Botswana, 2009

Iberia launched a Pisa-Johannesburg fare that couldn't be refused: 380 euros return.

So in April I reached my friend Guido, who picked me up at the airport and put me up, as usual, at his home. On the evening of the following day, Donato, Marco and Cristian arrived on the Air France flight, and all 4 of us then went to the bed and breakfast in Pretoria.

The next morning they handed us the 4x4 Defender with 2 two-person tents on the roof, and, with me driving, we set off north and then west, stopping for the first night on the border between South Africa and Botswana. So we were able to test the tents, which turned out to be a real surprise, given their versatility and comfort.

Marco loses the wristwatch his girlfriend gave him; quite furious, he doesn't sleep all night, turning everything over and even taking the wheels off to see if it had ended up inside the inner tube.

At the end of the trip, back home in Parma, Marco will discover it had ended up in a pocket of his backpack. (What a fool.)

The next day we travel all day, after entering Botswana and after the others accepted my suggestion to transit through Zimbabwe. We camp near an elephant grazing a few km from the Pandamatenga border. Sleeping in the wild is always very exciting; any animal can pay you a visit, especially at night.

As soon as we enter Zimbabwe we go back in time. Hwange National Park is devoid of tourists, which suits us perfectly. I was driving and the other 3 were on the car's roof; at lunch we stop at Robins Camp, right after seeing 6 wild dogs, then in the evening we stop at Sinamatella, which has something magical about it. Set on a hill, it lets you safari with binoculars even without using the car, just sitting down. The guard armed with a Kalashnikov, in the evening, gives us a bit of an adrenaline rush by taking us into the dark for a short night safari.

After a morning safari, we head toward Victoria Falls; along the deserted road, short of petrol, we stop to swap old clothes for handmade wooden objects.

The canoe trip on the Zambezi was very beautiful, even though we risked being capsized by hippos. The visit to the Victoria Falls hotel is always fascinating, even if it's now empty, like all the hotels in Zimbabwe - and that's thanks to the dictator Mugabe who, just like Saddam Hussein, won't give up power.

The animals we encounter are many, but the falls are too full of water; they hadn't reached that level in 40 years. In fact you can't even do the rafting, which I did some years earlier.

We return to Botswana, and after filling up with petrol at Kasane we enter Chobe Park, which I was visiting for the first time too.

Animals galore and a stunning view. We camp right 2 metres from the bank of the Zambezi, and at night the howling of hyenas instils a certain fear.

The next morning, in this paradise of nature, baboons screech a few metres from us and wish us good morning. Later we head into the southern part of Chobe and the four-wheel drive is always engaged; we also tried to remove a log from the road but failed, on pain of getting bogged down.

That night we sleep in the wild again, heading for Maun, which we reach the next day, where we camp for 3 nights at the Island Safari Lodge.

One night the lads spend in the Okavango Delta, sleeping in a tent among lions and elephants, being carried to the destination first by speedboat and then by mokoro.

We obtained the permit to enter the most mysterious national park, for one night and 2 days, so at last, after years of longing, we enter the wild Central Kalahari, still inhabited today by wild bushmen.

Many animals, and even a lion showed itself: jackals, oryx, zebras and springbok. At night, in the tent before dark, having eaten at 5pm, there's not much to joke about here; the wildlife doesn't forgive.

The lion's roar while you're in a tent in the dark, under a full moon, is quite terrifying; luckily, though, our 2 tents are up on the roof of the Land Rover.