Cyclists must have designed Botswana. It is surely the flattest place I've ever driven through, apart from Cambodia. There is nothing to avoid on the road so they are laid straight for hundreds of kilometres through undeveloped, uninhabited bush with only a few small settlements sprinkled miserly over the arid countryside to break the roadside trees, a beautiful blend of autumn colours. If there is a hill it's rarity will be amplified by the conglomeration of c...

I have a book entitled "The Trouble With Africa". It is positive in its wonderful collection of stories of a game park in Zambia and of life in Africa. I find I can use it as a saying often. The trouble with Africa is you meet people whose faith in God belittles yours. The Botswana government collect refugees and place them in camps, referred to as prisons as they are effectively imprisoned until they decide what to do with them. In the Church we met Bwami, who...

Everything you read about travelling in Africa insists you make sure you don't travel at night, so it was only fitting on arrival in Botswana we should do the last 50km to Francistown in the dark. People assume that animals, donkeys especially, station themselves on warm roads at night but the reason you mustn't travel after dark is a little less obvious. You realise with your car does not operate as well at night and with the setting of the sun things start to ...

The trouble with Africa is that all the news is bad: the roads are abominable, all officials are corrupt, the malaria is inevitable (to say nothing of the prophylactics debate) and it's a wild unknown world full of crime and danger where you must take everything with you and expect nothing comfortable, especially a decent bathroom. But the trouble with Africa is also how contagious the raw beauty is, how friendly the cops are to meet and fine you, how endearing t...