In this part of the world, the Friday preceding and the Monday following Easter are national holidays; many businesses and most offices, including Tocadi, are closed. We took the opportunity provided by the four-day weekend to travel southeast, to the Makgadikgadi Pans and Nxai Pan national park, and to Jeff's favorite village and former place of residence, Nata.

There are pans of varying sizes throughout Botswana. Some are expanses of grasslands, and some consist of soil with large concentrations of salt, similar to drylake beds found in the southwestern United States. In years with sufficient rainfall the pans are flooded. At this season, some have begun to dry enough for vehicles to travel on existing tracks. Because the pans also serve as game reserves, it is possible to see a wide variety of birds and animals.

On Friday April 6 we drove from Maun to the village of Gweta, where several tracks onto the pans can be accessed. En route we stopped at Chapman's Baobab, pictured here, located in Gusha Pan. There are a number of very large, very old baobab trees in the country, and this is one of the more famous. The base of the tree has unfortunately been defaced by carving of names and dates into the trunk, but it still is magnificent.

We drove on until we came to a flat, dry expanse of soil and sparse vegetation, where we decided to camp for the night. No one was to be seen for miles in any direction. We made a supper of pasta and coffee, and were enjoying the peaceful surroundings and slow, beautiful sunset when we were suddenly assailed by cloud of mosquitoes. Repeated use of the standard insecticides did not even slow them down. Jeff was smart enough to already have bathed outside before supper, but I had to take a container of water into the cab of the pickup and try to wash in very cramped conditions. We abandoned the dishes and cooking equipment on the pickup tailgate until morning and dove into the mosquito-free tent for the night, earlier than we had planned. The insects were audible outside for several hours, and we expected to have to deal with them again at dawn, but none appeared.