Passover/Easter Weekend

So a group of us had planned to go camping in a game reserve in the Kalahari for Passover/Easter, but after being cancelled at the last minute, plans changed. After searching through my handy dandy Botswana travel book, another volunteer and I booked campsites at a backpackers in the capital.

The beginning of the vacation started by me making an awkward situation even more ridiculous as I climbed into a combi (a van that follows public transportation routes) with my hiking backpack, a tent, a sleeping bag, and a box of wine. Due to the fact that my bag was too big to fit between the seats I was forced to put it in the aisle. But because the bag was so heavy, this meant that each time a person needed to get on the combi I had to stand up on my seat and hoist the bag up so someone could slip through. This happened about 5 times and each time I was met with stares from everyone in the combi. Culturally appropriate? Probably not!

The rest of the weekend went smoothly and we had a great time. We met several new people from South Africa, Portugal, England, and Slovakia. We went on a game drive and saw zebra, giraffe, several impala, baboons, kudu, and even a dung beetle (seriously, the driver stopped the car and backed up at the request of some very excited tourists to take pictures of the beetle). I witnessed a staring competition between a giant pig and a chicken. See picture below. And we ended the weekend with a delicious braii (means “grill” in Arikaans) and is similar to a barbecue in the States. The best parts of dinner were the bacon wrapped chicken and my first experience trying zebra meat (though I felt very guilty about the latter).

The trip finally ended with us at home, but not without experiencing ABBA playing on the bus sound system for half the way. Oh the joys of traveling in Africa!

All in all it was a memorable Passover/Easter.