Botswana

What does one know about Botswana?

There is a popular Botswanan film "Gods Must Be Crazy", which starts out with somebody throwing an empty Coke bottle out of the window of his airplane, and talks about a bushman who finds this bottle and tries to recycle it. The film also has a sequel.

Botswana and Estonia are the only countries in the world that have blue-black-white on their national flag.

More knowledge gained prior to entering Botswana

• Botswana used to be called Bechuanaland.
• Multi-party democracy has long been the way of government, quite unusual in Africa.
• An important source of income are diamonds.
• High percentage of HIV positive people (30% of the population?).
• A river from the Angola highlands flows into the Kalahari desert (situated in Botswana), forming the largest inland delta in the world — the Okavango Delta.
• In May 2009, the government of Botswana and its representatives (Ministry of Immigration, Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Embassy in Geneva, Embassy in Brussels, Embassy in Stockholm) are confused about if Estonians need a visa to enter Botswana as a tourist. Three of them say that they do, two say that they don't. (The truth is that they don't as of March 2009.) The Embassy in Stockholm (who is mainly in charge of issuing visas to Estonians) claims that Estonians need to apply for a visa in advance and refuses to check with the ministries in Botswana for the possible up-to-date information. I.e. the Botswanan government seems quite unprofessional.
• Very few pages mention Botswana in "State of Africa", apparently no Amin, Bokassa, Nyerere etc. to write about.

Knowledge after a 5-night stay in Botswana

• Weird electricity socket is used, which my "multi adapter" does not support. (The same type is also used in Namibia and RSA.)
• Some tree (with little purple flowers) stinks like crazy.
• Empty. Some areas resemble the Hungarian puszta. Botswana has the population of Estonia, but is 10x bigger in area.
• Delta starts with an autumny forest. Islands are dotted with mopani trees, termite hills, and aardvark holes, and are surrounded by palm trees.
• Delta guides not very talkative and have never seen an aardvark (one has seen a dead one though).
• Seems much richer than East Africa. Better roads and houses, although many mud houses still, some reinforced with soda cans.
• Kasane-Maun road, makes a 2x longer detour, going through Nata. The direct road goes through the Chobe NP and is only suitable for 4WD.
• Local people often speak English to each other.
• Lots of elephants in Chobe.
• The CB Stores sales lady and the Sedia hotel receptionist now know about the colors of the Estonian flag.
• Local beer: Hansa pilsner.
• Many roadblocks set up to prevent the spreading of the foot and mouth decease.
• Animals: horses (probably Botswana doesn't have tsetse flies); donkeys; long-eared goats. All the large farm animals are running around (often in the middle of the road) without being herded.
• Roadside very different compared to East Africa: no ad-painted houses, no charcoal, no roadside vendors.
• Two zebras on the coat-of-arms.
• The local money is called "pula". One USD equals approx 6.4 pula. The front side of the paper money depicts the President, older notes have thus a different picture on them.