Zambia... the beginning of the decline of Benji.

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20/5/10

Zambia…seem to have developed narcolepsy since we have left Livingston. Struggle to stay awake for more than twenty minutes at a time on the bus. Not sure how it is possible to sleep so much, in the words of the Lonely Planet ‘Zambia’s roads are crap’. We have just suffered a breakdown. Our truck 'Benji' is starting to crack under the pressure. With the amount of shaking and rattling we’ve done today it could be any number of things that have shaken loose.

With all the sleeping it’s been hard to see the country. Bit annoying really as it is quite a different landscape to what we have been trough so far. The rolling hills are thick with trees and the roads winding up through them remind me more of Central America or Indonesia. From the few lucid moments I’ve managed, the other difference that’s quickly apparent is the increased population. Zambia has about 11 million people, a great deal more than the last two empty countries we’ve been through. There are small thatched rondhavel compounds everywhere. Kids, cows and coats wander along the side of the road. It’s hard to find a private bush stop toilet, within minutes some curious sole has popped out through the bushes, wandered over to take a look or ground to a halt on a bicycle by the side of the road. Over 50% of Zambians are subsistence farmers, people spread out all over the place living off the land and leading a very basic life. Zambia has had its share of problems, and in recent years has been one of the poorest countries in the world. People earn about $60 a month. Driving through the small towns you can see religion and experiences reflected in shop names. The “Good Struggle Grocery”, “Faith is my food” restaurant, “Jesus is my way” grocery, and my personal favourite; “The Hangover Clinic”.

We have been driving for 3 days to get to South Luangwa Game Park. We have been told that the drive is well worth it when you get there. Whoever said that hasn’t been along this road recently. Due to its remote location it is one of the least visited game parks in the world. It has been a long drive. 1200 km in all. In the trip itinerary we were supposed to make the journey in two days, but as we had not others joining for the next leg we left a day early. Broke the marathon journey up and had the bonus of a campsite with zebra wandering through it.

Zambia

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18/5/10

Zambia… been in Zambia for 5 days. One trip has ended and the other has begun. Seven people have left us and now we are nine. Usually more would have joined us, but luckily they didn’t. strangers would probably struggled to fit into the group. We know each other’s quirks and habits, irritations can mostly be avoided as we are comfortable enough with each other to get things off our chests. We also now have more space to spread out. Nick and I are still sitting together, as are our favoured neighbours Gordon and Carol. We thought about moving as our position in the bus means that we are baking in the sun for most of the day as we head east, but sitting next to the humerous an mellow Canadian couple helps us keep calm and laugh off frustrations. Besides, Dan decided he wanted to spread himself over both sides of the isle, and is now occupying the last four remaining seats. Dan is our only American. He is an ex airforce and commercial pilot. He has been trying to learn English slang to help him ‘blend’ and not stick out as the American guy.

The cross over time between the two trips was spent in Livingston, south Zambia. We had 5 days to relax, get organized, do washing and get our fill of adrenaline rushes with a whole heap of activities on offer. We decided to skip the activities. Mainly because they were really expensive, we can do it cheaper elsewhere, but also because the only unique thing I wanted to do was fly over the falls, and this is no longer possible. It is possible to go in a helicopter, but at $150 for 15 minutes without guaranteed window seat it seemed a bit pricey. A microlight flight was cheaper, but you’re not allowed to take a camera. If I’m going to put myself through that much terror then I at least want the shots of the view. As for all the other activities, a disproportionate amount of them involved doing stupid stuff while swinging around on the end of a rope, and that’s never really been my thing.

We did of course pay a visit to the mighty Victoria Falls. The horseshoe shaped trench that makes up Vic Falls and stretches between Zambia and Zimbabwe has to be one of the top 3 most iconic waterfalls in the world. You can hear it thundering from about 5km away, and can see the cloud of spray above from even further. It is awesomely powerful and is locally known as ‘The smoke that thunders’. It is also known for being misty, but at this time of year the Zambeezi River is at its highest and 500 million litres of water flow over it a minute. Frustratingly for us the spray is so great that little of the waterfall can be seen. You know you are standing in front of one of the most impressive sights on earth, and you’ll likely never be there again, and it’s like someone has draped a big white cloth over it.

What we did see of the falls was incredible. We took the underwater housing and walked deep into the spray along the ‘Knife’s Edge’ trail. The spray was so heavy it was like walking in monsoon rains at their worst. We got drenched, our shoes and socks full of mud and sand. Sadly, and illustrating the poverty of the country, a craft seller later tried to swap a 10 inch wooden carving for those same dirty wet socks. The market traders are desperate and pushy, all chanting ‘it’s free to look, touch, touch, it’s free to touch’.

