BOTSWANA then & now

Travelling and exploring what lies beyond the horizon has been in my DNA for as long as I can remember. These adventures have taken me to many wild and wonderful places on the four continents where I have worked and lived.

Off-roading was an early attraction, as it provided the tool for conquering the great outdoors but I had to wait until 1975 when I could afford my own 4x4 – a 40 Series Toyota Land Cruiser, which I bought ‘out of the box’ when in the Americas.

I’ve often been asked which trip among my many travels across the globe was ‘the most memorable’. This had to be a crossing of the Kalahari in 1970, in a halftonner Toyota Corona bakkie that had no place driving on the roads of the time.

In this two-part article, I talk first about that early trip into Botswana, and then, next month, my experience 50 years later covering much the same route using a capable 4x4 (Mitsubishi Pajero Sport) in what has become a far more civilised country.

Borders & signboards

The story starts on Wednesday the 15th of April 1970 when we crossed into Botswana at the Buitepos/Mamono border post. Scared up from his extended lunch break, a sleepy border official finally appeared and raised the boom. There was no request for visas; only passports and firearms were asked for. After he had registered our 9mm pistols he placed his forefinger into a barrel with a grin on his face. There was no stamp pad so he had to improvise by pouring ink onto a folded newspaper and then did some practising before he finally stamped our passports. “You must report at the Ghanzi police station,” he said, and we left… much relieved and in a hurry.

The British Embassy in Cape Town had refused us visas for Botswana due to alleged cross-border raids at the time. Nevertheless, we embarked upon our safari without any such documents, and 30 days and 7 500 miles later we were back in the Cape without having experienced any problems in this regard.

Prior to this we had crisscrossed the old Southwest Africa and enjoyed every minute of it, and were now ready to tackle the great unknown head-on. But when we arrived at our friend’s farm and told him about the planned tour along the Okavango Delta and further on into Rhodesia, he shook his head and put our disrespect of the Kalahari somewhat into