After a quick good-bye from Liliana (who had even given us a breakfast-to-go!) we were off to the car rental station. If you think renting a regular car takes time, try getting a 4x4 with a boatload of equipment for a month. It took 90(!) minutes for everything to be finalised, but we learned a ton about the car, from deflating tires for off-road driving to how to set up our rooftop tent and use the built-in fridge. 10am finally saw us on the road and to my big delight our first stop proved to be very fruitful. My hat had been handed in by the taxi driver overnight and we were able to pick it up at the airport!
Finally on the road for good, we were both quite eager to start this part of our trip, so despite a comparitively boring stretch of road we were excitedly planning distances, calculating driving times and getting acquainted with our moving home. We also soaked up the atmosphere outside the car, especially as we got further and further north into Limpopo province. About half-way to the Botswana border we passed through the town of Mokopane, where we got a good view at the non-Johannesburg part of South Africa (and were the only white people in the whole area). We also got used to various things venturing onto the road, humans as well as domestic animals of all types.
Two hours later we crossed our first African border from South Africa into Botswana, something that took much less hassle than we expected and only set us back 14€ (or 140 Botswanian Pula) in fees. Go Botswana border police! The road in Botswana didn't get any more interesting, but setting darkness caused some unwanted excitement, as cattle and goats kept crossing the road and people suddenly appeared out of nowhere. The fact that we didn't know where out camp site was didn't help, but we ended up pulling into a nice, but somewhat deserted bush lodge at about 8pm. After our first 500km, we were happy to give tent, cooking equipment and everything else its first official workout.
The music from the nearby bar had been going until about 5am, but we slept decently enough to be up by 7.30am, but only managed to leave the camp site by about 9.30am. Packing needed to be optimized, we concluded. Our first fuel stop followed (diesel = 0.75€) and then we were off to travel the lenght of Botswana along its Eastern border. This stretch didn't have many highlights, but a group of elephants casually crossing the road about 100m in front of us sure had us excited! After a short trip to the town of Kasane for cash and food, we concluded the day at our second campsite, further practicing packing and unpacking, as well as cooking in the dark. All in all, we thought we were getting better.
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