Northward Bound

South Africa is now behind us.

As I stated briefly in my last post (in which everything I stated was brief), our final days in that country were spent in Johannesburg, great colossus of the South. While not even the capital of its home nation, the city could nevertheless in some ways be considered the capital of the entire continent. I read that something like 10% (or was it more?) of all the commercial activity of Africa--all of Africa--is conducted in Johannesburg. My first impression of the city was one of intimidation (fear, even); this was followed by frustration; and finally, I felt a small amount of appreciation and even a spark of interest. I can't say it's a place I'm terribly excited about returning to (even though I'll have to, as I'm flying out of there in August to head to Indonesia), but it has also garnered some of my respect.

We had to connect in Joburg to get from Nelspruit (in the far northeast of the country, where we had gone to see Kruger National Park) to Gaborone (capital of Botswana, just over its southeastern border with South Africa.) We were planning on waiting out our nine hour between-bus layover entirely in the Joburg bus station, and nearly made it all the way through without incident. As we were collecting our belongings and preparing to board our bus to Botswana, though, I saw that my passport (along with every single other valuable thing I had with me, with the exception of one credit card and a wad of American dollars I'd hidden among my toiletries) was gone. Good thing I noticed it before we got on the bus; I can't imagine what would have happened if I hadn't noticed that my passport was gone until we got to the Botswana border.

While I mourned the loss of my cameras and the thousand or so photos they contained--the entirety of our past month in pictures--Justin called for backup. He had (very, very luckily) been given the phone number of a friend of a friend who was working in Joburg for the summer. He called her up, explained the pickle we were in, and she couldn't possibly have been more helpful--she sent her driver straight to the bus station to get us, and then called the (fantastically fancy) hotel that was putting her company up for the summer, and simply said they had two more "employees" arriving and needed another room charged to the company account. And that was it.

We checked into the hotel, one which we never could have afforded on our own, and immediately drank all the free packets of coffee and hot chocolate in the room, swiped all the mini soaps and shampoos, and began salivating at the thought of continental breakfast (which, by the way, was AMAZING). While getting robbed sucks, at least she helped us do it in style. Many, many thanks to her, a truly generous friend--one of many we've met this trip.

While in some ways South Africa provided me with my most unfortunate travel experiences yet, in other ways, it granted me some of the most affirming ones. We met stranger after stranger who helped us with complete selflessness. Without all these passing kindnesses, we wouldn't have made it across the country nearly so easily, and for them I am abundantly grateful.

But like I said, South Africa is now behind us, and we are covered in the sand and dust of its less-imposing northerly neighbor. We arrived in Gaborone on Tuesday night, and I was expecting the sort of less-developed African city I've experienced elsewhere--crowded, loud, mobbed with people and goats and hawkers and overflowing with a sort of chaos that's both welcoming and unsettling. But in Gaborone, I found little of that. It was dusty, yes, but surprisingly peaceful and orderly, with taxi drivers that actually took no for an answer and street vendors that didn't pop out from behind their wares to follow me down the street or grab my arm. Justin even got surprisingly few shouts of "Konnichiwa!" and "Hey, Jackie Chan!".

We spent one day walking around Gaborone, visiting the eclectic and somewhat moth-eaten (but free!) museum and waiting in interminable lines at every bank in town trying to get my finances sorted out. We also ate some of the best street food we've had yet: a plate piled high with pap (the cornmeal paste), beef, and cabbage for under $2.

The next morning we took the 6am bus and headed to the far northwest of the country to see the legendary Okavango Delta, the vast and impassable floodplain of the Great Rift Valley, from where I am now writing this. We're trying to get a trip in a dugout canoe arranged, starting tomorrow--and perhaps, if we can make it far enough north by boat, we can try to get straight to Namibia from there. More updates soon!!