Now you don'tChada is closing for a short while, until the swamps dry up, the grass turns yellow, the clouds roll out and the dry season returns. Yesterday we waved goodbye to our last guests, the staff standing smart in their Chada Katavi uniforms, smiling broadly as usual.
As the landrover disappeared into the distance, the staff also disappeared into their own tents, only to reappear wearing green cover-all jumpsuits with the word Nomad stamped on the back. And Chada was brought down in a matter of hours.
Leave nothing behind...
Chada's remoteness is nothing if not well-known, but now we are experiencing an aloneness rarely felt on earth anymore. Where 24 hours earlier we sat in the glow of the library tent lamps, chatting with our snifter-palming guests, there is now an empty clearing in the shade of the Tamarind trees.
Soon we too will fly away, leaving just three Chada staff to look after our little patch of wilderness, but for the next four days we will enjoy a silence we have never known.
