Harry blew Meghan away when he whisked her off to Botswana for their third date… but as William ‘cheekily pointed out’ she was actually the FOURTH girl he had taken there to pass ‘the Africa test’
Though Prince Harry recently visited Africa alone, it was once a place he used to help solidify his relationship with Meghan Markle – as well as several of his previous girlfriends.
Early in their blossoming romance, Harry invited Meghan on a trip to Botswana in 2017. They stayed ‘in a £1,500 deluxe tent at the Meno a Kwena safari camp,’ Tina Brown claims in her 2022 book The Palace Papers.
However, the royal biographer tells how Prince William was quick to point out to his ‘starry-eyed’ younger brother: ‘You do realise this is the fourth girl you’ve taken to Botswana?’
King Charles‘s younger son had asked a number of romantic interests to accompany him on a trip – including actress Cressida Bonas, who, Ms Brown writes, ‘passed the Africa test on a successful vacation together in the Okavango Delta [in Botswana]’.
After visiting several times for charity work, the southern African nation became a favourite place of Harry’s, ‘especially when trying to impress a girlfriend’, Andrew Morton wrote in his 2018 release, Meghan: A Hollywood Princess.
Prince Harry and Prince William are pictured with a cheetah during a visit to the Mokolodi Nature Reserve in Botswana in 2010
Meghan Markle pictured on the trip to Botswana in 2017. This image was first shown on the couple’s Netflix series Harry & Meghan in 2022
He also took television presenter Natalie Pinkham there, reportedly in 2004.
Harry visited again the following year, this time with his on-and-off girlfriend Chelsy Davy, and they are said to have made annual trips there during their seven years together.
While none of these relationships worked out, Harry’s African getaway with Meghan became particularly memorable – for it was where the couple deepened their relationship.
With ‘breath-taking views across the dark-blue waters of the nearby Boteti River’, according to Mr Morton, Harry and Meghan enjoyed long walks, safaris and used the time together to get to know one another.
The Duke of Sussex has returned to the continent many times since, with and without his wife.
Harry and Meghan embarked on their first Royal tour abroad together in 2019. With their son Archie, who was five months old at the time, they visited Cape Town, Angola and Malawi, and undertook a short working visit to Botswana, between September 23 and October 2.
They brought along a camera crew from ITV to film a documentary with Tom Bradby – Harry & Meghan: An African Journey.
Harry returned to Angola to see first-hand the legacy of his mother Diana, whose visit to Huambo in 1997 helped raise awareness of the threat posed by landmines to communities and livelihoods.
However, though the couple’s trip was focused on helping tackle issues in Africa, the documentary also brought to light their own struggles.
At one point during filming Mr Bradby asked Meghan how she was doing. The Duchess responded by saying that ‘not many people have asked if I’m okay’ – in reference to her struggles with the media.
In October this year, Harry visited Lesotho and South Africa. The trip included a meeting with Lesotho prime minister Sam Matekane and a series of engagements relating to his beloved charity, Sentebale, which helps young people living with HIV and Aids.
Actress Cressida Bonas, who Harry also reportedly took to Botswana, pictured in London in 2014
Television presenter Natalie Pinkham is said to have travelled to Africa with the Prince. She is pictured in London in 2006
Harry first visited Lesotho aged 19, during a gap year in 2004. He spent two months there and the experience had a lasting impact on the young prince.
The royal did volunteer work and met children who had been orphaned due to the Aids epidemic. In 2006, he co-founded Sentebale with Lesotho’s Prince Seeiso in an effort to continue his mother’s work on the issue.
In July 2008, Harry returned to Lesotho to help build a special needs school as part of a project supported by Sentebale. At the time, the Thuso Centre was the only school of its kind in the country, the BBC reported.
The duke said: ‘Everything here is just so positive and fantastic. This is the only mentally handicapped school within Lesotho and once the project is finished we hope to make another in the centre and one in the south.’
He was accompanied by 20 of his colleagues from the Household Cavalry’s Blues and Royals regiment, who assisted with the project.
Two years later, in June 2010, Harry embarked on his first joint tour with his brother, Prince William. They combined promoting their charity and humanitarian interests with supporting England, who played Algeria during the FIFA World Cup in Cape Town.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex attending a reception in Johannesburg in 2019
The prince traces his mother’s footsteps and walks through a minefield in Angola in 2019
Harry with his wife, Meghan Markle, in Cape Town during their Royal tour in 2019
The brother’s kicked off their six-day tour of southern Africa in Botswana and visited the Makelodi Nature Reserve. They were photographed with an 8ft-long African Rock Python wrapped around their shoulders and Harry playfully pointed its head at William.
The pair then travelled to Lesotho and trekked three miles on ponies to visit schools and orphanages at Semonkong, located at a height of 8,000ft.
Both wore knitted grey blankets to tackle the cooler temperatures and Harry held two-year-old orphan Bokang Rapostane on his knee as they watched a play about Aids and HIV.
Harry, who was demonstrating the work of his charity Sentebale, said: ‘This was a fantastic chance to show William what Sentebale is all about – the vulnerable children. I’m just happy to have him here with me.’
The two princes also played football with orphaned teenage girls from Semonkong Children’s Centre.
Harry returned to Lesotho again in 2013 with Prince Seeiso, touring projects that Sentebale had been supporting.
He visited the Kananelo Centre for the Deaf and St Bernadette’s Centre for the Blind.
During his trip, Harry participated in a sign language lesson and was taught several phrases by 14-year-old Nandos Chabalalan including the words for family, father, mother, brother, sister and baby.
Harry teases William by holding the head of an African Rock Python towards his brother in Botswana in 2010
The prince hugging a young child in Lesotho during his gap year visit in 2004
Harry explaining the school-building project to journalists, including the Mail’s Rebecca English (far left), in Lesotho in 2008
Prince Harry playing with a child in Lesotho, Africa during his visit in 2008
Later on, he put on a Paddington Bear apron and got stuck in with baking ‘fat cakes’, a local doughnut-style delicacy.
Harry also flew to Johannesburg in neighbouring South Africa for the first Sentebale Gala Dinner.
It marked the launch of a £2.4million fundraising campaign to build the first permanent centre for children and young people infected with, or affected by, HIV and Aids in Lesotho.
Two years later, Harry attended the opening of Mamohato Children’s Centre in Lesotho – a facility that works with his charity, Sentebale. He was photographed dancing with children and Prince Seeiso.
During the visit Harry delivered a speech looking back on the charity’s achievements.
The prince, who is passionate about reducing the stigma attached to HIV infection, was joined by Sir Elton John at the International Aids Conference in Durban, South Africa, in 2016.
Harry said at the event: ‘It is time for us to step up to make sure no young person feels any shame in asking for an HIV test.
The prince visits the Herd Boys School in Semonkong, Lesotho, in 2010
Harry hugs a woman during his visit to the Kananelo Centre for the Deaf in 2013
The Duke of Sussex sitting next to children at Mamohato Children’s Centre in Lesotho in 2015
‘It is time for us to step up to make sure that girls and boys with HIV aren’t kept from playing with their friends, classmates, and neighbours.
‘It is time for us to step up and acknowledge that stigma and discrimination still act as the greatest barrier to us defeating this disease once and for all.’
The prince then posed for pictures with HIV youth activists before he hosted a youth-focused discussion.
The session addressed the HIV epidemic among adolescents with an emphasis on the impact stigma and discrimination have on young people.
Later that year Harry helped to place tracking devices on black rhinos while voluteering with Rhino Conservation Botswana. He became a patron of the organisation in 2017.
