Rain is probably worth more than diamonds in Botswana. There are plenty of the diamonds here. But not so much of rain.

It is held in such an esteemed position that the national currency, pula, literally means rain.

So it was with some disbelief that we absorbed all this information while on a game walk in almost torrential downpour. And even more so as I fell asleep to the sound of rain falling on my tent that night.

The pitter-patter was interrupted by distant roars. I could only assume it was a lion.

Other times, it was interrupted by some trumpeting much closer by. It wasn't until morning that we all found the unmistakable footprints carefully stamped around our tents.

"They very rarely would stomp on tents. They just think they're boulders." Mark, our guide, explained.


Somehow, one of these coming within one metre of the "boulder" that I'm in is still a scary thought.

Lodgings for the night was at Elephant Sands, a camp site close to Nata.  On our way here in the afternoon, we got caught speeding at 80km/h in a 60km/h zone. I am not entirely sure how accurate this was as we were not exactly caught by a speed gun. The local Botswana cop shop utilises a simple  a video recorder, one you would record your baby's first steps back in 1988. Perhaps they are very superior in physics equations and can work out the terminal speed, v, very quickly. Nevertheless, Mark talked his way out of a fine.

TIA. This is Africa.

Here's a little confession. That late night at work months ago certainly pushed me into going to Africa, but one of the other inspirations was the HBO/BBC production of "The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency" starring Jill Scott. From the show, my list of priorities were - visit Botswana, feel the heat of the Kalahari, sip red bush tea and learn how to speak in clicks.



I kept on reading the novels while our trusty truck, Kavango, charged towards the Botswana border. I also imagined that Jill Scott would be at the other side with a cup of red bush tea and a mystery to be solved.

Reality was somewhat different. Border crossing in reality involved no friendly gestures of red bush tea, but a hastily concocted plan to get rid of weed Marc and hide the steaks from customs. And elephants. Lots and lots of elephants.

The Weed
Pineapple Express is probably the best movie I can use to describe Marc. He claimed to get offered weed everywhere. Even on his honeymoon. By the time we were about to leave Kruger, his supply had dwindled down to one last joint and we were supposed to get rid of it via any means before we got to the Botswana border.

At the last rest stop before the border, a sudden revelation dawned. We still have that one last joint. Lindi was already eager to get the us moving. But one last joint! What to do!?

Then, a local man walked past Kavango. He asked for a cigarette. Ross, the only smoker on the truck was otherwise occupied at the drop toilet. What to do?!

"The joint! Let's give him that joint!"

And thus we avoided an unappetising stint in a Botswana jail.

The Steaks
Botswana is known for its beef exports and is quite protective of its industry. Smuggling meat products across the border is illegal. However, Botswana also has a much stronger currency (the Pula) in comparison to the South African Rand. So when budgeting for an overland trip, it is good economics to smuggle some steaks.

The trick is to take the steaks out of the fridge at the border (where the customs fellow checks), and hide it in the lockers (where they don't check).

The Elephants in the Room
Botswana is like Texas. Everything is bigger. Even the elephants. When South Africa was going through Apartheid, Botswana was quite rightly worried. The government spent a lot of money to boost the military. The end of Apartheid allowed the army's focus to shift towards poachers, and thus Botswana came to have one of the best anti-poaching programs in the world. Every ten minutes or so in Botswana, you bump into a herd by the side of the road - all still with their tusks intact.

On my way to breakfast this morning, I was greeted by Pumba, one of the many warthogs within the Ilkeley Game Ranch. I cannot imagine a better way to start the day in Africa.


Our guide for the day was a local named Alfred. He often introduced himself with, "Hi, I'm Alfred and your guide for your day inside Kruger. As you can see, I am Chinese."

He stopped himself today mid-sentence when his gaze landed on me. Yes, I heckled him with my silent presence.

Kruger National Park is one of the largest game reserves in Africa. Depending on who you speak to, some will insist that it is bigger than England. The recent joint venture between Kruger NP and the surrounding associated private nature reserves brought down the fences that previously defined the borders, creating an even greater space for all the Simbas and Nhalas to roam. And thus, we were treated to sights of buffaloes, hyenas, and giraffes before we even drove through the gate into Kruger.

We seemed to spot quite a number of the outcasts today - we saw them all in duplicates of buffaloes, wildebeests, elephants, and hippos. They moved in slow and  encumbered steps in search of shelter and water in the intense heat, sometimes finding only thin coverings of bare branches or waterholes mere inches deep. It is a harsh world for the tired, the poor, the huddled masses, the homeless...

I got up at five in the morning to get ready for the start of a 25-day overland trip across Southern Africa. This early rising was no mean feat considering I had only stumbled back into the hostel hours earlier from a night out with Mr Butterfly, a friend from high school who was working in Johannesburg for a few months, and his friend, Drama, who I inadvertently upset and left in a crying heap at the end of the night.

