Victoria Falls

​Yesterday was a long travel day. First, three hours on a chilly morning drive in an open game vehicle on unimproved roads through the bush to the airstrip. 

On the way, the drivers had to stop and clear a tree that had been pushed down by an elephant, and was blocking the road. 

And when we arrived at the airstrip our driver had to pull onto the runway to chase a herd of zebra off so that the plane could land. Then another hour flight in a Cessna Caravan. Interestingly, today both pilots were young women— and ours made one of the smoothest, most perfect landings I’ve seen in a while. Great that there are such opportunities for women in Africa! Finally, an hour bus ride followed by a lengthy border crossing (we’re back in Zimbabwe again) and another bus ride to our hotel.

Last evening we had our typical OAT “home-hosted meal.” A taxi delivered us to a modest house in the old township area. In colonial times, black residents were forced to live here, regardless of their economic status. So some homes here are quite nice, and others are shacks. 

We were met at the door by a very large woman who introduced herself. But when we had trouble pronouncing her name, she told us that her name meant “happy” and that we could just call her that.

The house is home to 3 generations: Happy, her mother, “Gogo” (meaning grandma), and children aged 20, 11, and 6.

We got the grand tour, including the kitchen. The preparation area, sink, and refrigerator were inside, the stove and oven just steps outside under a roofed patio to keep the heat out of the house.

In the kitchen they had set up a display of typical foods, including the tiny dried fish that are considered a luxury item, and the mopane worms that are a significant source of protein in this part of the world. Yes, we each ate one. Dried and roasted to a crisp, they taste like bacon, but with a somewhat uncomfortable crunch. Dinner was good.

This morning we visited Victoria Falls. It’s impossible to get a photo of the whole thing, because it’s a mile wide. 

After 3 very dry years, the rainy season here has been extreme this year. The volume of water going over the falls is at record levels, and the spray can go as high as 500 feet! (The African name for the falls before Livingstone — with typical colonial hubris — renamed them after his queen, translates as “the smoke that thunders.”)

The cloud of spray creates its own microclimate, so the surrounding area is a dense rainforest in the midst of a desert. Even though we were issued raincoats, we were well soaked by the nearly constant heavy rainfall. At the exit, I literally had to wring out my socks before we could walk on! It took all afternoon for my shoes to dry out in the sun. 

Most of the group returned to the hotel by bus, but we wanted to walk over the famous 1885 iron bridge over the Zambezi River gorge, down stream from the Falls. 

It was a short walk to the border post where we got a “bridge pass” without having to have our passports stamped again. Then we walked about a mile to the bridge through the “no man’s land” between nations. 

Neither Zimbabwe nor Zambia feel any need to maintain the road in this liminal space, so we got splattered with muddy water by vehicles passing us on the road. Baboons were playing on the parked semi trucks that were waiting to have their loads inspected by customs, and monkeys foraged in trash cans.

From the bridge, our view of the falls was largely obscured by the heavy mist, but the view of the gorge was quite nice. 

We walked back to the border station and presented our pass, then took a footpath that our tour leader had pointed out to us. It’s primarily used by locals as a shortcut and to avoid walking along the busy road that has only intermittent sidewalks. 

We spent the afternoon reading and relaxing by the hotel pool. Late afternoon we boarded the bus once again and headed up river for a sundown cruise.

At the ward we were greeted by a marimba band. An elephant and several baboons wandered by as we listened to them. We hardly notice anymore. The boat was an overgrown pontoon, and they served us a complimentary tropical cocktail and snack as we cruised. The snack included a cracker topped with crocodile meat. Tastes like chicken, but tough. 

Back at the hotel we had our farewell dinner on the lawn with a traditional grip singing and dancing for us. 

The evening concluded with a show at a nearby theater, for which we paid extra. It was sort of musical theatre with a plot based on a traditional story. The dancing was excellent — the dancers obviously classically trained. They also sang very well. But the acting was a bit sketchy at times. A good show, but probably overpriced. 

Mabebe Camp

​Things are swampy in the Okavango Delta region. Many of the trails that the game drivers normally use are flooded.

We’ve seen lots of interesting birds — several different species of eagles, geese, storks, kites, and others.

One of the most beautiful is a turquoise-breasted roller.

Otherwise, we’ve seen few new animals. One can only take so many photos of giraffes, zebra, and elephants. The same with warthogs, wildebeests, and Cape buffalo. And of course, the impalas are everywhere.

Two exceptions: Yesterday we saw a hyena coming from a kill, carrying the leg of a buffalo in its mouth! We were hoping to get wherever he came from in case there were still lions around the kill, but we couldn’t find it.

The second exception was a pack of 19 African Painted Dogs. These are NOT vizslas or any other pets! They are fierce hunters.

