In the morning, I immediately called KB and got a ride to the Bus Rank in town so I could jump on another westward bus. KB is a wonderfully nice, honest gentleman. We hit it off wonderfully, had a number of interesting chats. In the end we exchanged emails.

I climbed aboard the Charles Hill (the name of the farthest western town in Botswana on the way to Windhoek) bus and then waited for two hours until the 1:00 departure time. After all, everything (including myself) operates on Africa time here. I wanted to get in early so I could get a window seat. Important since that allows me some comfort when I nap. As usual, I was the only white person on the bus.

Five hours later, I was in Charles Hill, basically a gas station at a crossroads in the middle of an extremely hot, barren expanse of the Kalahari. The gas station was about eight kilometers from the border. When I got off the bus and asked the driver if there was a shuttle to the border, he said, “No. You can walk.”

I would have walked it earlier in the day, but with less than an hour of daylight, I didn’t want to be hoofing it to the border along a barren stretch of highway after dark.

I asked around the gas station and found someone who was going in that direction (just to the border), so I hitched a ride. When John, my insta-shuttle driver’s name, dropped me off, I gave him 40 Pula against his protestations. My excuse: what else am I going to do with it (since I was leaving Botswana anyway)? He was very appreciative.

I walked to the Botswanan border post and exited immigration.

Then another kilometer’s walk toward the Namibian border post, (where I got to see the official countries’ border line and the designation of the Trans-Kalahari Highway dedication monument), and I had my passport stamped for entry.

I hiked an additional half-kilometer to a very nice guesthouse called the Eastside Rest Camp. They had room for me, a tent-cabin with concrete walls and a canvas top.

All over the Rest Camp there were large beautiful moths endemic to the area. The pattern on their wings looks like eyes and have evolved to fool potential predators into thinking they are a much larger animal, and thus, not to be trifled with.

After a great dinner, I retired for the night in a loud, windy sandstorm.