If you might arrive against all my quatshing then you should take a taxi to any of your chosen campsites. But be careful as everywhere in the world taxi drivers here will also try to ask you more than reasonable. Taxis here don't have meters, there's some governmental regulation on how much you should be askeed for a given distance (except if the driver is a crook). Audi Camp, Old Bridge (probably 10 km distance) would cost you 20 Pula. If he asks you 25-30 Pula then forget about it.
Combis coming and going
Other then that you can walk (around three minutes) from the airport to the main street and hitch a Combi northbound. The Combi's are the local mass transport. Small and old Toyota Hiace's. Sometimes carrying 16 people (that was my record too). If you have no agoraphobia (and why should you) then this is the cheapest way to travel around town. You can pay anywhere between 2,5 to 3,5 Pula, I couldn't figure out the proper sum yet. These Combi's are the real thing. They come and go pretty frequently and you just have to wave anywhere you are and they'll stop and pick you up. Tell'em where you want to jump off and thats it. Enjoy the ride. Combi's are pretty fun. If they see someone they horn, if he's far out from the main road the driver will go and pick him/her up. Monday I was going in from Audi to the airport and we saw a big bunch of people around a car ten-fifteen meters from the road. There was also a police car. My travel mates got pretty excited. The Combi stopped and everyone lurked down and went to see what has happened. I was left the only one to guard the car. The only thing that happened was that the cars front left weel broke out.
For us continental Europeans it is very important to watch out when crossing a road, as here they have "keep left" traffic I'm looking first to the left, but the cars arrive from the right.
The road from Audi
People are friendly and if they understand your English then they will help you. And they keep smiling. They are so positive - and that is true for the guys at the companies, too - that even thou the situation ain't too shiny I can't get depressed. Maybe it is the ever shinig sun, the heat and the lack of "civilized" money race rage.
For shoppinng you have pretty good superstores. SPAR, Shoprite, Choppies. You probably get everything you need and the prices I pretty fair. Lots of you asked on beer prices. A bottle of 0,33 averages around 6 Pula (which is slightly less then a US dollar) if you buy it in a liqueur store. If you buy it at a bar it can go at around 15-17 Pula (that would be around 2 american dollars). And they say it is pretty tasty (hopefully not like the world famous Hungarian wine that is world famous in Hungary).
The real thing is the price of great steak meats. 15-18 Pula for 1 kilogram (2.2 pounds) of great meat for the braai (barbeque to you). Those who had steaks from local meat say that it is tremendous.
Cityscape Maun
And the most important thing: bring with you a cellphone and get a sim card as soon as you can. You can buy one around the airport, in town they're selling them on every corner. The sim card will cost you 15 Pula (at least the mascom one). And you can get some prepaid cards too! So if you have that just be sure to put your botswana cell number on the CV. That's where you'll get the call: dear whoever, we would be happy to work with you...
That is it for now.
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