The pack was oblivious to our vehicles, even when the word of their location got out on the radio and 4 or 5 other vehicles arrived on the scene.

We later ran into them in the bush as they were in a hunt.

And still later, on our way back to camp, we came upon them after dark. Quite the show!

The Longest Day

​This was a travel day, beginning with an hour-long bus ride to Kasane, the nearest city.

Kasane was a study in contrasts. A beautiful modern shopping center with large supermarket was across the street from a row of shacks where poor folks were selling handcrafts and produce.

The airport was not large, but also beautiful and brand new. We flew again in 12-passenger Cessna Caravans, but these were more like scheduled flights. We had people other than members of our group on board, and we stopped at another gravel airstrip in the bush to let them off and pick up another passenger.

We are in the Okavango Delta region which is very swampy. The airstrip we were supposed to use was flooded, so we had to land at another and be driven overland.

We had a stop for lunch beside one stream of the river and were taken on a “dugout canoe” (though it was fiberglass) through the reeds to look at some hippos.

But after that it was just a very long, hot slog over unimproved roads. We arrived at our new camp exhausted, but had a nice meal before showers and bed.

Monkey Attack

​This was another early morning wake up call, followed by breakfast and loading up for another game drive in the national park. This would be a long one — we didn’t return to camp for brunch, but stayed out for nearly 8 hours.

The drive covered a great deal of distance, going much farther into the park than we have been previously. The pace was also faster. Mary and I drew the back seat in the truck, and got bounced around a bit with the higher speeds on the unimproved roads. They call it, “The African massage,” but it doesn’t do much for one’s back.

The goal was to find one or more big cats — cheeta, leopard, or lion. So ignoring all but the most interesting of animals, we charged on. Our driver/game guide stopped nearly every oncoming driver to exchange information about what was to be seen ahead.

Thanks to one such exchange, we raced to a spot where at least 5 other trucks were already clustered. Here we got a glimpse of a leopard, just before she pounced on the guinnie hen she was stalking. She missed, and that was the end of the show.

This was a long game drive, so we didn’t return to camp for lunch. Instead, we parked at one of the national park’s very few and somewhat primitive picnic areas. The meal was challenging because half of us had to chase away hungry monkeys while the other half ate. 

The monkeys know this is a spot where people have food, and they are very aggressive. One jumped onto the serving table and ran off with half a loaf of good, homemade bread. Another snatched a muffin right out of someone’s hand.

The monkeys were rewarded at the end of the meal when one member of our group began feeding them. They’ll be hanging around for the next group of travelers after that!

We continued into the afternoon seeing lots of elephants, giraffes and warthogs. But nothing new.

Back at camp we watched elephants parade right through the camp property. Animals have boundary issues.

Dinner was a traditional African menu, which was actually quite good (although we still think that polenta, which is a staple of the diet here, tastes like paste).

The meal was followed by a cultural program by the camp staff. Their performance was a big step above those at the previous camps, with lots of harmony in the singing and dancing to very complex rhythms.

Namibia (sort of)

​“ Star,” our tour leader, had us up early at 5:30 a.m. Fortunately, we’re pretty much over jet lag. After breakfast we set out on a morning game ride, this time entering the national park. We had an escort of baboons leading us out of the camp.

At the park entry gate we were greeted by a hord of mongosses (mongeese?) who had discovered a littered plastic bag in the road, presumably with something edible inside. There must have been 30 of them swarming over it. But when our truck approached they scattered into the grass near the roadway.

The rest of the morning drive was a bit of a disappointment after our expectations had been raised by the previous evening. We saw plenty of animals, but repeats of the same we had seen before.

Still, the weather was gorgeous and we got some excellent photos of various species of mammals and many, many birds.

In the afternoon Star arranged a walk for the half dozen or so of us who were feeling a lack of exercise from sitting in vehicles so much. Rules insist that we be accompanied by one of the certified game guides, although the chances of encountering a dangerous animal in the heat of the afternoon are almost nil. “D,” our game guide, kept a slower pace than we would have liked, but we walked along the paved highway toward the river.

At the Botswana border post, which is perhaps a kilometer up the hill from the actual border, “D” managed to persuade the border guards to continue walking down the hill, despite the fact that we didn’t have our passports with us, nor had we obtained the required visas to enter Namibia.

We walked across the bridge, so we can say that we’be been to Namibia. But since the Namibian border post is similarly up the hill from the river on their side, we didn’t go near it before turning back. No official entry, no passport stamp.

The evening game drive was similar to that of the morning, with lots and lots of animals but few new sights. Dinner was very good, but we are all in withdrawal due to the breakdown of the internet.

Although we slept quite well, we could hear an elephant grazing on the grass and small branches just outside our cabin. And since we’be learned that elephants graze for roughly 18 hours of every day, he or she kept it up most of the night and continued in the early morning.

