It all started in Cambodia when I met a Polish lady named Kinga during an unplanned visit to Koh Ta Kiev Island. She is a true backpacker and already had 35 countries under her belt at the of 45! Her next quest would be Africa and that got us chatting. Given my passport was about to expire, I made plans to return to South Africa, but we continued to communicate about a possible month-long trip to explore South Africa’s neighbouring countries.
How would we go about this trip though? Should we rent a fully equipped vehicle for around R1 000 a day? Should we rather do the easy thing and go on an organised safari? Or should we find a travel buddy to share the cost? The latter made the most sense and would give us the freedom to visit places we wanted to see and stay as long as we wanted.
Great, but where does one find such a buddy? Quite by chance, we came across a fellow by the name of Gary, who’d already planned, booked, and paid for exactly such a trip for himself and his late fiancée. He was now seeking someone to accompany him, and a chance post on the Botswana Travel Facebook page brought us together.
Since this was to be Gary’s first overlanding trip, he had been meticulously planning it for two years. He had also accessorised his 4x4 trailer for every possible situation he could think of while across the border in rural Africa. After conversing over social media and then by phone, it was decided that we should meet. The rest, as they say in the classics, is history.
Full steam ahead
In mid-April, we set off from my house in Durban on what would be a 9 000km trip in Gary’s Renault Duster. Our first stop was in Clarens in the Free State, where Kinga got her first taste of South Africa. She walked around the artistic little town, and we took her to Golden Gate, where she saw a zebra for the first time. Her excitement knew no bounds and we realised once
