One each, more to come I hope!
July 29-August 2 Livingstone
The view of the Zambezi River from the balcony of my fabulous room at the Zambezi Riverfront Hotel compliments of Bushways Safari although they certainly didn’t mean that I should get such a great room so it must have been all that was available.
Victoria Falls
A pano from one of the many viewing stations we visited which of course does not do it credit. You can’t see its extent, you can’t see the bottom, and you can’t hear it. It is AWESOME.
There is a big difference seasonally. We are now in the middle of the dry season which some have said is perfect. In the wet season the falls are so full you can’t see anything because of the mist. At the end of the dry season they lose some of their thunder.
I wanted to look over the edge but didn’t want to soak my camera so I left it with Mindy and this is what happens when you leave your camera with Mindy.
We walked over to behind the falls, behind what you can see in the photo above, and found this winning double rainbow.
And a photo of Mindy at the location where goofing around tourists die.
Just a few months ago a guy was at this very place and waded a little into the water. He then got spooked by a monkey, fell, and went over into oblivion. Be careful Mindy!
From here you can see the walking bridge and further back the bridge that joins Zambia and Zimbabwe.
Around Town
That’s the Livingstone Museum above, the main street on the left and a side street on the right.
We spent some time on the bridge and then went up to a café made for this view.
Livingstone is well-known around for its FunTivities. That’s what everyone calls it. There are wildlife related FunTivities, river FunTivities, and bridge FunTivities. Bridge FunTivities all involve jumping off the bridge connected to various life saving devices. There’s the zip-line, the swing, and the bungee.
Here’s a bungee jumper, head first, into a deep deep gorge. Right.
The same jumper. That line will eventually stretch out and his hands will barely touch the water.
I have a long sequence from my New Zealand trip of bungee jumpers in Queensland so I knew what to expect but still, I can NOT imagine.
The museum was pretty good. This is the lobby, no other photos allowed.
Mindy thought the cultural displays were right on and the whole effort better than the similar museum in the capital city. The artifacts were well displayed and the stories were interesting and informative.
HURRAY! FINALLY my first street food in Africa. Nothing in South Africa, nothing in Botswana, so Finally.
It was perfect – a fried sweet potato. YUM!
You know how I always like to find the cathedral. Maybe they don’t have a cathedral here as this is the biggest Catholic church I saw.
Mindy said the predominant religions are Seventh Day Adventists and Jehovah’s Witnesses. It is overall a very Christian country. The stores, taxis, waiting rooms, everywhere you hear the radio they are playing local Christian Rock or a sermon. That seems to be the two stations in Livingstone anyway.
It’s all in English too. There are 72 local languages in Zambia so the lingua franca is English and is spoken everywhere outside the villages where you might find only local language speakers.
Windows from the above church. They also had the traditional scenes but I like these references to African animals.
This day we were going to do a FunTivity like a walk with the lions or an elephant ride but neither one of us wanted to do those things more than we wanted a spa treatment.
So we found a place in town and both got pedicures and Mindy got a facial and I got a massage. Lovely! This woman did rip at my heels with a razor blade absolutely determined that I would not leave her care with a shred of dead skin on my foot.
‘You must be beautiful’ she said. Yikes, my heels are still sore…but clean…
…but one of the best, Jolly Boys, had recently opened a second location and we got space there.
It was perfect and we stayed for three nights.
There’s Mindy sitting on our veranda doing work. We had two single beds with mosquito net (as always here), a little table with a lamp between the beds, a small shelf, and an overhead light…shared bathrooms and showers across the way.
I loved it in there, it was so cozy and just right, including of course the price.
They had a great lounge for socializing, a small bar, and a café that offered tasty and well priced meals, and a pool even and a nightly bonfire.
And like backpackers always do, they had shared kitchen facilities which is so perfect for extended stays when you want to be able to make food.
Jolly Boys Backpackers
Here in Zambia they don’t have hostels, they have backpackers, but it is the same place with just a different name.
The most well regarded backpackers in Livingstone are here on the main street but by the time we got around to booking (and that would be yesterday…) they were all full…
Mindy, you go! She brought me coffee every morning(!) and made breakfast eggs just the way I like them with onions, tomatoes, and cheese. Lucky ME.
from Lynda and Alaoa.
