Africa - Part 3 (Maun to Kasane)

It’s our first morning in Botswana, and we’re to pick up our 4X4 and drive the trail through the parks for 6 hours to arrive in the northeastern town of Kasane, where we will spend 3 nights visiting Chobe National Park and Victoria Falls 90 minutes across the border into Zimbabwe. At least…that’s the plan.
We are dropped off at the airport with our baggage to pickup our 4X4 rental, a Nissan X-trail recommended to me by Auto Europe, who I contracted with online. They in turn subcontracted with Budget, so that’s where we headed. Instead of the X-trail, Marcus had a Honda CRV that he vouched would handle the park terrain that we would encounter. He said it had just been in the parks for the past few days by the previous renter. I was slightly skeptical, but reasoning that this man had more knowledge of the area than I, was okay with it. I thought the vehicle had “on demand” 4 wheel drive, as I saw nothing from the driver’s seat that indicated manual engagement for 4 wheel drive operation (No, I didn’t bothered to look underneath). So, we load up and drive to what the map says is the office where we get permits to drive through the parks. We stop at what we think is the area where we will find the office. Radhika gets out and walks around – I wait a bit but then get out and walk in the direction she did. Finding her, we determine there’s no office here. Someone we ask says it’s further down the road, so we load up and drive on, stopping at the next location the office won’t be at! The building looks empty and is being painted and worked on. I walk around but don’t see anything close to what we are looking for. A rudimentary cardboard sign half torn off is stuck on the fence around the perimeter, indicating the office has moved. Ugh! Meanwhile…tick, tick, tick…the day is advancing and it’s now 11am. A woman sits in an official-looking jeep not far from us, so I ask her about the park office we are trying to find. She tells us where it is – luckily it’s not too far. From her clothing, paperwork, what looks like animal traps, and tools, I make out that she’s a researcher of some type. She looks at the CRV and doesn’t convey a lot of confidence – kind of like “You’re gonna take THAT into the park”? Uh-oh moment number one. We make it to the park office, where there are others getting served, as well. We tell them what we want and that we’re driving through the parks to Kasane. “It’s too late for that”. Uh-oh moment number two. “What do you mean too late”, I ask, “I understand it takes 6 hours to go from here to Kasane through the parks”. Again I hear, “It’s too late. Do you have a place to stay inside the park”? Uh-oh moment number three. “No. We have reservations for tonight in Kasane.” We’re told we need proof we are staying inside the park to enter the park. Uh-oh moment number four. Looks like we’ll have to lose our first $300 night for the lodge in Kasane and stay in the park tonight. I’m not a big fan of this idea, but Jen seemed to feel strongly about not going the alternate route, which involved a 6-hour drive on paved roads east from Maun to Nata for 3 hours and then another 3 hours north on a paved road to Kasane. So, we ask if we can get a place in the park. “Probably not at this late notice”. Uh-oh moment number five. Can you check for availability at any of the locations that would be along our route? “No”. We were told we have to drive to another place to get a place to stay. Oh, and this park office closes at 12:45, so you have a little over an hour. Jen asks if they can place a call to them to see if they have availability. “No”. Uh-oh moments 6 thru 8!!!!! By now I am irritated. All the pre-trip work and information I did to make it easier seemed to be a waste of time. It wasted my time as I was doing it and wasting even more valuable time now that we were in the moment. As we were dealing with the questions in the park office, I asked a fairly dirty-looking young guy who was with a group of tourists if he had been in the park. He said he had, and they had been in Savuti recently, which is about halfway to Kasane. He said Savuti is very sandy and tough going, doubted the 6-hour drive time, and asked what we were driving in. I pointed out the window to the CRV, and his expression was much like the female researcher, and may have even said something along the lines of “Yeah, I wouldn’t try taking that in there”. SHIT!!! I’m sick of uh-oh moments! WTF! One of the ladies from the park office looks out the window – imagine the expression of someone looking across a bottomless chasm that’s 8 feet 4 inches wide and they need to jump across that to get away from a man-eating lion, but knowing their best long jump EVER was a wind-aided 8 feet 3 inches. That’s what we kept seeing when we told anyone we were driving that CRV into Moremi. The “Yeah…right…sure you are” look. So, we go to this place to look into a place to stay inside. There’s a guy already inside ranting and raving about the backwards procedures that they are making him follow, and that they won’t take his Euros but gladly accept the lowly American dollar. I agreed with him, but man he was about to pop a vein! Why these departments were not in the same office space, or at least in the same building is a puzzle. So, we find out there’s space in one of the camps. Momentary joy, until I say, “Wait a minute. Is this a tent, lodge, or just a site where we have to provide everything”? Yep, our last uh-oh minute because from that point on I just wanted to hop in the CRV and drive the 6 hours to Kasane across the paved roads. We could still stay on schedule, but we had to leave soon because driving at night was not something I looked forward having to do! We scrambled back to the park office before it closed, getting Chobe Park tickets for the next day. A couple of stops for maps and drinks, a missed turn that quickly turned into a dirt road, a correction, and then we were finally on our way around 1pm.
It was actually nice getting on the relatively smooth road and driving. There were some things of interest along the way, villages, a couple of pissed-off ostriches, weird birds that didn’t quite get out of the way of the vehicles all the time, but mostly it was scrub and construction. Not even much vehicle traffic. The steering wheel being on the right side and driving on the left doesn’t bother me anymore, even with stick. We stopped in Nata for gas, which is ridiculously cheap in Botswana. If the US was still charging that low for gas everyone would still have their Hummers and guzzling SUV’s (remember those?). A drink, snack, and stretch and we were back on the road.
The sun was hanging low, light getting dim, and we weren’t in Kasane. You have to picture a road, and on either side no fence or barrier. We were seeing wart hogs here and there, and who knows what else was out there. During one stretch there was one to two foot tall grass right up to the asphalt edge. Anything could come zipping out and either be road kill or cause us problems. I was not willing to alter the path of the vehicle too dramatically to avoid hitting anything smaller than a medium-sized dog. I figured I would have enough warning with an elephant, zebra, and the like. I did moderately steer around a small antelope that luckily froze in its tracks on the road. I can’t recall if I steered in front or behind it. I just know I didn’t steer over it. Radhika freaked a little when the headlights illuminated it, but breathed a sigh of relief, as I did, when we successfully passed it. After that, I dropped my speed down a bit, as I was sure we were pretty close to Kubu Lodge. Of course we ended up at the Botswana-Zimbabwe border, making a u-turn realizing we were off course. It didn’t take too long to find our bearings and arrive safely at our destination. What a great feeling of relief. Our place was nice, the dinner fantastic, and the shower and bed felt so good. A day of unpleasant, unplanned for adventure, had finally come to a close. Tomorrow, the planned adventure of Chobe National Park will be the order of the day.