Lynette - Castrol Magnatrek Magnificence – How it Happened
posted on 2010-09-23 19:59:03
Listening to Jacaranda 94.2 a few weeks ago amidst the flurry of packing and preparing for our Botswana trip, I caught the end of a request for entrants to an adventure competition …Not having heard the details, I scribbled down the website, thinking I’d check it out later – Perhaps something for Michi and I?
I didn’t give it another thought until one evening, sitting round a remote camp fire somewhere in Botswana, I found myself telling Michi about it, wondering what it was all about. The thought came and left …
Then camping at Nata, Central Botswana, over Michi’s 40th birthday, the thought returned and was with me for 2 days. With an Internet connection at the lodge where we camped, we had a peak just before leaving.
Hmmm … the deadline for entries was midnight – THAT DAY!! No such thing as a co-incidence! AND, together with our car – our “Schlumpf (Smurf) mobile”, Angelique, we were perfect participants. One hastily taken photo of the 3 of us by a lodge staff member later … and the entry was submitted. And we were off to explore the salt pans …
On our return from Khubu Island and the desolately magnificent salt pans 3 days later, Michi received the e-mail … we had been short listed. Oops! (Oops, we discovered, is a word even used by the Bushmen when lighting a fire with fire sticks does not go according to plan!!) A decision had to be made – Do we continue up to Zambia, or head south on the long road back to Johannesburg?
In constant communication with the angels, I asked for a sign if we should turn back. I opened a magazine at the motel in Kapoks we’d stopped at … on a page with a Castrol advert!! Double oops! We started driving south …
Phase 2 of the entry process - the extensive questions to be answered … A crash course in iPhone e-mailing and an entertaining but laborious 4 hours of typing later, and it was sent, being left in the arms of the angels. That was Saturday. We would know on Monday.
Serowe, the birth place of Sir Seretse Khama, first Botswana president, was our stop over while we waited. We camped in the gentle Khama Rhino Sanctuary, watching rhino families at the pans at sunset. The town presented us with a guided tour of the royal graves and other interesting sites, personally escorted by a dignified Inspector Nawa in his police mobile - complete with a male lion on the police logo! We felt like royalty ourselves!
Monday. At last! Back to Serowe town to find a mechanic for a steering noise on Angelique. Cedric, a warm and genuine Zimbabwean, blessedly fixed the noise in no time – Right beside, none other than a Castrol sign! And, in case we had not got the message, we realised our oil cap is clearly labeled, Castrol and the oil we bought to take with? Castrol!
The call from Jacaranda 94.2 came with the mechanicing in progress. WOW!!! Its real – we are going to be contestants in the Castrol Magnatrek competition in search of the ultimate intelligence!!!! (Michi of course, recons we need search no further. HE is the ultimate intelligence!)
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