I am told that Katima is the only place, or at least, one of the few, in the world where four countries meet, viz. Namibia, Zambia, Botswana and Zimbabwe. We hopped over the Botswana border to the Chobe National Park.

In fact, “hopped” was nearly literally true. To keep out foot and mouth disease and other nasty things, every vehicle entering Botswana has to drive through a sheep dip, and every person has to stand on a footpad of disinfectant. We have done it before and has not been a problem. This time, the lady in charge was exceptionally officious. We gave the board, listing prohibited imports, a cursory glance. No, we didn’t have animal horns, hides, bones etc. “You haven’t read the list,” she insists, suspiciously. Of course we hadn’t. We don’t go in for buying bags made of crocodile skins. “Read the list,” she commands. What’s that at the bottom? Dairy products? We don’t want to lose our lunch especially as it will be inside us within the next half an hour, so we confess nothing. No, we have nothing like that.

“What about your shoes?” she asks. “We’ve done our shoes.” “What about your spare shoes?” “We have no spare shoes.” “Yes, you have.” This woman must have x-ray vision. They are packed securely at the bottom of the car’s boot and were not going to see the light of a Botswanan day. “You have to do all your shoes.” We didn’t have to do anything like this last time we visited. Georgina manages to dig out a spare pair of mine and slap them on the disinfectant mat. This appeases the lady and she lets us go into her country.

Once inside Botswana the road surface becomes appalling. Maybe the deep potholes are deliberately not repaired as a traffic calming measure. Driving becomes exciting as we swerve across the road to avoid the bottomless pits and crevasses. Fortunately, the road is deserted. When we reach the gate of the the Game Reserve, the Wardens won’t let us in as our car is too small. Presumably, an elephant could pick us up and chuck us into the river? We drive on to Kasane, the nearest town, to take a look. It is more lively and impressive than we had imagined. There seemed to be a lot of tourists, many of whom, no doubt had been refused admittance to the park.

We took the pock-marked road back to the border. You have to play the game of swerving to avoid the pot-holes, which is OK until swerving the other side of the road would make you crash into an on-coming car. For us, this coincided with one of the largest pot-holes in Africa. It must be visible from space and , once filled with water, would rival Lake Victoria in magnitude. No, I exaggerate, maybe Lake Malawi. Anyway, we hit it with a heart stopping metallic bang. The wheel must have been torn off? The engine ripped out? No, the tough little car kept on going. It was only later, after we had driven the 700 kilometres back to Rundu, that we discovered that the tyre had developed a large swelling like a huge boil and could have burst at any moment.