Before the Pillows, There Was a Digger: EarthFire’s 2018 Beginning

I still remember the day we broke ground.

The year was 2018. After many months of seeking approval from the authorities, we could finally begin. And what a beginning it was: a patch of earth in Gaborone, a digger, and a vision that had already checked in long before our first guest.

There were no beautifully made beds. No rooms to show you. Not even a door to open with a welcoming smile. But in our minds? EarthFire was already looking rather lovely.

Our First Very Important Guest: A Digger

Every hospitality story has a first arrival. Ours happened to have enormous tyres and a bucket.

When the machine began breaking ground, the months of waiting suddenly felt different. This was no longer only something we were planning. It was happening, right there in front of us. The markings on the soil were becoming trenches, and the dream was acquiring a very real, very dusty address.

Photograph It Again. It Looks Different Today.

We loved breaking the ground. Truly loved it. Each day, we took pictures as though the lodge were already finished.

A little more earth moved? Photograph. A new angle on the site? Photograph. The same digger, but this time facing the other way? Naturally, another photograph.

Looking back, our camera roll could probably have hosted an exhibition called Very Promising Soil: A Study in Several Hundred Angles. To anyone else, these might have looked like pictures of a construction site. To us, they were portraits of something we already loved.

Eight Rooms. One Very Clear Vision.

From the onset, we knew EarthFire would be a great story to tell: a new hospitality outlet in Gaborone, a boutique space with eight beautifully curated rooms.

We were not imagining an endless corridor of identical doors. We were imagining somewhere personal. Somewhere with character. A place where the details mattered and a guest could feel welcomed rather than simply accommodated.

That vision was clear even when the view was mostly earth. We could picture the rooms before there were walls around them. We could imagine guests arriving before there was anywhere to put their bags. The building still had a long way to go; our imagination had rather enthusiastically gone ahead.

The Foundations Beneath the Welcome

Then came the work that guests rarely see: trenches, reinforcing steel, concrete and the people turning a plan into a building. These photographs remind us that every comfortable stay begins with a great deal of practical work.

There is something wonderful about a foundation photograph. It is not glamorous. Nobody is choosing it as their holiday postcard. Yet it holds so much promise. Here, beneath the rooms our guests would one day enjoy, was the part that had to come first.

And Now, You Are Part of the Story

Today, when you settle into one of our eight rooms, you are enjoying a place we once photographed as an empty patch of ground. That thought still makes us smile.

We hope these early pictures bring a little extra warmth to your stay. Behind the finished room is a story of patience, approvals, hard work and the slightly unreasonable excitement of people who could look at a trench and see a beautiful guest house.

So make yourself comfortable. Take your own photographs. We certainly understand the urge.

Welcome to EarthFire. We have been looking forward to having you here since 2018—even when the digger was our only guest.