shot shot wena

Have you ever woken up one morning and climbed out of bed without having a clue as to where you would next fall asleep? That’s what passed through my mind this morning as I emerged from our tent at five in the morning. We were in Maun, Botswana and through smarts, grit, luck and money, we were hoping to be in Windhoek, Namibia by the end of the day. 

We all groggily packed up camp at the Old Bridge Backpackers, woke up our taxi driver who had been sleeping in his car and headed to the ‘hitching point’ (the hitchhiking point) just outside of Maun. Hitchhiking, or ‘hiking,’ is definitely something you can do – relatively safely – throughout all of Africa. One reason for this is that very few people own cars and public transportation, although cheap, can often take a very long time. Most public transport vehicles will sit at the bus station or taxi stand until they are completely full. So to save time, and sometimes money, people hike.

But hiking in Africa has a different connotation; you are not going to get a free ride anywhere. Whenever someone stops and offers you a ride, they are expecting to be paid for their services. As such, it is wise to negotiate a price before hoping in the car. Most drivers in Botswana and Namibia are very fare though; they will usually ask for a fee that is comparable to what the cost of public transportation would have been (but as a tourist it is always wise to know what the standard fare rate is, just to make sure you don’t get ripped off).

The first hiking point! Also, in most cases it was harder to accommodate all
our gear than it was to accommodate us!

During our first leg, I took the lead in signaling and negotiating a ride (I think the only reason this happened was because I’ve hiked before, in Malawi). It was kind of cool to feel like the “leader” during this leg of the journey. Especially because so much was unknown and my travel buddies simply trusted that I would make something happen.

After just thirty minutes, I had secured us a ride to Ghanzi in an air conditioned SUV for P40 less than what the bus would have cost us! At this point, we were all in pretty high spirits. When we got to Ghanzi though, things slowed down a bit. Again, we got ourselves to the ‘hitching point’ and spent two hours standing in the hot sun trying to snag a ride to the border crossing at Mamuno.

Despite the growing heat and our seemingly futile efforts, we all remained in good spirits. I enjoyed just surveying the scene – laughing at the kids playing across the street, talking to a few curious passers-by and watching animals milling about on the road. Throughout Botswana we have seen countless herds of cattle, goats and donkeys roaming freely. These animals often congregate near or on roads. When this happens, all passing vehicles have to slow down and ride the horn until they have passed the animals. If you steal or kill one of these animals, you could end up spending the rest of your life in prison. 

The one rough part about hiking across Botswana is the sun; it burns. All of us kept reapplying sunscreen, but within minutes it just seemed to melt off. Luckily relief came! A little after noon a bus that was heading to the border pulled over and informed us that even though there was only standing room available, we could climb on board (all buses have signs that read “Sitting Capcity: #” and then “Standing Capacity: #). We eagerly accepted and became excited at the prospect of entering Namibia in a few hours.

The bus ride reminded me a lot of the bus ride that I had taken with Matt, Mel, Bryan, Katie and Bilas in Malawi; it was hot and crowded, but the music that was playing was fantastic. I wish I knew what had been playing and I definitely thought about asking the bus driver if I could buy the CD that was playing.

During the last hour of our trip the bus finally started to clear
out and we got seats. We all promptly passed out...

I also had an interesting thought on the bus… as I looked around at my fellow passengers and their luggage I realized that the packs that each of us were carrying probably contained more things than most people in southern Africa own. I’m also willing to be that our packs, their contents and our gear cost more than most people earn in a year. This was definitely a bit of an “hmmm…” moment for me. But one thing that continues to act as a testament to many Africans that I have encountered is that even though people do not have money, even though people do not have many belongings, and even though people do not have the best living conditions, they have all made the best of their life and are happy.

Four hours after we boarded the bus, it arrived at Mamuno (which isn’t even a town – it is just the name of the border crossing) and we climbed off. We strapped on our packs and did something I have never done before: we crossed a border on foot. It was kind of funny actually; after crossing through Botswana immigration, we had to walk 500 meters to the Namibian border. We all started joking that we were in no man’s land and wondered what would happen to us if we committed a crime in this no man’s land.

Crossing the border.

On our walk between the two countries, a gentleman in a pick-up truck pulled over and offered us a ride all the way to Windhoek! After a quick conference together, we jumped at the idea. We had done it! We had secured the last leg of our journey to Windhoek.

We all squeezed into the back of his covered truck along with a mom and her two children and reflected on our journey. Most people in Maun had recommended that we travel to Windhoek over two days, but we were successfully completing the journey in just one day!

Podge and I!

Our group made one final stop before arriving in Windhoek. The gentleman that picked us up was from Gobabis and he had to do a few errands in town before heading on to Windhoek. But while he was doing his errands he let us stay in his one bedroom guesthouse, which was pretty sweet.

He told us that he would only need an hour or so, but two-and-a-half hours later we were still in his little guesthouse thing. None of us were worried though. We were all so cracked out from the lack of sleep, too much sun and pure happiness that we didn’t really care. And as we had done for most of our trip, we spent our time talking to and learning about each other. And during this time we came up with our team name. A word that we had all been using throughout our trip up to this point was, “wena,” which means friend/ pal in Tswana. When making fun of each other we would say, “ah ah wena.” When saying thank you it was always, “thanks wena.” And just for fun we had, “sharp sharp wena.” After a particularly ludacris story from Trevor, followed by the creation of a monster on my end (Trevor, Katie and Podge, we still have to make the DOJ), we stumbled upon what would become our team name: Team Shot Shot Wena.

When our hospitable driver finally did return, we climbed back into the pick up truck and settled in for the last leg of our journey.  We shared a victory moment together (a group hug and a GRS handshake) and entered Windhoek in style.

An exhausted T and I sleeping during the last leg of our journey.