Chicken? Live or cooked?

One thing that I would highly recommend to anyone coming to Africa is catching alocal bus. You arrive at the bus station which is the size of a few football fields with hundreds of combis,thousands of people and dozens of large buses. There are rickety stalls everywhere, and people walking around selling anything you could want. You wind your way through the maze that all the locals seem to understand the order of and point you to the bus that is going your way. On our first bus trip we had arrived in a taxi and when our driver identified the correct bus someone came out grabbed Jason's bag and loaded it on for him. I was trying to keep track of the bag, the bus and Jason (who was waiting for change from the driver). We were soon seated on the bus as dozens of people squeezed up and down the aisle selling food,drinks,sim cards, bags,wallets, DVDs,belts, lollies etc. Not sure if we were supposed to buy a ticket before we left I asked one of these sellers...however he misheard me thinking I wanted to buy a chicken! That was fine with him, did I want a live one or cooked with chips??

We both enjoy the bus stops where food and drink appear at your window. And watching a family of four squeeze into two seats together. We have made it as far as Maun in Botswana, and tomorrow we will be doing a mokoro trip into the Okavango Delta. We spent a lovely couple of nights camping in Francistown, and are now staying in a beautiful campsite beside the river. There is a pool which we plan to enjoy this afternoon, and the showers are the best we've had yet in Africa (open air showers and all).

We have also now experienced our first African border crossing, which went quickly and easily. We asked one of the locals on the bus if there was somewhere to change money at the border,and he then took us under his wing showing us where to go and what to do. Everyone piled off the bus and into South African customs who stamped us out. We then walked about 200 metres to no mans land where there is a currency exchange booth. We took the last of their Pula before heading anouth 300 metres to Botswanan customs. And that was that. Easy and simple.... here's hoping they're all that easy. Of course yesterday the bus got stopped at a checkpoint where they were very interested in what our anti-malarials were...and they only found one box,not the other 8! Luckily once they saw our Australian passports they stopped searching and waved us on. The tourist buses we saw were just waved through the checkpoint.

That's all for now, sorry still no photos...maybe in a few more weeks.