Maun

Botswana
March 5th- 20th , 2009

Heading for the Metropolitan of Maun we were pleasantly surprised. It has a small town atmosphere full of African beauty. The people are so lovely with complexions the perfect combination of black and reddish brown, easy smiles with glowing teeth full of laughter and always beautifully dressed with style alternating between traditional and western. The town has a completely safe feel absent from curious or watching eyes and feels so comfortable.

Exploring the centre we became regulars for the beef stew at the local taxi rank take away restaurant. Fourteen pula (two dollars) would fill us with a gorgeous melt in your mouth stew and fat cakes, a non-sweetened savoury doughnut (perfect for Canadians and so similar to Tannie Bessie’s vetkoek- of course not quite as good). For two pula fifty (fifty cents) we enjoyed numerous meat pies which were essentially a large fat cake filled with a gravy based mince. Gorgeous. We quickly became addicts and for several days lived almost entirely off them. The stalls were interesting too with containers of spice sold by the cup, a second hand shoe store selling high-top trainers which funnily enough are the latest style in London with the 80’s revamp fashions, and several seamstresses repairing and sewing new creations.

We used this easy going city for our base, going in and out of the unbelievably wonderful National Parks. The parks office also became another one of our hangouts. Laughing with the easy going and incredibly friendly parks office staff was one of our favourite things to do. Hearing about where is best to stay, joking about the rain and mud (‘you came for adventure’), and asking about the staff members was fantastic (one woman especially loved Karel as he was always asking about her pregnancy and joking about the baby).

Nessie also had a few ‘spa’ treatments in Maun. The men and women at Toyota were fantastic. Our air conditioning sprung a leak and needed replacing. As they didn’t have the correct part they sent us to Mike, another business in town who could repair it. We also went to see Longman, a short man in fact, who filled the air-con for us and replaced a relay for our spotlight. Later we had to return to Toyota to replace our brakes which were retired from 20,000 miles of service topped off by an amazing trip to Moremi for a final hurrah. Also (I know even more) a trip back to Mike for a winch repair (a total cost of 9 pula – not even two dollars- it helps having friends in town). And finally another quick trip to Longman where we chatted and even had our photo taken by the local mechanics there.