Hello from Botswana!
We’re here!! After an eleven hour smooth and uneventful
flight with friendly flight attendants and relatively tasty food, we arrived
safely in Johannesburg. We were met by a representative of our car rental
company and taken to their offices just outside Johannesburg. Our new vehicle –
a Land Rover Defender – is ideal for this sort of expedition: huge, rugged and
fitted with bull-bars. It drives like a tank, but at least we feel safe from
all the urban dangers out there! We set off from Johannesburg around 11 am,
stopped for lunch about halfway in Rustenburg, South Africa, saw our first
wildlife along the road (antelope, warthogs, baboons, two elephants but mainly
cattle) and crossed the border into Botswana at dusk. We had no trouble finding
our bed and breakfast in Gaborone and hit the hay after a long day of
traveling.
Today (Wednesday October23rd) we got up relatively early to
have a nice cooked breakfast and get ready for the official Mma Ramotswe tour.
Our tour guide Tim showed up with an absolutely gigantic open-air Land Rover
and drove us all over Gaborone and the surrounding areas.
He taught us a lot about the facts and fictions in the books – apparently a lot of the characters are based on real-life people. We were introduced to Mma Ramotswe’s home on famous Zebra Drive (which is actually called Zebra Way), J.L.B. Matekoni’s garage, Mma Potokwane’s orphanage farm, the church Mma Ramotswe attends – we actually got to see the real Dr. Moffat – and we got to have red bush tea in Mma Ramotswe’s tea corner of the downtown President hotel.
He taught us a lot about the facts and fictions in the books – apparently a lot of the characters are based on real-life people. We were introduced to Mma Ramotswe’s home on famous Zebra Drive (which is actually called Zebra Way), J.L.B. Matekoni’s garage, Mma Potokwane’s orphanage farm, the church Mma Ramotswe attends – we actually got to see the real Dr. Moffat – and we got to have red bush tea in Mma Ramotswe’s tea corner of the downtown President hotel.
Gaborone is also a wonderful city with a short, but
fascinating history as is the country of which it is the capital. Tim the Tour
Guide taught us a lot about this friendly, hospitable country and its people
and five very happy campers returned to their bed and breakfast around 5.30pm.
Dinner has been reserved at the restaurant inside the
Mokolodi Game reserve and as I am writing to you from the terrace of our bed
and breakfast, I need to leave you to get ready! More updates soon as we are
leaving for the Kalahari desert and Khama Rhino Sanctuary tomorrow.
Best wishes to all!
Don
Wow! That is so neat Dad that you can love a book and then go to see the places the author talks about and experience live what we read about in the stories! I love seeing the picture behind your blog out the window of the plane. It looks nice and warm there judging by the shorts. I'm going to share your blog with my students today and show them where you are on our huge wall map. Thanks so much for the info!! Hugs to all of you! Happy Honeymoon to Pete and Marilyn. Enjoy your time together.
ReplyDeleteHi Don and the Botswana Bunch! Really interesting and great photos. All of us at GHP are thinking of you and chatting about your trip. Continue to enjoy and continue to blog! Cheers, Mike
ReplyDeleteHi Dad, Nat, Didier, Pete and Marilyn! My students had such fun using the iPads to look up warthogs and baboons! They couldn't believe you'd actually travel that far for a book! It makes them like their books even more to see how adults make those fictional stories so much a part of their lives and experiences. You should see how my students are reading! I have a few races going on -- they determined this on their own. They are reading 500+ pgs books in two days! It is fun to see. We are heading over to your house this am to water the plants. We are also going to get Grandma Brown and have Halloween pancakes over at Grandma's house this morning. Love you all! Have great fun!
ReplyDeleteCarine & Co