Backpacking in Botswana🇧🇼: Visiting the Baobab Tree🌳Prison⛓️⚖️🚨🚓In Kasane

“The flame trees will blind the weary driver” – Cold Chisel.

Yet another weird and wacky tourist trip entered my backpacking anthology when I headed to the peeler station in Kasane, Botswana. Peeler station in Northern Irish English means Police Station.

This was my second visit to Botswana, yet it was nine years after my first visit. Both times were during European winter. Both times I crossed in and out of Botswana by land. In 2011, it was an Intercape Bus from Pretoria in South Africa that crossed me past the Tlokweng entrance border and into the sleep-easy capital city of Gaborone. Here in 2020, Kazangula was my border entry point on route from Zimbabwe.

As well as using Botswana as a place to get decent WiFi (in Hunters Bar in Kasane), I also read up about a hat-trick of cool sights to checkpack through in Kasane. They were:

1.The Four Country Border
The place where Namibia, Zambia, Botswana and Zimbabwe all meet on a four country border. Wacaday, cool, niche.
2.Kasane Crocodile Farm
A crocodile farm which has over 1000 crocodiles, as well as geese, ducks, dogs, hens and donkeys.
3.A Baobab Tree Prison
At the main Peeler Station in Kasane, there is a Baobab Tree which was formerly used as both a prison and a post office!

I decided to visit all three and as a bonus I also stayed for two nights with Russell and Malina in the Chobe Crocodile Farm, adjacent via a gate to the Kasane Crocodile Farm. I will write about that experience soon, another crazy one that could be one of one hundred blog posts alone on the current Africa adventure. There is simply not good enough Wi-Fi or time in my day to write all of this!!

How to get to the Baobab Tree Prison in Kasane

If you are staying in central Kasane, no issues at all. You can walk it. Kasane is a small town.

However we were staying at the Kasane Crocodile Farm on the edge of Kasane so for me, I took a taxi. The driver didn’t know about the Baobab Tree Prison, but he knew the Peeler Station so just hop in a taxi and get them to take you to Kasane Police Station. The taxi price is 10 Pula (90 US cents). Each taxi you get in and around Kasane should be 10 Pula each per person maximum. Don’t be ripped off.

What to do at the Baobab Tree Prison in Kasane

It is a tree next to a Peeler Station. It is simple – no entry fee, no museum, no guided tour. It is easy to visit.

Admire it from the outside, go inside and imagine what it might have been like to live your life inside such a small and crampt enclosure.

After that, check out the four information boards. This tree has been a prison as well as a post office in its history.

Information on the Baobab Tree Prison in Kasane

All the information is written here on four boards by the tree itself. It is written in English and the local Setswana (not allowed to call it Setswanese/Botswanese according to locals). It is perhaps the first time I seen such a “mini museum” inside the grounds of a peeler station in my life.

Here are some more photos from my trip to the Baobab Tree Prison:

Here is the address of the Baobab Tree Prison at the Peeler Station in Kasane, Botswana:

Kasane Police Station, Airport Road, Kasane, Botswana

Here is a video of the Baobab Tree Prison at the Peeler Station in Kasane, Botswana: