Wednesday & Thursday, April 1 & 2, 2009; Mosi-oa-Tunya, Livingstone, Zambia.

This time I get on an eight seat plane with three other passengers. We fly for an hour to Kasane, a small town of about 500 people on the Zambian border. Its business is the delivering of tourists going to see the falls. I am picked up by a driver who will take me the few kilometers to the border. As we get near it, there is a line-up of trucks for several kilometers along the side of the road that are fully loaded with goods. The driver tells me that the last one in the line will be there for a week, waiting to clear customs and waiting his turn on the ferry that can take one truck at a time across the formidable Zambezi River. Some sleep in their trucks and many check into the hotel nearby, well populated with sex trade workers. This is one of the notorious type of truck route situations that contributed so much to the spread of HIV earlier in the pandemic and I would guess that it still does.

We make our way though a lot of people, many hawking wares and cheap chotchkas. Poverty and boredom with it all hangs in the air. I clear the Botswana passport check and the driver takes me to a small passenger ferry where another driver, this one from Zambia, is waiting for me. We ferry across the Zambezi, with me as the sole passenger in a small motor boat along with my luggage. The Zambezi is a very impressive river, apparently very high and over a mile wide as it goes over the Falls. There has been a very full rainy season and it is rushing to the Okavango Delta as I saw from the plane – miles of water in all directions. The Zambezi is 2.5 meters [= 8 feet] above its normal height at this time and there is flooding in many places including the Zambezi Waterfront Hotel where I am staying. There is one foot bridge leading to another garden that is under 6 inches of water and closed. I then clear Zambian customs which is merely paying $US50. I want to pay in Pulas but that is not allowed as the US dollar reigns supreme here.

The same kind of poor scene is on the Zambia side as was in Botswana on the river. We get on a good highway and travel for a hour to Livingstone, the town above the Falls. I really know that I am in a different country. The Zambians look quite different,darker and with different features. The soil changes from sandy to red with lush vegetation. It is no longer flat – almost a relief after the flatness of Botswana.

This is a country of 12 million and 72 languages, including 7 main ones. The working language is English and everyone in this tourist town appears to speak it well. The driver asks me what I do and when I tell him, he talks extensively about how AIDS has marked his country and spread a lot through the sex trade because sex without a condom gets the sex workers five dollars more per trick! He talks about the stigma and how HIV is finally coming out into the open a bit. Previously people would not get tested or even try to get medication because of the discrimination they feared. Now they know that with ARV’s, they have a chance at a full life and openness is increasing. Of course, we do have to deal with the Pope just having visited Africa, talking significantly about the evils of condom use. What a man!! Talk about the blatant abuse of his unwarranted leadership.

Eventually, I get to the Zambezi Waterfront Hotel and check in. The reception area is outside. It is touristy and I am warned not to walk around with many valuables. After the all-inclusive nature of staying in of Delta camps, here everything is added on to the prepaid hotel rates in hefty amounts of US dollars. I think of the less appealing parts of Niagara Falls and wonder what I will find here. I book a boat cruise for the evening and a falls guided tour for the morning as I am told that it is unsafe to walk the 7 km there because of the animals. The longer I am here, the more I find the danger is from the two legged kind of predator.

The boat cruise is fun and I talk to Afrikaans speaking South Africans, a number of Germans, a French woman from Bordeaux who speaks no English and a few Zambians. The scenery is nice and like on all dinner boat cruises around the world, the dinner meets the criteria stated in the advertising – nothing more. But I have to give them credit, I had a special vegetarian meal that was delivered as promised!

In the morning, I go for breakfast at 7:45 and sit in the patio restaurant overlooking the Zambezi River which is beautiful in the morning sun and very impressive in its size and volume. My breakfast costs 35,000 kwachas and as it takes 5500 Zambian kwachas to make $US1, - that is a grand total of $US 6.36. Kwacha is another word for 'morning', I find when I ask, since everything seems to have at least one other meaning.. I am picked up for my tour rather punctually. Making money is not on the famous 'African time', that I have experienced so much already.