 
Livingston itself is the first place we’ve been in Africa where I’ve felt intimidated and uncomfortable. There are so many people trying to get you to buy things, exchange cash or give you something. I am ashamed to say I avoided it totally. We were staying at a beautiful riverside camp called Zambeezi Waterfront. It looked posh but it was mainly used by overland trucks. We had the misfortune of our one night of dining at the bar being the night of the England Australia 20-20 World Cup final. There was a group of teenage/early twenties Brits and Ausies who were waving flags, had painted flags on their cheeks, sand yobbish sporting songs and then vomited all over the toilets. Nice. Another annoyance in the camp was the herds of blue balled monkeys that caused chaos. One sat in the tree over our food prep table, looked at me, looked at the food, looked at me again then poohed just as I worked out what was happening and snatched the food away. They’ve learnt that by doing this they get the food when people throw it away.

Botswana to Zambia....

Getting on the internet is a nightmare, my apologies that this is so slow to update.

14/5/10

Botswana...done 3 days in the Okovango Delta, then a 600 km drive up to Chobe Game Park. Botswana is how I always imagined Africa to be. There are no fences around the game parks, the animals just wander wherever they want. You drive through towns with herds of elephants grazing on the outskirts, warthogs hang out outside supermarkets and on the hotel lawn, and mongooses scutter around the campsites. Our campsite was on the banks of the Chobe River, and after spending 15 minutes standing at the water’s edge taking photos of the hippos there, we got warned that there was an aggressive mother and calf, and a croc hanging out, all 10m from our tent.

For our sunrise game drive in Chobe we split into 2 groups and went in the tub like viewing vehicles. We all had high hopes for lions, hippos and elephants. If there’s wildlife wandering on the main roads then the game park should be heaving. In the first few minutes of entering the park we saw fish eagles, maribu stalks (one of the ugly five, huge great carnivorous birds), a ‘thunder’ of hippos (probably the coolest name for a group of animals ever come up with), and lots of impalas. Then we had a rush of trucks and cars coming towards us. Lions had been spotted in another area. We followed back the way we came towards the gate. It was easy to see the area where the lions were hiding, the 15-20 cars bunched together were a slight give away. We were at the back of the group that had clustered so tightly they had blocked the road and we couldn’t see anything. Our guide started to maneuver out of the way when a lioness and her 5 cubs walked out behind our truck. We went from being in the worst spot to being in one of the best, much to the dismay of all the trucks parked in front of us. There was a lot of shouting and telling us to move, but in their haste to see before they’d wedged in so tightly that there was nowhere for us to go. We got to watch the cubs as they tentatively wobbled across the road. The other half of our tour group didn’t get to see and they were pretty disappointed with the whole drive. No cats, no elephants, no giraffes. Apparently their guide kept stopping for 15 minutes a time to show them the same kind of bird which we’ve all seen many times before.

The evening river cruise was much better for all. There are 60,000 elephants in Chobe and that morning we’d not seen any of them. From the boat, with cold beers and another great African sunset, we got to see huge herds of elephants drink, swim and play at the river edge. As well as big bulls, teenagers and mums, there were also some really small babies. Baby elephants and baby lions in one day, a successful safari day.

Have now just made the border crossing from Botswana to Zambia. The two countries meet for a stretch of about 100 metres, and then only on 2 sides of the huge and fast flowing Zambeezi River which is full of hippos and crocs. To cross the river you get on a ferry that is big enough to hold only two trucks. It takes about 20 minutes for the ferry to make it to the other side and about 20 minutes to unload and then load before returning. With 2 ferries running and crossing midriver they must only make about 24 crossings a day. There were about 100 cargo trucks parked in a queue waiting to get on the ferry. Thankfully for some reason we went straight to the front but we still had to fight to get on. Not sure how much must have been paid to jump the queue, and I did feel guilty about it, but some of the trucks had been waiting two weeks. That definitely wasn’t part of the plan.
Botswana is supposedly the least corrupt of all African countries. It was a British protectorate until 1966. In 1967 the second largest diamond strain in the world was found. The GDP went from $200 a year to fifth in the world within two years. The government then invested a lot of this wealth into the country. Not sure it went to the schools though, as we saw a group of school kids waiting for the ferry to take them on a daily journey to a better school in Zambia.