Ten Hours in Botswana

We woke early this morning, broke our fast, and headed to the JoBerg International Airport. There we caught a prop plane to Gaborone, Botswana. From the air Gaborone does not look so much like a city – more like some buildings and roads mistakenly placed in what is otherwise godforsaken wasteland covered in scrubby foliage (see pic of “airport”). Botswana is sparsely populated – only 1.7 million people in the whole country. And soon it will probably be even more sparsely populated because approximately 680,000 of these people have HIV or AIDS. Yep. That was not a typo. Forty percent. This is not the place to open a singles bar. Or visit one.

Despite these grim statistics (or perhaps because of them?) the school visit was very productive. These kids are pumped about attending university in the USA. After the visit the school’s counselor took us to a couple of shopping locations. I never should have gotten out of the bus. At the first stop I bought all kinds of knick-knacks for people back home – which I now have to lug across the rest of the continent. At the second stop I found a café, bought a beverage, and read my book. The best way to resist temptation is to avoid it.


Fake wildlife outside the airport

Then it was back to the airport for the return flight. The employees there must have thought us eccentric pop-in tourists. As we are preparing to take off there is of course a thunderstorm moving in. This city has been in the middle of a very long drought. Just my luck it breaks now. I hate turbulence.

Re-entering Joberg a funny thing happened. Planes were backed up because of a thunderstorm there as well. The airport bus that transported us from the plane mistakenly took us to the domestic terminal instead of the international due to some glitch. Therefore, no customs procedures. It being after 9pm, many in the group wanted to just go back to the hotel – it was the airline’s mistake, right? However, I pointed out that when leaving South Africa tomorrow, the officials might find it disturbing that we had no re-entry stamp, and that could cause problems. After some bickering, we all trudged to the international terminal to fix things. Good thing we did. It would have been a 3,000 Rand fine if we had not. I am right again. Nyah, nyah, nyah, nyah. Really, I didn’t gloat or say “I told you so” but all my travel-mates owe me beer.