Botswana

I was in Botswana recently on business, partly that explains my absence from this blog. If you visit a country and you want to know the standard of living there, the first thing you do is look at the cars on the road, it may sound silly but thats the first thing you see after the airport. You will be picked up in a car and you will see numerous cars on the road. thats exactly what i did in Botswana. I arrive at the airport in the evening, the airport itself was so disappointing, tiny and old. I didnt expect much after that. I went through the immigration and met the lady who was picking me up, i didnt complain... We got out and walked to her car guess what, this lady was driving, a black 2007 Jeep Cherokee Renegade, Campas tuned with large wheels, i can swear they were 21"! Botswana just began to impress me. Then we left the airport and headed to the hotel, the first thing i noticed was that there were not many japanese cars on the road, all i could see were alot of Mercedes', BMWs, Volvos, Golfs and Polos.

Jeep Cherokee

Then we got to the hotel, the first thing that caught my eye on the car park was the new Golf GTI with its original wheels . It is a beauty. It actually looks better in real life than on pictures. I have always regarded this golf as the best golf ever, I have never seen the R32 but I think many will agree with me.

Golf GTI

The next day we went to the mall and the parking lot was huge but i did manage to spot a few gems, the new Peugeot 308 coupe was one of them, it has a Audi TT behind and looking at it closely you could see that its TT insipired. Parked and hidded under a shrub was a Porsche Boxter S the cute entry level Porsche, for this one I can say, it looks better in pictures.

The 308

Boxter S

I also spotted a white Nissan Qashqai, thats the only one i saw on the entire trip, honestly i expected to see more Qashqais, but I saw more of was the Volvo S40, it was everywhere, I think everyone in Botswana is buying a Volvo S40. They were in all colours, the gold one being the most common. Everytime I looked out, i saw a Volvo, our rear view mirror was full of Volvo.

Volvo S40

Qashqai

There were also a number of X5s, X3s,and unlike here where the Hilux is the in thing, the Nissan Navara rules suprime there.

I was dropped of at the airport the next day in a Toyota Avanza, which didnt impress me much but what a satisfactory trip it was. we arrived at the airport, i headed towards the entrance and guess what car nearly hit me, yes you guessed right a Volvo S40!

I was thinking why there are very few nice cars in Malawi and i found out that its mainly because there is no financing for buying vehicles. To get a loan at a bank you have to lick some bank managers shoe. It would be easier to sleep with Angelina Jollie than to get a loan at a Bank in Malawi, and if you do get one, you end up paying 10 time the principle.