It started by getting off on the wrong country. Who knew that the Victoria Falls airport was in Zimbabwe, not Zambia?
It ended with a visit to Pastor and Sherifa Martin in Johannesburg (my friend Johan Martin's parents) and then on to CapeTown for a conference on antique maps of Africa.
ZAMBIA
THINGS YOU SHOULD KNOW BEFORE YOU SAY "I WISH I WAS THERE"...
This particular trip was run by Zegrahm Expeditions and one good feature is a well-known naturalist who accompanies us, Lex Hes. It is not all glamor. Most days we arise at 5 to do an early morning drive when the birds begin to forage and the kills of the nocturnal hunting animals are still visable...that attracts other animals you might not normally see like vultures and hyaena. By 10 it begins to get stifling hot. There's a break for brunch and a rest back at the lodge/camp, and then at 3 there is coffee and snacks and another drive from 4:30 to 7:30. Sundown is around 6:45 so you see the full range of animal activity. Not all camps have aircon, and some don't even have fans. All have mosquito netting around beds. You cannot drink the water but there is plenty of filtered water available. The roads are rough because elephants and hippos walk through them when it rains (rarely...the rain) and they dry rough. Still, this is a remarkable experience.
FIRST THING ON THIS TRIP... I FLY INTO THE WRONG AIRPORT
I used to be first rate at figuring out travel on my own, but this time I made a mistake. The downside was not too terrible, consisting as it did of walking about a mile in the hot midday sun of Zimbabwe, transferring to three taxis in order to get to the hotel after having waited in non-air-conditioned concrete room which constitutes the immigration line at the Victoria Falls airport for an hour and a half, with no clean bathrooms in sight.
If I had let the expedition organizer book my flight, no doubt this would not have happened. But how was I to know that there is a difference between Livingstone the airport in Zambia and Victoria Falls airport in Zimbabwe? They are a mere 40 km apart… But they are in different countries and that means among other things that it is necessary to get two visas at the airport of arrival instead of one. The difference is only $20 so that's not terrible, but of course I got in the wrong Visa line on top of everything else and had a heavy backpack on my back, no place to sit in orderly rows in these little African airports, and some really smelly people in front of me
Anyhow, I arrived after a few extra hours on the road , to the Royal Livingston hotel which is on the Zambia side of the border. It is really a spectacular place, and I am not good enough for it. Among the first things I did was to insist on changing room to a place on the property where The Internet signal reached. There is a possibility that the signal was blocked not by remoteness from the hotel villa-like check-in area, but by what you will see in the attached photo. These obstructions were 10 feet away from my hotel room door
Tonight I am having an early dinner on the veranda which is not far from the banks of the Zambezi river. This, after all, was a prompting for this trip in the first place. There are a few of you who know that I have an interest in the exploration of Africa, and I have therefore been intrigued for quite some time about the trip of Henry Morton Stanley to find the medical missionary Livingstone (who did end up somewhere deep in Zambia as his final destination… And place of death.) Perhaps the most famous words in all of the history of exploration is a phrase that Stanley uttered when he walked into the village where Livingstone was living, made his way through the crowd of interested native people who were admiring the American flag that Stanley was carrying on behalf of the newspaper for whom he had undertaken this adventure, and spoke out clearly "Dr. Livingstone, I presume?" In fact, we used to have a dinghy at Lake Tahoe which was made by the company Livingston, and I promptly named it "I presume". The dinghy floated away on a windy day at Tahoe, as so much of actual African history has floated away due to colonialization and economic exploitation. This is why I want to see more of Africa before it changes into an economic disaster with indigenous traditions lost and farm land rolled into corporate farms, with mines slashing through the jungle and rivers filled with industrial chemicals and runoff from corporate farming, all of this fueled in large part by our friends the expansive Chinese. Of course perhaps if the Chinese were not responsible for the spoiling of Africa in this decade, another country may have stepped up to fill the void in what is seemingly an inevitable destruction of a great continent… Which is the mother of us all (a Tip of the hat to Lucy)
More in a few days. It took me 28 hours to get here. I smell pretty bad myself, and I'm hungry for something other than airplane food
VICTORIA FALLS Helicopter ride of a lifetime – – over Victoria Falls. In addition to giving a great view of the falls, from overhead one gets a perspective of the Zambezi river, and the force of the water as it goes over the falls. The ride includes going through the gorge carved out by the Zambezi as it approaches Victoria Falls. To start the adventure right, the Helipad is located near a marvelous baobab tree
Morning sun catches the mist on Victoria Falls, seen from the Zambian side
GIRAFFE Impass at the hotel path en route to Victoria Falls. Helpful advice from shuttle driver: "be careful, that's a male and they can be aggressive". Guess I'll walk the long way around
A mixed bag of notes from today in Zambia. Less then half a mile from our Toko Leya camp we encountered a small herd of elephants. Then we went to the border with Zimbabwe, to cross over and see Victoria Falls from that side. The most common passengers across the border are bicycle traders, who take vegetables from the Zambia side to Zimbabwe and sell them there. These "merchants", mostly young men, support whole extended families by this activity, which is the only means of employment for most of them. Unemployment is 62% in Zambia, and higher in Zimbabwe. Next we went looking for the rare white rhinoceros, and managed to see a small group of them. Tomorrow we go deeper into Zambia, flying by small charter planes from Livingstone into the place on the map on the upper left of the red triangle. Livingstone, our nearby airport to our current lodge, is where our guide's finger is pointing (on the lower left). These next tented camps are not going to be luxurious – – no air-conditioning, and no Wi-Fi. So, catch you in seven days when we return to a lodge which has a few more amenities. Jeez it's hot here!
