2 May Thursday

Lephalale --> Boteti River Camp

Five am the alarm went off. We had an exciting option of sachet Ricofy or Five Roses tea with sachet milk. We filled up with fuel and drove north towards Botswana, with a beautiful striking orange sunrise chasing us on the east. We got to Groblersdrift at 7 am and it was 10 degrees, we were freezing in our flipflops. The border was so quick and easy, the people were friendly and let us through without any vehicle or trailer search and into Botswana we were.

The first thing we both noticed about the country, is the cleanliness and the roads are amazing - there are no potholes!! The first town we stopped at was Palapye where we got some groceries from the Food Lovers Market - not much choice of meat besides chicken necks and and goulash, so we stuck to the only beef boerwors option.

The temperature started warming up by now to 28 degrees and the sky is completely clear and hardly any traffic on the road, we drove for miles and miles with only bush on both sides. Occassionally we saw some goats and cows. The landscape is very flat with patches of Mopani and Acacia.

As soon as we hit Mopipi we started seeing wild horses everywhere and these massive dry pans that just seemed to go on forever. Eventually at around 2 pm we got to Boteti River Camp, just outside the Makgadigadi National Park. We were warmly welcomed by Grace who showed us our campsite. The campsites are each covered in shade cloth which is awesome and the ground kind of looks like a dirty beach, that soft sand - ideal for camping. We set up camp without a problem and immediately got into our cozzies and headed for the pool with an ice cold beer - thanks to Dads car fridge that he very kindly lent us for our trip!

The reception area has a balcony that over looks the Boteti River, however, at the moment the river is very low and you could only see water at the far end of the view. We decided to go for a walk down to the river and we saw two Fish Eagles, a crocodile basking on the bank - luckily the otherside of the river and we walked into some hippo grazing, this was really cool, you really get a feel of how big they are outside the water. We hid under the Acacias (which are everywhere) and watched them for a while before we walked back to camp for a glass of wine and a game of Rummycub - which I won by the way :p

We then got our precooked mince out and boiled pasta on our super cool gas stove and had a delicious meal under the stars. We had such a special evening, the night was still, we sat in shorts and a t shirt, the sky was full of stars.