For the first day in quite a while we intended on leaving this morning and we actually did! When we woke up we determined that I was feeling well enough that we could drive today, so we packed the car and had one last email session so Jenny could look at the suggestions from friends pertaining to her job application letter. The maid very kindly wrapped up some of the chicken from the night before for us to take on the road and we grabbed a couple of drinks and fruit from the pantry. When we finished preparing ourselves for the trip we bid the staff farewell and got in the car to drive into town.
We told Karin and Kingsley that we would stop by their work before we left town to say one last goodbye, and also pay them back the P440 they had lent us. Unfortunately when we arrived we discovered that we had just missed them and they were out running errands. We did the next best thing we could and left them a letter thanking them for their hospitality and included the money that we owed them. We then set the sat nav for Sua Pan, a shocking 602 km away, and got going.
We spent the first 100 km or so of the drive occupied by the thought of the crash we witnessed last week. We figured there was a good chance that the crash hadn't been cleared away (many aren't for some days) and wanted to have another look at it. Disappointingly we couldn't remember exactly how far from Gaborone the crash had happened and so spent the first hour scanning the side of the road. It turns out the crash had been cleaned up and as such there was nothing to look at for the first 100 km, or the remaining 502 km. After many hours of boring driving we arrived in Sua Pan but didn't know how we could contact Simon (who we were staying with) or find his house. We stopped at a petrol station just into town and asked the people working there if they knew or knew where he lived. Neither of the women knew where he lived but they allowed us to use their phone to ring him and find out.
Upon speaking to Simon it became apparent that there had been a small mix up; he knew we were coming but didn't know that we needed a place to stay. None the less he reassured us that he would make a plan and told us where he lived so we could find his house. He was still at work so we drove to the house and parked outside and waited. Simon's wife came outside shortly after we arrived and invited us inside while we waited for him. We met all of the people in the house even though we didn't know who most of the were and had a chat in the lounge. Simon came home shortly after and we talked for a while about exactly what he does at the salt pans. We also found out that the pans produce about 50% of the ash used in making glass for the glass industry in South Africa.
Once we had our friendly introduction to everyone we went for a drive with Simon and his wife to the golf/squash club where we had a look at a golf course unlike any I had ever seen before. This golf course was built entirely on sand with the occasional patch of grass. The greens (or in this case the 'browns' ) were made by applying a small amount of oil to the sand and smoothing with a rake. The course was in dire enough shape that when Simon wanted to show us the course in depth we simply drove the car onto the grounds. Half way through our drive it began to piss with rain so we thought it wise to return to the clubhouse and settle in over some drinks. We had two rounds of drinks while we watched the rain and the amazing sunset just out the back windows of the clubhouse. From he we were told by our hosts that we would be having dinner at the club and so we moved into the adjacent room for our buffet dinner.
The food was very good, consisting of mince, pasta and chicken. The only thing that could have made dinner better, as it was very tasty, was if the food was warm :D. It was half way through dinner when we realised there was an alarm going off in the background. We asked Simon about the alarm and he told us that it goes off constantly; nobody at the club knows the code to turn it off. We tried a couple of obvious codes (1111, 1234, 0000) but none of them stopped the noise. We eventually got used to the racket and returned to the bar area for more drinks and good chat. Our hosts were brilliant and the drinks kept coming, so much so that I had to drink Jenny's last savanna. When our drinks were all finished we headed home and were shown the way to their friend Tati's house that we would be sleeping in. When we got there we bid everyone a good night and headed to sleep after a very very entertaining evening.
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