Borders

While Vancouverites were ringing in the New Year, we were filling out a surprising variety of forms and presenting ourselves to numerous officious officials. 

As we are more than 16,500 km from home, Vancouver New Year arrived late morning on the 1st for us, while we were crossing a remote border post at Martin's Drift, into Botswana. 

Today was a driving day, from the Misty Mountains of Tzaneen to sun-scorched flatness at the edge of the Kalahari Desert. We saw the best of the worst in South African roads (120km/h nonethless). The roads in Botswana were generally great, and although the Batswana drive just as fast as South Africans, they didn’t seem as prone to pass around a corner our try to fit three cars abrest on two lanes.

So far Botswana is flat and featureless, so we stopped for photos at one important landmark: the Tropic of Capricorn. We had spent most of the day in the Tropics, but passed back out as we were approaching Gaborone.

Once here, we had a nice meal with Tig's cousin and his family. They had a lot of catching up to do, as they haven't seen each other in almost 20 years, whih is 4 kids ago for them!