October 20, 2014, Monday. I'm back in our compartment after another excellent but too filling lunch accompanied by the usual two+ glasses of wine. We have spent some of the day becalmed by electricity outages and the rest rolling through uninteresting scenery. This part of our journey has been more populated, with several small cities or large towns alternating with unpopulated countryside. Not many of the tiny settlements we saw in Zambia here in Zimbabwe. We have been told that the Mugabe government has destroyed the once stable economy of this country, but even so, it seems more like the 21st century, with paved roads, electricity, and perhaps people who suffer more from the extreme poverty of their conditions since they live further from the land. 

Sometime today we crossed into Botswana, our fourth African country. As we are traveling more or less east to west near the equator, they pretty much all look alike, at least from the train. They have all been extremely dry with bare, dormant trees and shrubs, and either dry grasses or patches of burned over land. Late this morning we passed through a short stretch of track where fires were raging through the tinder-dry grass right up against the track. Apparently that wasn't as dangerous as it looked because we chugged right through the angry-sounding crackle and heat of the fires. They burn to fertilize the land and to kill insects, especially the termites whose huge mounds we see all along the way.

Despite delays, we are told that today's excursion to a cattle farm is still on, to be followed at 8pm by a formal dinner back on the train. John says he isn't going to leave the train. I'm still trying to decide. I'm not all that interested in the side trip, the probable heat, or the nearly certain bugs, but a break from the train does sound good.     

LATER. In the end, we both went and enjoyed our little jaunt. Pleasant temps, no bugs. The lesson here is never to judge by what MIGHT happen, because you will probably be wrong and sorry to have missed a nice activity. By the time we got our act together, we were the last people off the train and so ended up riding shotgun in two different game drive jeep/trucks. That turned out to be a blessing since it saved us the climb up onto the top viewing deck. We were also lucky to be in vehicles that actually saw some game, unlike the majority. I saw a small herd of impala running for cover and then a few water bucks doing the same. We saw a giraffe and later another one who seemed happy to pose for us. Around 5:30 all of us gathered near a pond for what they call a sundowner. That seems to be drinks in a location with some hope that wildlife will also gather for a drink. In our case, the wildlife consisted of one giraffe who approached the pond, only to hide behind a bush, and one more who didn't seem happy with our presence and just stood at the edge of the woods staring at us. We had arrived at this farm way behind schedule, so what should have been a combination tour of Brahman cattle farming and game drive became just the latter. It might have been more useful to drop the game drive and show us the cattle since presumably we will see much more game during our two night stay at the reserve, and this was our only chance to learn about cattle ranching, but it was exciting to see giraffes.