On the way to the tour, we stop at another hotel to pick up some more people. There, I get to see my first crocodile. In a hotel garden on the edge of a high water flood pool that is connected to the Zambezi River, is a young crocodile about five long, doing what crocodiles do in the morning, sunning to warm up their blood to get it moving for the day; they are cold blooded. There are animal sculptures behind it and it is motionless, so I doubt its veracity. But its open mouth has real pink and white coloration which the sculptures do not. Then it moves and I am satisfied that the score of the latest camera 'shot' counts.

On the way to the Falls, I see three very tall palm like trees, each one unique and twice as tall as the surrounding forest. I ask what they are. They are artificial trees created to hide the radio towers that are needed for the ubiquitous cell phone communication. I just read that in 2009 more than 60% of the world owns a cell phone compared with just 15% in 2001- and I know that for Africa it is a communication and industry booster and boon.

The falls tour is also fun and I share it with a Russian and an American couple. Frederick, the guide does all the “right” things and gives us his tour patter from rote memory and is able to answer most questions. There are some impressive views, but because of the height of the river the volume of water going over the falls is so high and creates such heavy, heavy spray that you don’t really see the height of the falls. We put on rain gear and I strap my back pack under it. Then we go fairly close to the falls and it is like walking in a cyclone. I get thoroughly soaked and feel water pouring down my sides and chest inside the coat through the neck. The only part of me that stays dry, fortunately, is my backpack. After about 15 minutes of this, I have had enough since you cannot see a thing. We go back and the tour ends. I pour the water out of my shoes and wring out my socks. There are lots [ I see #26 and there are more] of tourist shops under corrugated metal roofs and not much more of walls or building. Baboons run pell-mell across the metal roof screaming at each other and making racket as they race across the metal. As we drive up, some merchants start banging on some ‘traditional’ drums, literally to drum up the tourist business. It is comparable to the Niagara Falls hawkers in the cultural finery they offer.

Victoria Falls in the local language is called Mosi-oa-Tunya: ’the smoke that thunders’.
On the way back to my hotel, we drop some others off at a grander hotel than mine and as we drive up, four or five men in native battle attire, [I presume] jump up and down doing some probable 'dancing'; banging on some drums and the wall of the hotel portico. As always, I am not fond of that kind of display for the tourist buck, although I am sure that the management finds it well worth its investment in local wages i.e. at subsistence level or below.

I get back to the hotel and put on dry clothes and try to start my shoes on the road to usability by setting them directly in front of a fan and moving them into the sun on my room ground floor patio as I am writing. I have been warned not to leave anything outside on its own because a baboon or monkey will take the stuff for their own use. But I am going back to Botswana in the morning and will need my shoes to be somewhat dry.

At 4 pm, I take a helicopter ride over the Falls to better see the grandeur they have. The hope is fulfilled and I see the falls as they are and that is very different from the perspective at ground level. They tumble an average of 90 to 105 meters [compared to Niagara’s 85m.] into a ravine that is just over a mile long or 1.7 km. and that forms the width of the Falls. This ravine is about a half a km. wide with one small opening for all the water, 12,000 square meters per second, to escape through. Then the Zambezi winds its way down a deep meandering gorge to the Indian Ocean.

I return to the helicopter take off point to be offered a “very nice video” of myself getting into the helicopter for a mere $US 40. I politely decline and return to the hotel.

Tomorrow I will slowly be starting on my way home. At 9:30 am I am picked and go through all the production to get back to Kasane in Botswana where I am taken by my last bush plane ride and returned to Maun for my 4:30 pm flight to Gaborone. There the representative from the volunteer program I was with goes out for dinner with me and perhaps some men from the first GLBT group in the country. I hope so as it will be interesting and I may even be able to share some ideas. It will be a long day. Then on Friday morning I start the real schlep home: Gaborone, Johannesburg, Frankfurt and then Vancouver in about 40 hours. I will be glad to sleep in my own bed after a great and exciting adventure on so many levels

Monday & Tuesday, March 30 – 31, 2009; Lagoon camp, beside the Linyanti Reserve

The reserves have no camps in them and are only for the animals although people do visit. There are no permanent structures. The camps are on leased concessions that gives them the right to operate camps either for photography or hunting depending on the kind of concession lisence they have. Lagoon has a hunting concession and keeps it active although they have decided only to do photography game drives/safaris. They have the largest in Botswana at a half a million hectares,

