When I got the invitation to join the multitudes prepared to do the annual charity walk the thought of the three-days150km walk in the pans sounded so exciting to me. It was this anticipation of adventure, among others, that led me to join the 2009 Y-Care Makgadikgadi Pans walk this past President's Day holidays. When I made that decision I never expected to a few days later find myself singing (and dancing) Setswana and Swedish folk songs around the campfire with fellow walker Dr Nomsa Mbere.
0540hrs - 17th July
The bus that will take us to Nata is loading at the Barclays Bank (old Hyundai plant, Broadhurst) and leaves Gaborone after 55 minutes. I sit next to Thabo Kowa, from Stanbic Bank. Just a few kilometres after Dibete, the police stop the bus, there is a problem with permits, and it takes 20 minutes to sort the problem out. At 0905hrs, breakfast at Mahalapye Whistle Stop and we get back on the road one-and-a-half hours later. Conversations with Kowa go quiet and I take out the book, Miles Davis - The Autobiography, and Davis keeps me busy until we get to Fracistown at 1255hrs for a lunch stop. After one hour and 40 minutes we are on the road to Nata. The bus is much louder now, looks like some of our co-passengers made a stop at the bottle store. I start a conver-sation with Stellan Bengtson, the Y Care Charitable Trust coordi-nator. With his heavy Swedish accent, Stellan, as everyone calls him, gives me a brief history of the walks, I also get to learn about the teams and other sponsors for this particular walk. He speaks so passionately about the Makgadikgadi Pans that you would think they belonged to him.