REPORT FROM BUSANGA BUSH CAMP, Kafue National Park, ZAMBIA...
LIONS, leopards, elephants, hippo, elephants and all kinds of antelope and birds. In summary, that was what our group experienced in our first two days of touring in modified open-sided Toyota expedition vehicles. One our first evening out we saw a lioness with her cub, helping themselves to the antelope kill of earlier that day. The lioness had hidden her cub in a thicket while she went on the hunt, and then dragged the carcass back for consumption over the next few days. Both of the cats' stomaches were bulging and though we got within 30 feet, there was no danger. They walked some distance to a little stream for a drink, and then back.The next day we returned to the site to get a better look at the carcass and watched as the cub took a stroll into the nearby grasses hoping to find a playmate (there are older cubs by this important female of this pride) but no others came when he called so the cub had to be content with some birds dive-bombing her and scampering after them.
CHASED BY AN ANGRY MOTHER ELEPHANT. Mothers and babies are a part of the eco-system here, with each species having its own gestation cycle and so there are always babies. A not-so-tranquil scene happened on day two of our Zambian trip when half the group, in one open-sided safari vehicle, were observing an elephant baby so small that it was probably born the night before, our guide guessed. We stopped the car at a very respectful distance for photos, and then started on the road past that small elephant grouping...but in this instance the mother elephant raised her trunk, trumpeted, flapped her ears and took off after us. Frankly, it was scary, but the road was good enough for the driver to accelerate rapidly and after she chased us for 200 yards, she gave up and turned around. Every adventure travel trip I've ever taken has at least moment when you wonder if you'll get back home in one piece, and this I think was one for Zambia.
Oct 7
Air travel in Zambia, at least on small planes chartered to go into airstrips near bush camps, brings a whole new meaning to "runway hazards". From this photo, It's hard to see that elephant just ambling up the right bank of the Tarmac a bit ahead of the plane that's about to land. But they both made it safely !
CRASH LANDING IN KAFUE: October 2, 2015
Yesterday i thought that being charged by an angry female elephant was a possible near-death experience, "One on every trip," I think I quipped. Today topped that.
October 2 started early for me as, once again, I touched the wrong button on my travel alarm clock and reset it such that the alarm went off at 3:45, not 4:45. It occured to me after I'd already dressed that I didn't hear any other stirrings in the safari camp. (I dislike using the world "camp" because most camps don't have dining rooms with linen, a well-stocked no-charge bar, 24 hour coffee and cookies, a small swimming pool, and outdoor seating with a fire pit to take the chill out of the early morning air...)
Nonetheless, after gathering at 5:15, off we five Zegrahm travelers domiciled at this camp went. It was only a short distance to where the hot air balloon company awaited us. The other 6 of our travelers, staying at another camp nearby, had taken this balloon ride two days before.
The trial balloon today (yes, there is such a thing as a trial balloon!) indicated good ballooning conditions. Yesterday, following the night's thunderstorm, it had not.
Clilmbing into a hot air balloon basket is always a bit of a struggle, but I'd done it before in Napa and in Bagan. We got some instructions on landing positions to assume, including the "sport landing" position to assume in case of a rough landing.
The trouble started almost immediately when we lifted off. The clouds had suddenly closed in, and the wind shifted not far above the grounds. We were moving along at 10 kilometers/hour and 100 feet off ground when the pilot started getting alarming radio calls from the pursuit truck crew.
Our speed accelerated quickly -- too quickly. We barely cleared some acadia trees (stripped bare of foliage and left with only 4 foot spikey thorns, as this was the end of the dry season and the giraffes had little else to eat...). The pilot looked over the park to try and find an even-yet-not-hard patch of ground to land. But the ground on the other side of the line of acacia tress was a mass of hard lumps, where the mud from the rainy season had dried as elephants and rhinos had moved through it on their way to find more foliage elsewhere.
The pilot spotted an even field near a stream, and he did his best, but he couldn't dump air out of the balloon fast enough to descend quickly. We were all crouched down in the basket in the "sport landing" position we'd been instructed in.
