I made Kevin stop at the first Engen that came along and quickly discovered that we'd stopped a few kms too far, having left the spotless bathrooms behind at the border. With the cracked plastic toilet seat, sticky floor, missing toiletpaper rolls, and empty soap dispensers, I almost felt back at home in South Africa. They also charge for their plastic bags here like they do back home, a practice I forgot about while in Namibia.
It's weird how quickly things can change. The signs warning of antelope crossing the road now order you to keep an eye out for cattle. The grazing warthogs have been replaced by herds of goats, and the fences lining the farms along the highway have disappeared. Luckily, we don't need to take any dirt roads while we're here because we've passed a few and I don't think Kev has enough 4x4 experience to take them on just yet. Despite the warnings we'd received from numerous sources, we found the dusty Namibian roads to be in better condition than some South African tar roads. Kev even joked that we might be able to push this Hilux to 160 on the endless, long, straight stretches (but don't worry, dad, we only did it on the tarred roads). Cellular reception continues to come and go in patches, as it has been doing since we left South Africa. I hope we'll find signal in Kang, where we're stopping for the night.
We've got another 150km to go, and it's only 3 in the afternoon (we've lost an hour, running on South African time again), so we're making much better time than expected, even though Kev's driving more carefully to avoid anymore road kills. Now I feel even more guilty about missing breakfast this morning, considering how eager the bored waiter was to see us. I doubt there will be much waiting for us at Kang, and at this rate we're going to arrive quite early. Even the scenery has become less interesting, something we didn't experience in Namibia where we even travelled through pretty mountain passes around Windhoek (so much nicer than the drive between Pretoria and Joburg). Botswana is actually one of my favourite African countries, so it's a pity that we're clipping a rather uninteresting bit. Kev's never been here before and is unimpressed so far as it looks a lot like the Northern Province. I'll have to bring him back sometime to prove it's worth visiting.
I must confess, though, that I think Namibia's become my new favourite. But maybe service will prove to be slightly speedier here. We can only hope.
