The giant feet of Matsieng

According to our plans we leave Durban at the end of April by Baz-Bus and arrive the same evening in cold and rainy Pretoria. In three days we cycle from South Africa's capital to Botswana, through the savannah that has become so familiar to us, and enjoy the rich wildlife.
Especially the many coloured birds make cycling here a special treat. At the 27th of April we arrive in Botswana, at border post Skilpadshek. Here it's ten degrees warmer than in Pretoria; entering Botswana the promise of cloudless winters is being kept right away.
We start to feel at home. Easily I convince the immigration officer that we need a visa for ninety days instead of the regular thirty. And no, our bicycles don't have a registration number.

On the way from Lobatse to Gaborone we cycle next to endless fences, behind which cows and goats devour dry grass and the last green leaves of the season. Secretly we slip through an open gate and find a lovely place for the tent, in the shade of an acacia's large canopy. Making a fireplace I find a scorpion under a stone; after taking a picture we eliminate the 'innocent' animal, to prevent a repetition of my painful, first night in South Africa.

Botswana is a young country; when we were born it did not yet exist, because only 38 years ago independence was declared. Before, it was an area inhabited by several tribes, later on it became a British protectorate. For a country the size of France it has remarkably few inhabitants: 1.8 million people, divided by over ten tribes, of which the Batswana is the largest. Since we don't carry a travel guide full of info with us anymore, we have very limited knowledge about the new countries we enter. Botswana is the summit of this sweet oblivion; we know almost nothing about it (until we walk into a tourist office).

The fresh and new capital of Gaborone (Gabs for insiders) exists for kilometres on end of new, very expensive office buildings. In between there are houses that vary from shack to royal palace. In the centre there are mainly brand new offices and ministerial departments, each fighting to be the most modern shaped building.
The only campsite in Gabs Is quite disappointing: no atmosphere, surrounded by roads and railways and still with Italian prices. We realise that Botswana aims at low volume, high quality tourism, which means expensive for us, but still. Determined to leave the city as soon as possible, the next morning we cycle to an internet café to write a message to family and friends. Here we have a surprisingly nice encounter with Jose Gomez, an Angolan man of Portuguese descent who lives in South Africa and works in Botswana. That sounds cool. He hears our story and invites us to stay at his place in exchange for more stories. A great offer we don't want to refuse.

At the Department of Tourism a high official helps us very efficiently by giving lots of info and calling her contacts at the Botswana television. Unfortunately the producers are on the road for the next two days, otherwise a television appearance would have been very probable. Following her advice we have an interview with the national Gazette that afternoon for an article in the paper of May 18th. An hour later we talk to the deputy director of the Department of Wildlife and National Parks, mister Jan Broekhuis. Indeed, he is Dutch! We propose to promote Botswana and the national parks on our website and in articles in travel magazines. He reacts positive at our proposal and in exchange grants us free entrance permits for the Chobe and Moremi National Parks.

Friday evening we move in with Jose. His family lives in Joburg, so for him our staying for the weekend is a welcome distraction. And for us, well, it's always a marvellous experience to be in a real stone house and sleep in a real bed. Jose works for Debswana: the biggest diamond mining company in the world, a joint venture between De Beers from South Africa and the Botswana government. Jose is a technical designer of building and mining facilities.
Only twenty years ago Botswana developed her diamond mining industry, which brought prosperity to the country. Before the diamonds, tar roads were almost non-existing and cattle farming generated 95% of the national income.

Our weekend with Jose is fabulous. Sitting with our buttocks on the luxury seats of his car, we drive to all the places of interest in the vicinity of Gabs: the Livingstone cave, the Bushmen's rockpaintings, the Livingstone tree, the Gaborone Game Reserve, the ruins of Livingstone's first missionary and an aloe-forest. In his first years of travelling Livingstone was 'just' a doctor and a missionary; later the Africa virus got to him and exploring this rough continent became his mission in life. By sleeping the night in a 'ghost cave' he proved to the locals that there were no evil spirits in the place. And under the famous tree, a big old wild fig tree, he performed his daily clinic, school and church services.

A few kilometres from Rasesa we find the caves and the footprints of Matsieng. According to the legend Matsieng, at the dawn of time, led his people from the darkness of the caves to explore the outside world. Matsieng, his people and all animals marched out into the daylight to find a beautiful shining land that God had given them.

Walking between dozens of flying bee-eaters we look at the now water filled caves. In the hard rock bottom next to the hole in the ground footprints are visible. The footprints of Matsieng, it looks like size 14 or even bigger, and with six toes instead of five. For the followers of the in black Africa very popular Zion Christian Church this is a holy place, from where their forefathers came on earth. They consider the water of the caves as being holy and drink it when they visit the place, like the Catholic believers gulp down the spiritual water from the wells of Lourdes in France.

We look at the brown-greenish water, in which big beetles float and frogs lustily swim around, and decide not to join the ZCC yet. Next weeks we are going to cycle a mere 1.700 kilometres through the Kalahari Desert.

We have to be fit and healthy.