Happy New Year to everyone, and thanks for your patience with our sporadic updating. We apologize for the length of time that has passed since our last entry. There are several reasons; sometimes our Internet service is interrupted; sometimes the electric service is interrupted (as it was yesterday when I was in the midst of trying to post this entry, which meant I had to wait for service to be restored today). We also were away for eighteen days. The Tocadi office closed on December 15 for the Christmas and New Year holidays, to reopen on January 8. We used the holiday time to drive through a remote area in northern Botswana, central and western Zimbabwe, and southern Zambia. This road trip was memorable in many ways.

We departed Shakawe at 3 p.m. on December 13, headed across the Okavango River for the village of Seronga. As always, we drove 10 kilometers to Mohembo and took the small ferry, which can hold three vehicles and about thirty people, then drove a couple of hours to reach Seronga. The gravel road to Seronga is much improved lately. When we first arrived it had holes large and deep enough to inflict significant damage to vehicles traveling too fast. We spent the night in a chalet at the Okavango Polers' Trust lodge. The next morning we drove northeast to the village of Gudigwa. Jeff and other Tocadi staff members attended a board meeting for the local community trust, which is one of Tocadi's projects. The other staffers returned to Shakawe after the meeting ended in early afternoon; we decided to stay over in Gudigwa, because the next part of our journey was to be through the Selinda reserve, with no possibility of overnight accommodation.

We knew that Gudigwa contained a camp catering to tourists, but did not have any other information. We found it a short drive through the bush east of the village. It can reasonably be described as "plush," with beautiful grass chalets containing comfortable beds, running water, flush toilets, nice sinks and showers, and solar-powered lights. No other tourists were resident when we arrived. We talked with the manager, who was willing to have us since we did not require meals (we brought our own food and cooking implements). The camp usually caters to pre-arranged groups of as many as sixteen people, with meals and traditional music and dance performances included in the fees. People do not typically wander in and pay for a night's stay, as we were trying to do, so the camp does not keep a stock of food on hand.

We waited while the manager radioed his boss in Gaborone to confirm that we could stay (there is no cellphone service in some of the more remote areas of Botswana). After twenty minutes he returned to quote a price of 500 pula for each of us just for one night in a chalet. We felt that the price was a bit steep, so we thanked him, made polite conversation and drove away. During the polite conversation, Jeff let him know that Gudigwa Camp recently had used Tocadi's facilities in Shakawe. We were halfway back to the village when the camp safari vehicle pulled up behind us and the manager flagged us down. He had radioed his boss again, who decided that in light of the relationship between Tocadi and the camp, we should stay without paying anything. We spent a very enjoyable night in a lovely place.

Because there is much to report about the holiday road trip, my intent was to write a new post each day this week. However, we just decided this morning to take an impromptu road trip to either the Moremi game reserve or the Central Kalahari game reserve to finish out the week before the office reopens, so the next post may not come until next Monday, January 8. The next episode will be our adventures in the Selinda reserve and at Savute camp. Cheers!