Submitted by SafariADV on Sun, 2017-09-24
This morning we left at 7.00am from Johannesburg, our hotel was in the airport area so we are already in the right direction and we are close to the highway we have to take.
We head for Pretoria along a four-lane highway; if it were not for some acacia trees on the road, we would struggle to understand that we are in Africa; we look forward to the landscape becoming a little wilder.
We cross Pretoria and from here on, the road, the N1, becomes two lanes and the traffic disappears; after about a hundred miles on the road we begin to see a bit of real Africa: stalls selling vegetables, carriages towed by mules, women with children on the back, occasionally a car passing by with full volume music, in short that confusion that we enjoy so much and that makes us cheerful.
Arriving at Mokopane, the only town we have found so far, we leave the N1 and turn left and take the N11, that will take us directly to the border with Botswana; from here it is about 130 km but the road is in good condition.
The border post where we are heading is called Martin Drift, or at least this is indicated on the maps, but the road signs do not report it, as we only see the indications for Groblers Bridge we wonder why; so we control where we are on Tracks4Africa and therefore we are confident that we are going in the right direction.
We have never entered Botswana from this side so for us this road is a novelty.
When we finally get to the border, we quickly do the paperwork for leaving South Africa; there is no one, only us and some trucks, but they have a private passage, since they have to clear the goods.
We go back to the car and finally we understand why the signs indicated Groblers Bridge because immediately after customs there is a white concrete bridge over the river Limpopo that marks the natural and political border between South Africa and Botswana.
We arrive to the other side of the river and park near the Botswana Bureau of Customs and Immigration.
We enter and deal with all the formalities to enter the country, we think we have almost finished and can resume almost immediately, but we still miss the entrance fees that Botswana has set up since May 1, 2017.
There is a queue of about twenty people at the door where the payment is made, the queue continues with the African slowness; there is us, two other Italian guys, I believe from Emilia, traveling by bike, a South African who is working for the Khama Rhino Sanctuary, where we are heading, and some truckers from Zambia and Zimbabwe who most likely left from the Durban harbor in South Africa and are returning to their countries of origin with their load.
We lost about an hour and this did not want us because, even though we were holding some margin in time, now we have to run to get at destination before the dark.
From here, Serowe and the Khama Rhino Sanctuary are about 140km away, the gate closes at 7pm, so this is not the problem, the fact is that we have to get there in the light.
Driving in the darkness in Africa is not advisable, as there are no street lights, so you cannot see people and animals on the road or, worse, crossing; so it is always best to avoid it.
At the end we get to the gate at 6pm, we do check-in; we are at campsite no. 8; we walk down a 1.5km long sandy road and we get to our pitch, there is still some light, just enough to understand that the scenery is spectacular, tomorrow we will take a lot of pics.
Tonight we are wiped and we do not want to cook, we covered 650 km and we traveled for 10 hours, almost uninterrupted; so we go to the restaurant of the reserve, we eat a succulent grilled beef steak and then, aboard our off-road, we return to our pitch.
When we turn off the headlights of the car, the only light is that of the moon highlighting the black profile of the baobabs, what a marvel!
We go down, open the roof to take the bed out and we enter the rear passenger's cab, we get ready for the night, and climb up on the bed; what an emotion to sleep here, in these months we have waited so much for this moment, it is not the first time we do camping in Africa, but it is the first time with our car.
Good night!