Three huge jolts as the bottom edge of the basket caught the ground of the relatively-even flood plain, and after each jolt the baloon went a bit aloft again, and then boom-lift-boom-lift-boom-FALL OVER. We looked back later over the ground and clearly saw the long divits that the basket had caused, over the length approximating two football fields
Extremely scary. Actually, I thought I was going to die. No one really remembers much as we were all screaming so much. We all got out of the tipped-on-it's-side basket, in a relatively orderly manned -- as orderly as you can do on your bruised and hurting side, head-first. We took a look around for lions and hyenas but didn't see any nearby. When the pursuit truck arrived 30 minutes later, we climbed in for our ride back to camp. No one wanted the champagne.
The result was: not dead. But I had a banged up knee, a huge contusion that starts at my right hip and goes to my tailbone, a big swelling on the back of my left hand. We all had concussions, according to our fellow traveler who is a retired neurologist. And me? I had gratitude. Not dead today, Goddess, thank you! Still, I had a good cry in my room back at the camp. Sometimes traveling alone and going through a day like October 2 leaves you feeling pretty vulnerable.
We get really close to animals...
GAME VIEWING. In these open sided safari vehicles, you can get quite close to the animals. I took these photos with parts of the vehicle canopy etc in them just so you can understand what it's like to be 10 feet away from an animal. Here, giraffe, hyaena, and heffalumps (aka elephants). By the way, hyaena weigh over 200 pounds with a jaw strength that is unbelievable ... one bite can break through a giraffe leg.
Wonderful birds!
Experience of a leopard kill
Zambia at night, in the bush, holds many surprises. Leopard kills, herds of giraffe, beautiful sunsets, and "sundowner" drinks catered on the front of the safari vehicles. FYI new thing I learned: the first thing a leopard does when it downs an impala is to crush its windpipe so it cannot emit a distress cry...which alerts the hungry hyaena always on the prowl. Hyaena will actually steal the kill as even leopards are afraid of them. After silencing it, this female leopard took a while to kill this pregnant impala, and first feasted on its stomach area to lighten it up and then dragged the carcass into a nearby tree for its feast over the next 3 days. Photo of leopard/impala was lit up with spotlights that guides use judiciously in night drives, so as not to dazzle night animals.
CHIAWA CAMP, LOWER ZAMBEZI NATIONAL PARK
This is what greeted us as we approached the boat dock for Chiawa Camp on the Lower Zambesi River today
It's really hot here, 40c=105f and although we are not on game drives in the middle of the day, it's like a sauna in our cabins. Loads of nasty biting flies too!
A bush camp may be the only place you'll ever have a chance to have a catered breakfast by a river, with a pile of hippo dung on the other side of the table.
This evening's "sundowner" cruise on the Zambezi gave an opportunity to see all the sights not yet seen: a hippo close up, a big crocodile lying still on the riverbank hoping to surprise a baboon, an elephant about to swim to a nearby island with more greenery for supper, and the setting sun against the Zambezi escarpment being escorted to night by a wide mouthed hippo yawning on the left. Magical
What's a tented permanent safari camp look like? This is my cabin at Chiawa Camp and you can see I am about forty feet away from the Zambezi River. Last night the water buffalo walked through, vocalizing as they went. A bit disconcerting to hear this 10 feet away from my canvas tent side BUT we are on a raised platform so all is well. Everything here is very nice but yesterday it was 40C and that's pretty darn hot. Thank goodness for fans 24x7 running on generator power!
Oct 8
This evening's "sundowner" cruise on the Zambezi gave an opportunity to see all the sights not yet seen: a hippo close up, a big crocodile lying still on the riverbank hoping to surprise a baboon, an elephant about to swim to a nearby island with more greenery for supper, and the setting sun against the Zambezi escarpment being escorted to night by a wide mouthed hippo yawning on the left. Magical
Oct 10
I've just arrived in Lusaka, unpacked and am enjoying a hotel with consistent aircon and hot water, and despite a mixup at the airport where the hotel transport was at the wrong location... Here I am.
I prevailed on two young Zambian airport police to call the hotel and straighten things out. While I waited I got their life stories, an accounting of their training, their family histories including the grandma who still farms, their desires to get established in their jobs before seriously looking for girlfriends, etc. Just like young men everywhere. One of them proclaimed he wanted to marry an American woman and fluttered his eyelashes but laughed when I said I was almost 70 and therefore could not go to the dance clubs with him. We had a great time talking.
As is so often the case, the travel angel on my shoulder and a big sincere smile on my part continues to deliver good experiences and stories.
