June 30

NICOLE: Today was another day of driving, sleeping, & reading. I probably shouldn’t be the one reporting on today actually, because I was in the back seat all day and way too into my book to really be participating. I did manage to hear tidbits of discussion about what routes to take. Dad would love to take a certain road but there are just areas of Botswana that is strongly recommended you don’t travel unless you have two vehicles. Guess we should have brought another Land Rover. We have decided on a slightly less exciting but smarter way of getting to where we want to be. After packing up camp in a relatively timely fashion, we were on our way towards Serowe. Serowe is pretty famous for being the home village of Seretse Khama, the first president of Botswana. I had read up a little bit on Khama, and the story of him marrying a white English girl, which was entirely unheard of, so it was kind of fun to see his home town, although it was really just another village. We stopped at a little hardware store there to get some oil before we headed out into the middle of nowhere, and boy did we draw the crowds. It’s quite an experience being so aware of your skin color at all times, and having everyone else be so blatantly aware also. Surprisingly enough, Serowe turned out to be out only major stop that day. Right out of Serowe is a rhino sanctuary. I guess rhinos are becoming less and less prominent throughout Africa, so it’s just a safe, fenced in area for them to be. We checked into prices to drive through, but decided we’d rather spend our precious time doing other things when we can really go to a zoo to see rhinos any time. So we drove some more and ended up spending the night somewhere between too little towns called Oropa and Gweta, right before we hit the Ntwetwe Pans. This part of Africa has the most amazing sunrises and sunsets. It’s dry scrublands for as far as you can see, and just as the sun is going down on one side of the horizon, setting the whole horizon aglow with pinks and oranges, this huge, glowing, full moon is coming up on the other side. We’ll bring back some pictures, but they just don’t even come close to doing it justice. We are getting more proficient at setting up camp every day, with everyone having their own little jobs to do. Mine is collecting firewood as soon as we get there, which suits me just fine because I get to walk around all over the place, exploring our new surroundings and getting away from everyone after being with them for a full day in the car, and nobody asks questions.
Nicole