After a 30 minute flight I am at Lagoon, right on the Namibian border in the north of Botswana. It is right on the narrow little arm of Namibia that sticks into the centre of Africa the result of colonial powers making deals between themselves for land rights that were advantageousto them. In this case, I believe it was between the Germans in Namibia / Angola and the Portugeuse in Madagascar. I am met by Vondi, my guide he tells and James, his tracker. As we drive the several kilometers to the camp, we come across a herd of impala which barely move out of the way. Vondi informs me that they are habituated to vehicles.

The camp is quite different from Shinde, not as new, but with its own air. It is right on a large river with Namibia on the other side. As I sit on my veranda overlooking the water twenty feet away, I regularly hear fish jumping. I am told to stay inside the tent in the dark as there are hippos here and they will come out of the water and up to the tent. My shower is out of doors and looks quite fun surrounded by tight bamboo fencing. My tent is more of a tent in that it has zipper doors and is well sealed for bugs and mosquitoes. Again a double basin setup in the bath area with hot and cold water. It’s a tough life.

Here are 20 staff here and a German couple and I are the only guests. We only see a few of the staff that have been assigned to us awhile the others have a break, although later I find out that four of them are out tracking wild dogs that have been sighted in the area. The manager here, also a Keone, is only 30, something that I find common in my experience of Botswana. The generation of 40 to 70 is scarce and it is a country of the young. I am welcomed by Keone and his pretty assistant Obi, who offers me lemonade and a cool refrigerated wet wash cloth, which she carries in a traditional basket on her head, for me to freshen up.

At 4 pm, we go out on a game drive, and head north also looking for the wild dogs. They are on the endangered list and are under siege by the increasing and healthy lion population. The lions do not directly kill the dogs. Lions are opportunists and whenever they become aware of a dog pack with a kill, they steal the kill from them and eventually the dogs will starve. There is also a larger pack of 18 moving in from Namibia and they compete fiercely with the local pack of only 12.

The game drive is more relaxed for me now as I already saw a lot at Shinde and there is more time and pleasure in just viewing rather than felling the compulsion to shoot each one with my Pentax. Some new species I see here are ostriches, the banded mongoose, wilde beest or gnus of the great migration and crossing the croc infested river fame, the African jacana, the bird that walks on lily pads, guinea fowl, an eagle hawk, a fish eagle and a number of other birds.

On the morning drive, I see 6 hippos and a baby coming out of the water to go to a deeper channel. They only do that because of the baby and the fact that we make them nervous. It is an unusual occurrence. At another point, we are driving along, turn a corner on the track and come face to face with a male elephant. He eventually turns off and goes into the bush. We see dozens of impala, to the point that we barely take note of them anymore. How quickly we are jaded! Yet it is a wonder to see them pronking for the sheer joy of exercise, jumping straight up into the air and then kicking their hind legs at least 8 feet into the air as their front quarters start to come down. It is almost the same jadedness with the wart hogs as we watch them rooting around in the mud holes with their tusks and warty faces. A small herd of kudus do catch our attention.

The topography is very different than at Shinde. While there is savannah, there is much more rolling land and seriously wooded areas, indicating greater water availability. We regularly see impala, zebra, and also a giraffe. I learn that besides being untamable, the zebras has longer vertebrae than its cousins and cannot carry much weight. Apparently the elephant is the only one of the African animals that is relatively easily domesticated.

As darkness falls, it get very cool and I am grateful that I shoved a fleecy into my backpack. We end up doing a night drive but see little. The dogs have eluded us and the other guides, who we run into in en route. We continue the hunt for them during the morning drive, which begins at 6:30 am, having been woken at 5:30.

The German couple, Michael and Barbara, are pleasant and good company. We share the drives. We have pleasant meals sharing lots of good discussion on many things together with the guides and manager. We are all heading to Kasane, on the Zambian border in the east to go to see Victoria Falls at Livingstone tomorrow by way of the air taxi.

