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Meghan was FOURTH in line 😬 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’
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.
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.
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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.