On Friday, August 3, we drove from Francistown to Gaborone so that Carl could get some rest before flying back to the U.S. the next day. Then we set about the task of trying to sell our pickup. Although Jeff had advertised it in a Gaborone newspaper two weeks before we arrived, there hadn't been any calls from prospective buyers. Our next sales tactic was parking it for periods of time in various high-visibility places around the city with a "for sale" sign and Jeff's cellphone number in the window. We did that on Sunday and Monday, which meant that we walked quite a lot on those days.

On Tuesday morning, since there still was no interest, we called a colleague back in Shakawe to obtain the e-mail address of a possible buyer who planned to move to Botswana, but was living in Europe. He had visited Shakawe earlier in the year, saw the pickup then, and thought he might want to buy it. The colleague gave us the e-mail address, but asked us to delay offering the vehicle to anyone else, as he had decided that he might make the purchase. Eight hours later he called and committed to the sale, and asked Jeff to bring the vehicle back to Maun (an eight-hour drive) as soon as possible.

Jeff set out at 6 a.m. the next morning; I (Gina) stayed in Gaborone to begin arranging for our flights back to the U.S. After spending Thursday doing the bank and government paperwork necessary for the sale, Jeff came back to Gaborone by hitchiking to Francistown, then taking an overnight train, arriving on Friday morning at 6 a.m.

We have returned to Maryville, Missouri and the joys of high-speed Internet service. The next three or four entries will review our journey home, which included stops in London, Federalsburg, Maryland and Long Island, New York.

As previously noted, Jeff's cousin Carl arrived on July 12 and spent time with us in Shakawe while Jeff worked his final week for Tocadi. Carl was particularly impressed by the hippos that congregated outside our front yard each night.

We left Shakawe on July 29 to drive east across Botswana to Francistown and, ultimately, the capital city of Gaborone. We had to leave the pickup in Francistown for at least one day for repairs, and rather than stay there, we decided to take Carl on an excursion into Zimbabwe. When Carl and I (Gina) saw the bus that Jeff selected for the trip we balked a bit, but ended up riding anyway. After it became apparent that clearing immigration and customs through both the Botswana and Zimbabwe borders would take several hours, we abandoned the bus and took a kombi (a 15-to-20 passenger van) from the Zim border to Bulawayo, arriving at 11:30 p.m.

When we visited Zimbabwe in December, the exchange rate was 2,500 Zim dollars to one U.S. dollar. Because of stratospheric inflation, the rate when we visted in May was 30,000 to one; eight weeks later when we went there with Carl it was 150,000 to one. Despite the food, fuel and commodities shortages resulting from the monetary crisis, we enjoyed the atmosphere as much as ever.

The return trip was accomplished by hitchhiking from Bulawayo to the Zim border, walking the 2 kilometers between border posts, then riding a kombi from the Botswana border back to Francistown.

The Victoria Falls visit provided a chance for the Kentucky Smiths to see a small herd of zebra, which roam the grounds of the Zambezi Sun hotel. The hotel grounds are near one of the entrances to the falls, and are populated by zebras, monkeys, and a variety of birds and reptiles, as noted by the cautioning sign.

We left Livingstone at 7 a.m. on July 10 for the long drive to Lusaka, where we would stay in the guest cottage at the compound of Trevor and Monica Robson. After a mid-afternoon arrival everyone enjoyed a relaxing evening; Isabel and Sophia enjoyed romping with Viggo and Putti, the Robsons' friendly Jack Russell terriers.

The Smiths flew out of Lusaka International Airport early in the afternoon on July 12. As they boarded their flight, the president of Zambia, Levy Mwanawasa, arrived in a small plane at the other end of the tarmac. Though he had taken only a brief trip to Livingstone, an elaborate red-carpet ceremony was organized to greet his return. Jeff and I ate lunch in an airport cafe with large windows overlooking the tarmac to watch the ceremony. Six hours later we were back at the airport to pick up Jeff's cousin Carl Brown, arriving from the U.S. via Johannesburg.

Carl's flight was a little late, delayed by some strayed passengers in Johannesburg, so his checked bag did not arrive until the next day. We explored a bit of Lusaka on Friday, returned to the airport to pick up his bag, and stayed one more night with the Robsons. Then it was off to Livingstone once more, so that Carl could enjoy the sights and sounds of Victoria Falls.

We reversed the route that we took with the Kentucky Smiths, going back across the border by ferry into Botswana, with stops at Elephant Sands, Nata, Maun, and finally home to Shakawe. Carl is with us until we leave Shakawe on July 29. We will slowly wend our way to the Botswana capital of Gaborone, which is Carl's departure point and where we hope to sell our vehicle. The progress of the sale will determine when and from where Jeff and I will leave Africa bound for the U.S. Carl's flight is scheduled for August 4.

On June 30 we drove to the Maun area for the start of an eighteen-day road trip, beginning with camping at Khazakini outside the Moremi game reserve, and an excursion into the reserve on July 2. On July 4 Jeff's brother Ron flew into Maun from the U.S. with his wife Michele and daughters Isabel and Sophia for an eight-day vacation.

The first night was spent in Maun, to give the travelers time to shake off a bit of jet lag. Thursday we were off to Nata for two days and nights. Among the highlights of the Nata stay were thousands of flamingoes in the Nata Sanctuary, a visit to our friend Thamane's cattle post and newly-constructed borehole, and a tour of the junior secondary school where Jeff taught as a Peace Corps volunteer in the early nineties.

On Saturday we took up residence at Elephant Sands Lodge, 53 kilometres from Nata. A guide from the Lodge took us on a late afternoon game drive; Ron spotted a lion roaming the bush along the tar road. The close-up views of elephants and giraffe at a water hole were spectacular. The water hole is filled in the dry season using a pump, which unfortunately was broken at the time of our visit. The guide explained that animals still came to the hole each evening to check for water.