I know I am blessed and I am very thankful
So we will see what the next two days brings in terms of a deeper understanding of Zambia as I have coffee with a few HBS program grads. Should be interesting. The country has elections soon. Unemployment is over 60 percent. The price of copper is falling and China needs less copper every year, agriculture is struggling as the land is not particularly fertile (the substrate is sand from the Kakahari Desert that blew in millions of years ago) and fertilizer takes foreign exchange which this poor country has little of... Were they better off under British rule (called Rhodesia at the time...) or did the Brits simply skim the resources and ran? Some revealing discussions ahead...
Stay tuned
And yes, being in the bush was educational and thrilling , but exhausting. Will not miss 4 am wake up calls for early game
I prevailed on two young Zambian airport police to call the hotel and straighten things out. While I waited I got their life stories, an accounting of their training, their family histories including the grandma who still farms, their desires to get established in their jobs before seriously looking for girlfriends, etc. Just like young men everywhere. One of them proclaimed he wanted to marry an American woman and fluttered his eyelashes but laughed when I said I was almost 70 and therefore could not go to the dance clubs with him. We had a great time talking.
As is so often the case, the travel angel on my shoulder and a big sincere smile on my part continues to deliver good experiences and stories.
I know I am blessed and I am very thankful
So we will see what the next two days brings in terms of a deeper understanding of Zambia as I have coffee with a few HBS program grads. Should be interesting. The country has elections soon. Unemployment is over 60 percent. The price of copper is falling and China needs less copper every year, agriculture is struggling as the land is not particularly fertile (the substrate is sand from the Kakahari Desert that blew in millions of years ago) and fertilizer takes foreign exchange which this poor country has little of... Were they better off under British rule (called Rhodesia at the time...) or did the Brits simply skim the resources and ran? Some revealing discussions ahead...
Stay tuned
And yes, being in the bush was educational and thrilling , but exhausting. Will not miss 4 am wake up calls for early game
Oct 12
Things I won't miss about Zambia: tsetse flies. But our guide in Kafue had a unique solution. He rigged up a kind of smoker in front of the right headlight, filled it with dried elephant dung, and lit it. Lovely aroma (not!) engulfed us as we drove around but it kept the tsetse away. Mostly. When they bite, you know it!
I'm not sure where this mystical sense came from, that I am of Africa and Africa is of me. I've used the term "mother of us all" many times and generally I get a quizzical look or even a disbelieving email when I use this term.
But for me, there is indeed something that touches deep within my soul about this continent. The other day I decided to create a list of the top 10 travel experiences of my life, seeing with my sixth sense once again some stories and circumstances that are forever blazed in my memory. The really interesting thing to me was it when I was done with my top 10, seven of them were Africa-centric.
I think the real breakthrough for hard-driving shy overcompensating me came in 1974 in the desert in southern Algeria, sitting around the campfire with Tuaregs. I could not speak their language nor they mine. But they made tea and passed it around the circle and sang soft evening songs into the tranquil starlit night, while the sand shifted slightly around us as the sands of time surely do, and one of them took his leather and metal slim bracelet off his wrist and gave it to me and insisted that I take it with me on my forward journey.
It has been 40 years since I wandered away from the group I was traveling with, and I've wandered away from many groups since then. I may be in part born nomad, or I may be in part an independent spirit, or I may be in part just a reservoir of my mother's orneriness and her high spirits. Whatever mixture I am, A deep regret that I have is somehow along the way of my journey, I have lost that bracelet. It's strange the things that come to mean so much to us, and they are not greatly material things, but a whisper of a memory, a recollection of a kind smile, and a sense that we are indeed all one. That in part is what I mean by the mother of us all, for our species surely started on this continent, and if there is hope for the world to come, I believe it resides here
But for me, there is indeed something that touches deep within my soul about this continent. The other day I decided to create a list of the top 10 travel experiences of my life, seeing with my sixth sense once again some stories and circumstances that are forever blazed in my memory. The really interesting thing to me was it when I was done with my top 10, seven of them were Africa-centric.
I think the real breakthrough for hard-driving shy overcompensating me came in 1974 in the desert in southern Algeria, sitting around the campfire with Tuaregs. I could not speak their language nor they mine. But they made tea and passed it around the circle and sang soft evening songs into the tranquil starlit night, while the sand shifted slightly around us as the sands of time surely do, and one of them took his leather and metal slim bracelet off his wrist and gave it to me and insisted that I take it with me on my forward journey.
It has been 40 years since I wandered away from the group I was traveling with, and I've wandered away from many groups since then. I may be in part born nomad, or I may be in part an independent spirit, or I may be in part just a reservoir of my mother's orneriness and her high spirits. Whatever mixture I am, A deep regret that I have is somehow along the way of my journey, I have lost that bracelet. It's strange the things that come to mean so much to us, and they are not greatly material things, but a whisper of a memory, a recollection of a kind smile, and a sense that we are indeed all one. That in part is what I mean by the mother of us all, for our species surely started on this continent, and if there is hope for the world to come, I believe it resides here