Boabob #2

​Our Thursday ended with a demonstration of making African peanut butter — a long and labor-intensive process. 

The women received the gift of a “chitenga” which is a multi-purpose cloth used as a skirt, a head covering, and/or a baby carrier.

In the evening we had a “cultural exchange” which consisted of the staff singing a few African songs, and all of our group singing some American songs as arranged by music teacher Mary

Yesterday was a travel day We left the camp in Zambia, flying in the same Cessna Caravan aircraft in which we came. No security checks!

A mini bus picked us up at the airport and drove us to a market where the poorest of the poor do their shopping. It was one of the worst markets we’ve encountered in a 3rd world country — even worse than India.

The piles of garbage next to the raw fish for sale were equally covered with flies. However, the people were exceptionally friendly, and aside from one man standing outside our bus as we departed, no one tried giving us a hard sell or hassled us in any way.

At the Botswana border we had to go through some gymnastics of stepping in disinfectant to be sure we weren’t carrying any diseases on our shoes, and getting our temperature taken to be sure we didn’t have fevers. Otherwise, the process was fairly painless. The border facility was new and spotlessly clean, and our new mini-bus (we had to change to a Botswanan one) was also new. Unlike Zimbabwe and Zambia, the highways here really are highways, and the bus traveled at highway speed withou having to slow to go around potholes or missing pavement. It was like we suddenly landed on a different continent.

Baobob Camp #2, our home for the next few days, is much like the others in which we’be stayed, except that we are in thatched-roofed cabins rather than in tents. Everything is built on the side of a hill, and everywhere has stunning views of the Chobe River that separates Botswana from Namibia. Even though the river is swollen with the summer rains, we clearly see Namibia on the other side.

We also clearly see elephants and impala coming down the hill to the river to drink. Even the toilet next to the main lodge features a “loo with a view.” There is no window and no screen, so when seated on the throne one has a spectacular view!

After “high tea” (an obvious carryover from British colonial times) we went out for an evening game drive. Unlike the last two lodges, this camp is not actually inside the national park. Botswana does not permit this. Instead, we are just outside the park, and our drive was, as well.

Nevertheless, on our trek over unimproved roads along the river we saw more different species of animals in a couple of hours than we’be seen in the past week. In addition to elephants and impala, we encountered giraffes, zebra, spring bock, buffalo, and many birds.

At the river’s edge (just far enough away from the water to be safe from hippos and crocodiles) we enjoyed our “sundowner” drinks and watched the sun set over Namibia, across the water. The sunset was nice, but after it was below the horizon we were treated to rare “blue rays” which are the precursor to a brief “green flash” in the twilight sky. We were not familiar with these phenomena or what causes them, but they were certainly pretty!

At dinner, we were surprised to discover that the food here is a cut above what we’ve been having, even though this camp is owned and operated by the exact same contractor. Mosquito netting surrounds our bed here, as it did at the last camp. But with a flooded river just down the hill, the mosquitoes are abundant. And just like at home, they find me no matter what.

Leopard!

​Last evening’s game drive was pretty lame. We saw a few of the same animals we had seen before, and in pretty much the same locations.

One comical thing is the herd of impalas, that greeted us on arrival and has been hanging out in the field adjacent to the air strip, had moved over to graze virtually under the wings of the parked aircraft. It looked like a highly congested security line at the airport!

The group enjoyed a “sundowner” drink served from the tailgate, But the sun had pretty much set already by the time we stopped in a clearing in the bush, and the view of the horizon was obscured by trees.

So on the way back we were chatting away, not paying much attention to what was going on outside the truck, when our tour leader “shushed” us and whispered, “there’s a leopard in the road!”

Sure enough, a young male leopard was trotting along the road, moving in the same direction as our vehicles. He appeared to be on a mission — like he had somewhere to go.

Totally unphased by the truck headlights and the driver’s searchlight, the leopard kept trotting along. Occasionally he would glance over his shoulder at us, but he continued on for perhaps as much as 500 meters.

Eventually he turned and walked into the bush, but not like he was running away from us. Just like, “OK, this is my turn.”

Only about 15 to 20% of tourists actually get to see a leopard on one of these trips, so we felt very fortunate.

In the evening, one of these African staff of this camp offered a “dark sky” experience and most of the group went out to get a lesson on the southern sky and some of the constellations we can’t see in the northern hemisphere. He’s just a hobbyist, but he was quite knowledgeable.

This morning’s game drive took a different route than the last two. We saw buffalo, as well as our first elephant in this location (but he looked just like the elephants in Zimbabwe, surprisingly enough). There were some rare birds, and there was some zebra scat, but no zebra was seen.

Without a doubt, the leopard sighting was the most exciting thing of the last 24 hours.