Just there, behind MY tent, an elephant. I’m 5’2″ and I could barely stand in the tent, to give you some idea of the size of that big guy.
My camera was in the tent.
Yes, a pano from Victoria Falls that of course doesn’t do it justice. More Victoria Falls coming in the Zambia chapter.
FOLLOWING ARE PICTURES I GOT FROM OTHER PEOPLE
Day 16 Livingstone (Victoria Falls!) Zambia
This day will see us transfer out of Botswana and end the day in Livingstone, Zambia, home of the magnificent Victoria Falls. Bushways has put us up in a nicely posh hotel by the riverfront where Mindy is going to meet me.
My hope is to Catch Up in the next few days with the week that I’ve already been in Zambia. Hope might be the word as internet connectivity seems random, but mostly ‘out’.
And on the way out, what is that we see in the near-by bush? Lions, and plenty of them!
We watched a literal parade of lions pass in front of the truck. There must have been at least 20 of them. What a perfect farewell to the National Parks of Botswana and Bushways Safari.
Here we are getting on the barge that will float us across the river from Botswana to Zambia.
Landing in Zambia we take an hour or two with the formalities of visa etc. and end our day at the Zambezi Riverfront Hotel and since they must have run out of single rooms I get a suite!
…by the river. Ahhh.
It was so quiet with just the birds announcing the day and then in the distance we started to hear a low constantly building thunder and then out of the horizon…
The line stretched across the whole field of view and as they approached the river some would pick up speed, running…
A fish eagle. We saw dozens of them and I took ten pictures every time. That’s approximately/at least 120 pictures. Finally, one that’s not terrible.
Coming across the field, a hyena, my first! I did really want to see a hyena and so since none of the pictures are good, I’m using four. Make it up on volume we used to say.
He was leaving the very last remains of a baby buffalo…
…awww, a baby buffalo that’s alive! And his horns don’t look like the ones the vultures are pecking at.
So many elephants, here crossing for a drink. They are coming from Namibia. The river is the boundary between countries and to hear OT tell the tale those Namibians will do anything and are usually up to no good.
Day 14 Chobe campsite 9
We left the trailer this morning for a couple hours while we made the journey to look at these rock paintings.
From what I remember they were meant to be from the early 1800s made by the San people in the blood of animals as a means of communication. Remember that crocodile and that hippopotamus in Okavango? Well I have my doubts about these rock paintings too. Too easy to get to with too many tourists climbing up there. Still, it was an entertaining outing, and I could be wrong again!
Going back to get the trailer and lurching out way out of the sandy dirt pit that was our campsite.
But then, uh oh. A sandy dirt pit road, and, 1) we’re stuck. OK, 2) everyone out of the truck and let’s push it backward. 3) No joy. OK, 4) let’s unhook the trailer and push the truck forward.
The Dutch ladies Ellie and Tineke on Kitchen Duty doing the dishes. Everyone pitched it with all the chores. It was a thing of beauty how easily everything got done.
I say that, and I’m pretty sure I contributed the least. By the time I was looking around for something to do all that was left was to put away the chairs.
I think we left the National Park system for a few minutes and stopped at this establishment. It came as a bit of a shock after all that camping with nothing but what we had brought.
Cute Konrad doing his journal. He had a new camera and a 300mm lens and was getting really great shots. I look forward to seeing them.
We’ve arrived in our last campsite and everyone was SO happy. We were right on the river and wow all what happened right in front of us was So Cool.
Cape Buffalo.
A baby giraffe and a baby zebra.
I know I had a good baby giraffe with his family so I’m going to have to go back and look. Later.
More and more elephants. I have 50 pictures of elephants crossing the river. Check out their trunks. Periscope Up!
Day 13 Chobe campsite 8
Good morning! This was the day where we changed camps today and we’re changing camps tomorrow.
Tonight’s campsite was my least favorite so fortunately we were there for just the one night. The whole place was a pile of dirt and dust a foot thick, or actually I don’t know how thick because we never exactly found any ground.
Warthogs are cute. Really, I think so, when they are trotting off in a line with their tail-flags all a-flutter. I never got a shot of a whole family with the babies and their tails, so cute.
He got close.