This morning I found proof that the hippos do come up and wander around the tents at night. I thought I heard one come up and do the tail whipping up and spreading his dung to mark his territory during the night. In the morning, I saw that I was right. There is dung sprayed all across the path about 40 feet from my tent. At Shinde and here, a certain type of bird hangs around to take advantage of the food being out in the dining area. A dozen or more sneak right on to the plates and even go under the netting that is placed over the food to protect it from the birds and flies. They are utterly brazen until the manager takes some food for them and throws it down the gully below to distract them.

On the game drives, which are usually about four hours long, we always stop for a snack and something to drink. In the evenings, it is almost in the tradition of the English tea with some snacks and drinks for those who wish them. At the beginning of dusk, a little table is set up, a tablecloth put on it and things set out. On the drive last night, we stopped in a nice area near a large tree growing out of a very high termite mound. A young bull elephant was fairly nearby and did not seem to like us much. He circled around us and disappeared quite a distance a way behind the tree and mound. He snuck up behind the mound and suddenly the guide ordered us to get in the jeep and quick. He was seriously concerned that the elephant might charge. He eventually left because as it was explained, once we were in the jeep, all that the elephant could then smell was the gasoline and the rubber and it lost interest in us. It was a memorable adrenaline moment.

There are specific night game drives offered, but I don’t really get the attraction even though lions and hyenas are largely nocturnal. I spent about a total a total of three hours on night drives and almost the most interesting thing to watch is the tracker sitting on the special seat on the left of the hood, swinging his powerful light from side to side in a sweeping motion to find interesting animals. I did catch a glimpse of an African hare and a few moments of a porcupine which was running ahead of us on the trail and like the dull North American porcupine, didn’t have enough brains to got off the track to keep from running for his life until he had run at least a kilometer. He probably knew the guides would never hurt him.

One bit of flora interest that we saw was a baobob tree that was alleged to be 1100 -1200 years old. It was just massive. If you could cut the tree down and make a platform of the trunk, you would be able to build a house on it. Later, I saw several in Zambia and although they were not a large as the one seen while I was at Lagoon camp, they were very formidable. They were alleged to be over 100 years old. I found out that the massive trunks store lots of water for hard times. However, they do not have growth rings the way most trees do and so their age is very difficult to determine with any accuracy.

We had four game drives at Lagoon and the last was best. On all four, we were tracking and looking for the wild dogs and the guide had a special interest in them. Lions were also a priority but were never seen although tracks were found. It was the same with the wild dogs. I almost passed up the last drive because my plane was picking me up at 10 am. But we left earlier at 6:10 am and so got pretty much a full drive in. It was a great drive and we started out with some pretty interesting birds. We managed to see African guinea fowl, a grey heron, maricaibou storks – they are the only birds that scavenge for carrion and hunt for fresh meat, an ostrich family, a white backed vulture and secretary birds – a spectacular bird that feeds exclusively on snakes. But there were a number of other firsts that I was surprised and pleased that they happened. We came on a water buffalo – a fierce, imposing looking animal, which apparently never backs down once it starts to charge.

A little later we saw my first elephant matriarch leading her family of about a dozen of all ages. They were on the other side of a small watering hole from us and had just come from drinking at the river a few hundred yards away. She stood at the water’s edge and made like she was drinking. The guide explained that she was just pretending so that we would relax and she would catch us off guard. Eventually, she gave up and led her family away. The prize of the day though was coming on three brother cheetahs. They were known to the guide and they were very beautiful; sleek, well fed and looking the picture of health with shiny coats and calculated disdain for us. They took almost no notice of us and sauntered by without a apparentcare in the world.

I say good bye to everyone and head off to Zambia

Saturday & Sunday, March 28 - 29, 2009, Shinde camp beside the Moremi Reserve

Today’s post starts at noon yesterday when I got on a six seat plane next to the pilot, who is one of the six, and flew to Shinde camp. [shinde is a Tsetswana word for a small brownish/fawn coloured squirrel]. The views were amazing as we flew at analtitude of about 1500 feet. As we got further north, there was more and more water in what looked to be a dry flat savanna type plain. This was literally an air taxi and I got a bit of an idea why these trips are as costly as they are. We stopped at a camp called Chief on a dirt airstrip that was fairly rough, to drop off three people and then the pilot and I flew on to Shinde there the airstrip was half grown over and look like a little used country lane.

