This will be, baring major catastrophe, our last night in Botswana. We’re camped at a ‘highly recommended’ campground ‘behind the railroad station’ (which sounds like an earplug recipe) in the town of Palapye. No matter, it can’t be noisier than last night. Our tent backed up to the village and it’s attendant noises. We didn’t mind the late afternoon and early morning comings and goings of the school kids their excitement and energy was refreshing, nor the African music into the evening. Even the bleating of the goats and the tinkling of their bells was a natural sound. But the village had scores of dogs who barked throughout the night in counterpoint to the braying of the donkeys. Cars continued to arrive and depart until the wee hours both in the village and in camp. Then as if on command from a conductor offstage, a chorus of roosters chimed in as the moon rose, not to be heard again until 5:00am.
We drove 650 kilometers today at 120+kph into a strong wind. Much of the drive was on the edge of the Kalahari. This is a unique place where the flooded Okavanga Delta simply disappears into the desert.Driving into the wind forced us to once again buy gas, depleting our Botswanan Pula supply. South African Rand are sometimes accepted but the rate varies and just because a town shows up on the map doesn’t mean it has a petrol station – or unleaded. So we fill up when we can, spend the extra Pula we have left and head out to civilization such as South Africa affords – land of the Rand.