We moved on to the Toro River Lodge in Kazangula on Sunday. The main activity for the day was a boat cruise into the Chobe Reserve, with abundant sightings of hippos, buffalo and a variety of antelope. Our plans to cross the Botswana-Zambia border, see Victoria Falls, and spend the night at Livingstone on Monday were delayed a couple of hours at the Kazangula Engen petrol station. When we parked the pickup at a fuel island with both diesel and petrol pumps, the attendant put ten liters of petrol into our diesel vehicle before he asked which fuel we needed. The tank had to be drained, purged and refilled before we could continue, but there seem to be no lasting negative effects from the error.

The border post on the Zambia side of the Chobe-Zambezi river was, as usual, astoundingly chaotic. We managed to get processed through immigration in about 90 minutes, though, and arrived at Victoria Falls by late morning.

On the drive from Shakawe to Qangwa, we stopped in the town of Gumare to pick up Peace Corps volunteers Kevin Draper and Skye Peebles; Skye's brother Cameron, a college student spending two months in Botswana for an independent study project, came along. We planned to camp in Quangwa on the property of Tocadi employee Joyce Tsaae, one of Jeff's colleagues, so that early the next day we could continue on to the Gcwihaba Caverns.

When we arrived at the caverns at about 11 a.m., a contingent of 12 members of the Botswana Defence Force (BDF), working with a guide and geologist from the University of Botswana, had just finished their day's work of excavating sand from the entrance via hand-to-hand bucket conveyor. Sand from the surrounding areas blows into the cave entrance, and has to be removed from time to time. The BDF group departed for lunch and to play a soccer match at 3 in the afternoon back in Quangwa. The guide and geologist handed each of us a hardhat, checked their high-beam torches (flashlights), and led us down a steep set of boulders into the caverns.

We walked from chamber to chamber as the guides described the history and formation of the structures. Three different species of bats live in the chambers; in some areas we saw five or six tiny bats clustered together, but in the deeper regions there were thousands of large bats. In those areas the floor of the chamber consisted of droppings several feet deep, decaying bat bodies, and, of course, countless insects. The temperatures ranged from very cool at the entrances and in the spots without bats, to very hot and humid.

We resurfaced after a 90-minute tour and began the drive back to Qangwa. When we arrived at Joyce's place, she was outside making a necklace from ostrich eggshells. Women from several of the San tribes in this area of Botswana make and sell traditional jewelry made from ostrich eggshells and beads. Although Joyce is employed by Tocadi, and sometimes is resident in Shakawe, her work assignments require stays of several weeks in the San villages of Qangwa and Dobe, so she keeps a home there.

The next entry will feature the arrival of Jeff's brother Ron and family from Louisville, Kentucky and our road trip with them through Botswana and Zambia.

On June 4 the first of several visitors arrived to use our house as a base to explore the Okavango Delta. Melody Darnell, the American Peace Corps volunteer currently stationed in Nata, came for a three-day stay before she returns to the U.S. for a month. She has completed the standard two-year commitment, but has extended for a third year, and will go back to Nata in late July. We had spoken to Melody by phone several times since our arrival in Africa; since she serves in the village of Jeff's Peace Corps assignment, we were interested in spending time with her, but our schedules did not coincide until recently.

Melody left on June 7, and was followed on June 10 by our friend Pat Nurse from Knysna, Republic of South Africa. Pat is an avid birder. She was accompanied by two birding friends, Mary and Sandy. They spent the week with us, driving out every day in search of avian life in and around Shakawe. Each early morning and evening they sat in our front yard, bordering a marsh, with binoculars, notebooks and reference books in hand. After only two days Pat had a list of 43 birds seen or heard in the yard and immediate environs; we were surprised and impressed.

Pat and company departed Friday morning, June 15, for Popa Falls in Namibia, just across the border. On an impulse we packed camping gear, prepared some portable food, and departed that afternoon for the village of Qangwa, en route to the Gcwihaba Caverns (also known as Drotsky's Caves). Jeff has intended for 17 years to see the caverns, and this was our last opportunity, at least during this stay in Botswana. More on this in the next entry...

We spent one night in Kasane, then one night in a chalet at Main Camp in Hwange National Park, Zimbabwe, and two nights in Zimbabwe's second city, Bulawayo, with Tom and Donna. We then drove back into Botswana, made a lunch stop in Botswana's second city of Francistown and spent the night at Nata Lodge. The last night of the road trip before returning the Billesbachs to Maun for their flight out was spent at Planet Baobab. We went a bit more upscale than the bushman hut this time. What is described by the lodge staff as a "mud hut" is actually a rustic but glamorous round chalet with one beds built into the walls; the bed frames are made of the same material as the walls and floors. Unlike the bushman huts, the mud huts have lights, electrical outlets, and their own sinks, showers and toilets.

Tom and Donna flew back to the U.S. on May 19. Our next set of visitors from the States will be Jeff's brother Ron, wife Michele, and daughters Isabel and Sophia. They will arrive in Maun on July 4, and depart from Lusaka, Zambia on July 12; several hours after they leave, Jeff's cousin Carl Brown from St. Louis will fly into Lusaka to visit until August 4.

Many of our friends and family have now heard that we plan to return to the U.S. sometime in early September, instead of July 2008 as originally scheduled. We will pack our belongings while Carl is still with us, and after Jeff's last day of work on July 31 we'll drive Carl to the Botswana capital of Gaborone for his flight home. We then will sell our vehicle in Gaborone and travel by train or bus (and ferry) to Kampala, Uganda for a brief tour. We will fly home out of Kampala, or possibly Dar Es Salam, Tanzania. There will be updates on the blog as we finalize details. Cheers!