The camp is on a higher bit of land that is permanently free of water, even when the delta fully floods by June. The water is just starting to come in from the north and throughunderground channels under the porous earth. I was met at the strip by one of the staff and the man who ended up beingmy personal guide for the next 24 hours, Keone. And I was taken to the camp. The manager and six of the staff welcomed me by singing some Tsetswana welcome song. I found it kind of embarrassing as I think it is a a paternalistic throw back to more colonial days for the rich bwana, but that is my stuff.

Julius, the manager took me around and explained anumber od camp and safety do’s and don’ts. The main thing that was stressed is that we are never to go out of the camp alone without a staff member - there are wild animals around and they can be unpredictable. Morning activities start at 7 am before the heat of the day and finish at about 11. Then lunch, a siesta, an english tea (light snacks and cakes) at 3:30 and afternoon activities from 4 to 7:30. After dark we are not even to walk around the camp alone. A leopard had been spotted near the camp that day – apparently a very rare occurrence. It is all luxurious, and everything is up on stilts about 5 feet or more off the ground. My tent, looking like a permanent structure to me, is very nicely furnished and has a shower, double sinks and flush toilet. The toilet is in a separate room, off the bathing area and has a 50 centimetre ( 20 inch) diameter tree growing in the middle of it at a 45 degree angle and splits into two significant branches going through the taut tarpaulin roof. I am typing this on my deck during the siesta, over looking papyrus and other 6 – 8 foot grasses, shrubs and small trees, listening to half a dozen different song birds.

Near the dining room, there is a large communal deck, overlooking a large body of water that I think connects to a river, with a fridge, wood paneled to blend in nicely; full of bottled water, juice, soft drinks and beer. A fully stocked bar is nearby. Help yourself whenever you want. Within 20 minutes of arriving, I saw a five foot lizard or iguana scuttling out from under the dining area to the water right next to it. The dining area is open on all sides and had regal chairs with high padded backs and arms and a huge chandelier of sorts – the kind you might expect to find at a drag ball. Everything is spotless and all the wood freshly shellacked – all the decks and walkways. There are 21 staff for a maximum of 18 guests, currently there are about 12guests so the care ratio is very favourable.

I went on a game drive with Keone all by myself. No one else wanted to go, and that was excellent. He loves nature and wildlife and was very knowledgeable, having studied at the Botswana Wildlife Institute in Maun. He is a veritable encyclopedia of information on the birds, mammals, reptiles, plants, soils; speaking comfortably of their scientific names, species and geus connections and symbiotic relatiionships. It was an amazing four hours. I learned a ton and saw much. I tsessebe - a beautiful dark antelope, impala, red lechwe - a light water antelope, red bucks, elephants, hippos, giraffe, baboon, jackal, saddle horned stork, Egyptian geese, several kinds of herons, fish eagles, vultures, horn bills, francolin, zebra herd, a huge terrapin. We stop frequently for the camera opportunities and for information sharing. The lack of any human sound is breath taking for me - its absence is so noticeable that I realize we rarely experince that tranquilityany more.

The topography is fairly flat and ranges from open savanna to trees in copses where there is enough water for them to reach by root year round. I find it utterly beautiful, never knowing what you might see next. Keone sees every animal way before I do; they are all marvels of camouflage. He loves this work and it really shows. I feel very lucky to have him all to myself. I sure understand the appeal of his job, even thought as Julius said to me in the 40 minutes we were talking, that there are some pretty “special” tourists at time that are a bit demanding. Keone receives a message that a pair of young male lions were spotted near where we are. We search and search for them, but they were young and very skittish and elude us, even though we look for them for 45 minutes.

