Travels from South Africa through to Botswana

Recent Travels from South Africa through to Botswana These comments are relevant to Grobler’s Brug border post. A story from a recent traveler told from his experience:

“Upon the arrival at Groblers Bridge, the arrangements and signage at the border are really poorly organised. There was some confusion as to where a local SADC Tourist should go to begin the process.

On the SA Immigration side, you need to have a Covid screening test done and complete the “Entry” form before you go to passport control. The screening station is not marked and there is no one there to explain the procedures to people arriving at the border. Take a hard copy of the Covid test results as the officials ask for the hard copy – even more so in Botswana. ( Lancet did our test and I had to go fetch
the results from the lab as they will NOT email the results to you).

The passport control office has temporarily moved and is also not clearly shown. The time spent at the border, once known where to go, was less than what we expected. We spent roughly an hour at the SA border station. Once we were cleared
and moved through to Botswana, things moved more smoothly.

Keep the hard copy of your Covid results on you as the Botswana officials are really sticky about the hard copy of the Covid results. They are also sticky about the social distancing rules so its best just to maintain the 2m distance. Their procedures and rules regarding Covid safety are more harshly enforced.

The road tax office at Customs was very slow. They had a problem with the printer, and this added to the delays. There was only one teller on duty, and she had to handle the commercial and “tourist” tax payments. We landed spending 2 hours in this queue.

It really is best to have cash in Pula with you as there were problems with the credit card machine, and they do not accept cash (ZAR). The road tax is about P155 per vehicle and about P105 per trailer.

We went through one inter zone check point, and fortunately I had printed our inter-zone permits, and this simplified the check point procedure. (I must admit I fail to understand the purpose of these permits as they are computer generated and not Covid questions are asked when applying).

These inter-zonal permits are valid for 5 days of travel. Should your holiday extend past the 5 days of which the permit is valid
for, you are able to simply reapply. The Covid testing is very expensive in Maun, P998 per person. Results will be made available between 24 and 36 hours after the test and is done at Okavango Air Rescue offices on Airport Road. They fortunately take credit cards at the test station.
We had plenty rain on our drive up here. The roads are ok with some areas better than others. The animals on the side of the road still remain a massive problem, so please drive carefully.”