Drive to Gaborone

On Sunday, the last big stage towards Gaborone, the capital and largest city of Botswana with nearly 250,000 inhabitants (actually pronounced Haborone and means something like 'fits me pretty well!' and was the name of a king of the Tswana people in the 19th to early 20th century. This time I kept the navigation system in sight! Doesn't help much when it suddenly turns off in the middle! 😝 So I pulled over, turned the screen back on, 'You have reached your destination! How satisfied are you with the navigation?' What? Are you kidding me? I still have 3½ hours of driving ahead of me! There, blue dot here, red flag waaaaay far away! You 🤬😤🤯😵☠!!! And of course, in the middle of nowhere, no reception to reload the navigation system! So no, not satisfied with the navigation! 😝 Well, I knew that there were still over 100 km to the next turn just before. So I just kept driving a bit further until I had reception again! First transmission mast, nothing... 2nd transmission mast, still nothing... 3rd, yep, nothing! 😣 By now I thought, the next turn must come soon, I need reception! NOW! 😝 Then I passed by a Rhino Sanctuary. Actually a cool thing to visit! But I still had about 300 km ahead of me... Next time then! Right now, I need Wifi to reload my navigation system and then, unfortunately, continue! Luckily, they had some Wifi for me and I could reload my navigation system! Off we go! It was only about 20 km to the next turn! Just in time! 😅 And now I passed by the next transmission mast, full reception! Next transmission mast, full reception! Are you kidding me??? 😝😝😝 Doesn't matter! Took the next turn and still about 280 km to Gaborone. First stop, refuel and have lunch!
And then it started! The entire route suddenly had heavy traffic! Really busy on the road! And it started with heavy traffic in front of me and a still too fast "coach" behind me! 😨 Uh, don't you want to slow down a bit? Damn! It's going to crash! Quickly swerved to the left into the shoulder! And there the bus brushed past me just a few centimeters from my rear! Fortunately, the next car in front of me was far enough away that the bus could stop in time before reaching it! Without the swerve into the shoulder, I wouldn't have made it! 🙈😅 The remaining 280 km were like this, allowed maximum speed in Botswana outside of cities, 120 km/h, in cities 60! 90% of people want to stick to 120 or even drive a bit faster! Then there are the trucks that are only allowed to drive 80 and quite a few Sunday drivers (oh right, it was Sunday! 🙈😅), who think they have to stroll through the countryside at 80 or at most 90! Then the same picture always emerges, 5-6 cars are stuck behind the slowpoke, waiting for a gap in oncoming traffic, overtaking one by one and creeping up on the next slowpoke! And it didn't take long for that one to appear! There is also often the situation that the first 1-2 cars behind such a slowpoke don't dare to overtake and the 3rd one then thinks, hmmmm, overtaking 3 cars at once, uuuh! And behind that, the first one gets nervous and starts overtaking a column of 5-6 cars all at once. That either goes well or he has to merge back in the middle because oncoming traffic appears! At some point, I got fed up and in such situations, I started overtaking 3-4 cars as well, when there were sufficiently large gaps! After all, I want to make progress and reach the destination today! 😝 This led to 2 situations, first I had 3-4 cars in front of me that I wanted to overtake, I'm just about to pull out when one behind me also pulls over and overtakes me! Phew, almost collided! Then I had a slowpoke in front of me and a car that didn't want to overtake, despite the gap. So I start overtaking both and just as I'm next to the first car, it also wants to overtake and pushes me further to the right, until we formed a 3-lane row of cars driving alongside each other with the slowpoke in the middle. Man, you could have overtaken the whole time and then, when I'm next to you, you also pull over! 😝🖕
I don't know, is it too much to ask to simply drive the allowed 120 ± 2-3 km/h? I mean, it's not 220 km/h, no, 120! And then so many chaotic situations don't even arise and everyone arrives much more relaxed at the destination! And you even arrive at the destination on the same day! 🙈😝
About 20-30 km before Gaborone, the country road actually becomes a kind of "highway" with 2 lanes on each side and a thick median. But there are still intersections, traffic lights, people walking on the road here and there, and there are still goats on the "highway"! 🙈😅 I have never been so happy to finish a stage and finally be in Gaborone! 😅 I will be staying here for the last 6 nights until my flight home on Saturday! 😃