The night was not a complete write-off; we met a short bald man of Afghan-Swiss-Egyptian extraction who kept on buying us rounds of shots because he was tired of hanging out with his "coloured lesbian friends". It took me a while to get used to using the term "coloured" without feeling like I have become Pauline Hanson. But it's okay in South Africa; all the cool kids do it.


By six-thirty, my backpack and camera were on the truck. I never let my camera out of my sight since the airport incident. The Lowepro bag was glued to my hip.

The overland tour group was made of eight people for the leg from Johannesburg to Livingstone in Zambia. This made for very comfortable travel as the truck has a capacity for 24. After three hours together on the truck named "Kavango", our most frequently uttered phrase became "did you get any ice?". Can you possibly expect anything less when half of the group was made up of Australians thirsty for a cold can of Castel beer or Savannah cider?

That initial awkwardness and trepidation about spending 25 days on a truck with strangers was short-lived. Much of it thanks to beers that cost less than $1 a bottle and bladders that couldn't hold six bottles over the three hours between toilet stops. Nothing bonds people more than peeing together on the highway.

We arrived at the game lodge just outside of Kruger by three in the afternoon. No tents for us the first two nights! We were to stay in the luxury of cabins and sleep on real beds! It wasn't until five days later that I really began to appreciate doors that were not opened and closed by zips.


A night game drive in the Thornybush Private Game Reserve that borders Kruger was organised for us in the evening. It was there that my drama with the camera continued. In my very-mildly-professional eyes, I deemed the shots I took to be far too dark.

"Let's crank up the exposure! This is why you have an SLR! Manipulate the lighting!"

And here is an example of the result, as a result of not realising that I had my sunglasses on the entire time. The ostriches looked like they were walking through a nuclear test site.

The game reserve gave me my first taste in seeing all the nature that Africa has to offer. And it was delicious. On a short three hour game drive, I had already ticked off three of the big five games - white rhinos, elephants and buffalos. Surely, lions and leopards were to come the next day inside Kruger.

Top sights of the day

Road-blocked by a family of white rhinos. 

A mere five metres away from a family of cheetahs.

I arrived in Johannesburg in a daze. After a 20-hour long flight from Sydney, I managed to (a) not find my airport pickup, and (b) leave my new camera on a seat at the airport after the excitement of finally finding my airport pickup took hold of me.

"Willy! I left my camera inside the airport!!" I said to Willy, the driver, as we left the terminal building and walked towards the car. He was a small skinny man, and the few teeth he had were as black as his skin.

"You have all bags here," he tried to convince me, obviously not pleased with the fact that I was going to take up more of this time.

"NO! Camera. Bag. Inside. Airport!"

I sprinted back toward the airport again. I sprinted like I never sprinted before. I secretly thought to myself, my legs must look really long right now because I was moving so fast. When I got inside, the airport security guys had just taken my new camera in its new camera bag from where I had left it. I flagged them down and screamed that it was mine. A crowd gathered to watch the commotion.

"Check if everything is in there!" A rugby-sized white man told me.

"Make sure you check!" His wife reaffirmed.

"把包检查一下！不能相信这些黑人警察!" [Check the bag! You can't trust these black cops!]

Out of nowhere came this voice in Chinese. In my daze, I thought my always sensible dad had appeared in an apparition. The voice introduced himself as Frank Cheng, a fifty-something Chinese-South-African who lived in Johannesburg and a prominent member of the local Chinese community. Here we go, I thought to myself, another one of my people fitting the stereotype of feeling superior to anyone darker than them. Little did I realise then that in South Africa, this wasn't a stereotype afflicting just my people. To say that "race" is an interesting issue in South Africa is an understatement. It is a topic that pretends to be above itself and moved on from the Apartheid era but yet still permeates everyday life.

Back to the situation at hand. I was surrounded by black cops who wanted to take a statement from me, white South Africans who yelled for me to check my bag, and a Chinese-South-African who was by then asking where in China my family hailed from. I did my part for international race relations by thanking the black cops for finding my camera bag with everything still inside it, appeased the white South Africans by going through every pocket of the bag, and went through most of the family history with Frank Cheng. It was a happy moment. People of all colours were pleased that this socially-conscious young woman got her camera back, ready for all the happy snapping in Africa. Except for Willy-Few-Teeth, who was impatiently tapping his watch at me.

Text to parents: "Arrived safe. No dramas at all."

It was a cold stormy night. Almost Dickensian; poor working lass of almost-twenty-eight, toiled away late into the night alone in a fluorescent office on the 20th floor of the Rather-Large-Bank.

"I need to get the fuck out of here," I said to myself. It is completely sane to talk to oneself when no one is around.

"I need to have something to look forward to, " I elaborated.

"What did you want to do when you were a little girl?" I asked myself.

"Be a train conductor," myself said to I.

"What else?" I asked again, slightly disappointed at my first response.

"Go to Africa. That's it! I will go to AFRICA!!" And suddenly all was clear. I can shove the spreadsheet I was working on up someone else's arse (I mean, share drive) for a month and escape to the jungles.