We get back at 7:45 pm having watched a beautiful sunset –duly recorded for the memories and I have a quick shower before dinner. Everyone is gathered on the communal deck for drinks. The managers and the guides join us for the meals and that is great as I can continue to ask more questions. The meal is very nice, but I am surprised at cauliflower and Brussels’ sprouts f0r vegetable choices. Afterwards, more drinks on the deck ant at 10 pm, I ask for a guide to my tent for the night; Wago, another guide, complies and most other guests turn in to. 6 am comes all too soon.

In the morning, I get a wake up at 6 am and orange juice is brought to my tent. A sumptuous breakfast is served at 6:30 and by 7 am, I am on my way, again along with Keone for a hike. But we drive for an hour first, to get to an area with shorter grass. 6 foot+ high grass is too dangerous to walk in. At one point, we drive through 4-5 feet of water, with the water coming up to the hood and into the jeep cabin so that we have to sit on the door with our feet on the seat. The vehicle has a special adapter that brings air to engine from above the vehicle. Then, we open the doors to let the water out. In reality, I get another game drive as well as a two and a half hour hike for an up close look at the flora and smaller animals and birds. I see a special kind of owl as well as many more of the animals I saw yesterday. We often crossed very clear paths that Keone calls the hippo highway. Hippos will go up to 15 kilometres inland at night to feed on the grasses they like and in the process take the vegetation in the feeding area right down to the roots- every plant in the area cut down as though by a thorough lawen mower. I am in awe.

At four, I went out on a motor boat around the man streams and channels of the delta in this area. There are not many animals to see in the water. There are crocodile but they are extremely elusive and can feel you coming through the water when you are still a great distance away. Apparently the water has started to rise and will go up by about 30 centimetres by June. There were many kinds of water grasses and papyrus growing up to 20 feet high along the channels - some of them used for thatching the traditional roof of a Batswana house. However, they have to be replaced about every 7 to 10 years and the government is urging people to build stronger homes with corrugated iron roofs, in spite of them being noisier and much, much hotter, absorbing heat rather than repelling it as the thatch does. There are also fewer professional, traditional thatchers available.

I saw a lot of birds including perfectly camouflaged green pigeons as well as several kinds of brilliant kingfishers, loris, a brown and tan cormorant, plovers and more. The channels are quite fast moving and are full of bream, pike and catfish. Restful and relaxing , we enjoy another fantastic sunset when we stop for a snack and something to drink. As darkness fell, it very quickly cooled off so that you needed a sweater.

In the morning, for my last event at Shinde, I take a ride in a mekora – a traditional dugout out canoe / flat bottomed boat propelled by pole like the English punt. The ones at the camp are fibreglass as the trees of choice ( including the sausage tree that feeds soamny wild animals when the fruit are ripe and full of water) for the mekora are becoming scarce and again the government has asked people to conserve them and use fibreglass instead. We start out at 7 am and it is still quite cool. There is a literal symphony of birdsong in surround-sound, which is a marvel to listen to. We travel mostly in shallower waters that are dotted with water lilies and various sizes and shorter grasses. African jacanas run along on top of the lily pads looking for insects and frog eggs. Again, we travel the hippo highways, only in the water this time. They actually perform a valuable service by keeping them clear, bull dozing them out with their bulk and weight. Without this much of the swampy area of the delta not would be navigable, becoming quickly choked with reeds and aquatic grasses.


We return at about 10:30 and all the other guests have left. The drum is just calling me to lunch and at 1pm, I fly off to Lagoon in the north overlooking Namibia across the river – the next adventure

At lunch, Keone tells me that they saw a leopard on the morning game drive and I jokingly tell him that he owes me a cat. He asks how much time I need to get ready to depart and I tell him two minutes. He offers to take a run to where they saw the leopard with its kill before I have to be taken to the airstrip for my departure. We go and after twenty minutes, we find it resting in the shade with a full belly. We drive to within a dozen feet and it looks at us but does not move. It is a young male and is beautiful - sleek and handsome. It was well worth the effort and I am grateful.

Then we head to the airstrip and as we get there is a plane coming in to land. It does not as there is an elephant on the strip and we have to clear it away first – it’s amazing. Then the plane lands and drops of 2 new guests but it does not take me. The pilot tells us my plane will be there in 5 minutes and it is – truly a taxi service.