Day 28 – 31: Khwai to Maun

The wind was blowing like crazy again when we woke up, so we were slow to start. By 09:00 we went to the reception to ask about the roads. We wanted to drive back to Maun via the North and South Gate of Moremi, but apparently, we would then have to pay the park fees.

We thus decided to drive back the same way we came (minus getting stuck in muddy water). First however we drove along the Khwai river again. We saw a giraffe drinking water in its signature awkward wide legged stance. Further we saw plenty more elephants, zebra, rooibok and water bucks. We also drove by the giraffe carcass again and caught 5 crocodiles feasting on the rotting meat.

We exited Khwai via the cut road and then back on the transit road to Mababe and Maun. And so, our visit to Botswana’s wild life parks ended without seeing any lions. We did however see plenty of other amazing things and now we have a bigger incentive to come back again. It may sound like we were only after the lions, but it is more like an inside joke as Hugo said we’re guaranteed to see lions after reading all the trip reports of people spotting lions everywhere they go.

They’ve made some progress on the road in two days with one section of a few hundred meters being graded.

In Maun we checked in at the Sedia Hotel again. The next day we mostly worked again and Jaco organised his flight back to Cape Town. On the third day when we wanted to take Jaco to the airport the Hilux just didn’t want to start. Time was running out, so we grabbed his bags and walked to the road where we flagged down a taxi within a few seconds. The ride to the airport was surprisingly only 5 Pula per person. Jaco checked his bags in and then we had pizza across the road – not recommended. The time then finally arrived to say goodbye after 30 amazing days on the road together.

After Jaco went through security Hugo and Caro did some shopping and then took a taxi back to the Sedia. Hugo took the battery out of the Hilux and got a lift with the Hotel driver to take the battery to Riley’s Garage to charge it through the night. The next morning Hugo went to fetch the battery with a taxi, again just 5 Pula in each direction. After installing the full battery, the Hilux, however, still wouldn’t start. After turning the key 20 times it finally started. We packed up the tent and drove to town.

We had lunch at The Tshilli Farmstall, we had pizza again which turned out much better than our previous attempt at the airport. Hugo left Caro at the Café and took the Hilux to Taurus Batteries. They immediately diagnosed the problem as being a faulty starter and proceeded to take it out. Over the course of three hours they completely refurbished and even resprayed the starter.

During this time a non-starting Land Rover and its owner were pulled in by another Land Rover. The Land Rover also had a starter problem. The owner is planning a African trip next year so we had plenty to talk about and before we knew it both our starters were back in the vehicles and worked like a dream.

Caro took a taxi back to Sedia as the café closed at 17:00, but Hugo arrived only a few minutes later at the campsite. We spent our last night at Sedia braai’ing a cheap Botswana steak for old time’s sake. This concludes our daily blogging for our Botswana trip. We’re still heading to Namibia and possibly Angola but will switch to some other form of blogging.