingly
took us to Masjid Un Noor but a man came out and asked what we were doing there
and did not allow us to take pictures. The cabbie still slowed down outside the
mosque compound to enable us to take pictures, bless him. We reached the hotel
at 16:30.
We ventured out again at 18:30,
thankfully it was no longer as hot and bright then, and walked to Caravela Portuguese Restaurant. To our disappointment, we found that it was closed until
14 January 2019). We turned back and stopped by Brackendene Lodge (we read that
it served halal food) and asked at the restaurant. The cook opened her fridge
and freezer and informed us she could only offer us fish and chips. We were
leaving when the husband-wife owners arrived. The wife saw us and called out
Salam to us so we turned back and chatted with them. They were South Africans
from Cape Town but live in Gaborone. Then they called their daughter Nihahl and
next thing we knew, we found ourselves invited to dinner. We reluctantly
accepted and followed them in their MPV to Caffe Fego. They sent us back to the
hotel and we reached the hotel at 21:30.
Brackendene Lodge. The owners and their daughter
It
had been a long day albeit more relaxing than it had been the preceding few
days and we had an early morning bus the following day so we retired not long
after.
To
be continued
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