Good preparation is everything
If you are planning a trip to Botswana, you should be prepared for the African spirit at the time of planning. If you think that hotels and camping sites are quite easy to find via one of the well-known online booking portals, you are mistaken. Instead, I’ve been emailing people with funny names like Alaskani, Zaminga and Lekang for about 4 weeks and 2 hours a day. Half English, half Afrikaans of course!
On average I needed about 8 mails, 5 booking forms, various registrations for online credit card payment systems and 12 bars of chocolate for the nerves per accommodation. If you think the beautiful new world makes it easy to pay online by credit card, you’re wrong here too. Either the site is not reachable due to a bad internet connection or it does not work for other reasons. The valuable advice I received from my Botswanan agent, namely simply to try another 30 times, at some point it will already work, did not get me any further.
Instead, I had to use the good old fax and send my credit card data either by e‑mail or by fax across the globe. The data-protection-trained German already has the beads of sweat on his forehead. But in Botswana this seems perfectly normal. Maybe I should send my company’s data protection officer there, then it would stop very quickly.
Since I don’t own a fax machine, of course, I had to use an internet provider who tried to send the fax to the right number about 12 times. Unfortunately I had to determine that said online provider is also not the brightest candle on the cake, because my booking form with all my data including credit card data and the security code were accidentally sent to the Bavarian tax office!
I repeat: The Bavarian tax office! However the online fax service came up with the glorious idea of sending a form for a company called „Xomane Botswana“ to the Bavarian tax office, I will probably not find out in this life.
After 4 long weeks and an almost bald head ripping off my hair, the journey was finally perfect. Of course, the girls planned it! It could have been so nice if I hadn’t received an email about a week before departure with the following content:
Hello, unfortunately we have to inform you that the booked campsite in the national park is no longer accessible. Due to the heavy rainfall the bridge was washed away and this is the only way to get to the campsite.
Yes, thank you very much for the information! Would have been nice to offer me another solution instead of literally leaving me out in the rain. After as much as 5 more mails, a replacement camp was finally found. I hope this isn’t flooded when we arrive. We’ll let ourselves be surprised. As a precaution I prefer to watch 49 YouTube videos on the same evening on how best to cross a river with a jeep.
Unfortunately, this doesn’t really reassure me either, because as I learn, one should always walk the course beforehand to check the water depth and the ground condition. The problem is: Water in Botswana is totally dangerous. All kinds of death traps lurk here, from crocodiles and snakes to nasty and naturally deadly bacteria. So the best thing is to keep my knowledge to myself and send someone else through the river the first time we cross a river.
By the way, our travel group has its premiere this year, because this is the first time that four of us go on holiday. Also present is Veronica, my sister in spirit, ex roommate and future roommate of the firmly planned senior citizen shared flat, her boyfriend Pierre, whom we had to convince for a whole year to do this journey and my always hungry Mirko, who has been dreaming of antelope steak for 3 weeks now.
Next: Welcome to Windhoek