He’s a he because females have thinner horns and still have lots of tuft on top. Males lose the tuft in fights. Males also die much younger because of the fights they’re always having with their easily broken necks.
I used one of these guys before but wow they are so colorful. And apparently they hold still since two of them were in focus.
Lunch. Nice.
I didn’t do the afternoon game drive but my camera did! I left it in the truck. Bummer. We had a spectacular elephant sighting and I’ll be getting some pictures from Angelika and Tineke soon as they stayed behind too.
Day 12 Moremi campsite 7
It was just dawn and the last stages of packing-up where some of the guys pitch in to help Allen load the trailer. The tents are hugely heavy. Someone always helped me carry mine. So they have to load up about 10-12 tents, all the luggage, sleeping bags, mats, the whole deal.
And while this is going on Alaoa calls out ‘Wild Dogs!’.
And there they were in our camp. Wild Dogs. Wow. The group on the right is hovering around what used to be our toilet but was now filled in with dirt and ash from the fire.
Oh yes indeed-y they were most interested in what was That.
On our way out of Moremi on the way to Chobe we stopped at the park entrance to load up with water and eat our fruit and use the bathroom.
In the literal blink of an eye this monkey had leapt from a tree onto the trailer and stolen an apple. In the blink of an eye.
I was in the bathroom so I didn’t see the apple thief and…
…I didn’t see that guy on the right that jumped into the truck, OPENED my blue net bag and pulled out a small package of nuts and raisins and ran up that tree.
The other guy is eating something he didn’t steal but I’ll bet he’s not enjoying it as much.
We hear on the wire that there’s a leopard kill nearby. But what’s this?! Yes, leopards! There are two trucks from a different company but those guys standing are a Bushways group. It is forbidden to stand to watch predators.
You can stand for all the prey but predators they say get spooked and we must sit. OT was very strict. Well, except for maybe that one time.
Yup, Leopard kill. OT said Mama took that impala down herself and dragged it under the tree, then went to get her two cubs.
Usually leopards take their kill up into trees to save the leftovers from scavengers and to eat there for a few days but OT thinks the cubs are not yet able to eat in trees so that’s why Mama left the impala on the ground.
Vultures tree! OT told us with great certainty that when you see vultures circling they are still looking. They do not circle a kill. When they find something they immediately land in a tree or on the ground.
All these vultures in a tree – definitely a kill. We had been on our way to the ‘hippo pool’ but got word to take a different fork in the road because there was something big and dead.
It was this hippo that was dead for some time, probably from natural causes or illness, and man-o-man did that thing stink. PHWWW. STINKeeee.
This ratty old lion was having a snack and keeping the vultures away.
And then on the scene comes this female, sleek, well muscled, and hungry. OT thinks the male had had enough and didn’t feel the need to fight over a stinky old hippo.
On the scene and ready. I saw him around a few times. There was a gyro-stabilizer on that set-up and he must have got some amazing shots.
Which brings me to my camera. Oh how I longed for a newer camera and a longer lens!
More elephants. Check out the big elephant on the right and the little baby between her legs. Many many more elephants yet to come.
Day 11 Moremi campsite 6
The babies. Everyone loves the babies. The whole truck would go awwww every time we’d see a baby and in the coming days we really saw a lot of babies.
If there was one thing OT worried about as much as he worried about guests wandering off it was crossing the path of elephants. He’d had his truck charged a few times in his early years and now watches for the least little twitch of trouble.
She trumpeted and flapped her ears and we did not cross her path.
A Kudu with an oxpecker, one of the birds that picks gnats and such off the bodies of mammals.
We did the through-the-river thing a bunch of times occasionally flooding water into the truck but we always made it out with much reving of the engine and the moral support of the riders.
Brigitta writing her journal and Santiago waiting for the campfire crowd to gather.
The nightly ritual of Angelika and Pierre going through their pictures deleting the duplicates and the ‘not so greats’.
These guys were so nice and so helpful. Everyone was nice and helpful actually. It was kind of amazing how the whole everything would come together so easily every day little as I did to contribute.
And now having arrived in Moremi we have traded oryx and springbok for impala. Impala impala impala.
We ate lunch somewhere else. Here we are again so I’ll copy the introductions:
Lynda French-living in Switzerland-accountant for a Spanish speaking company-with Alaoa
Santiago Spanish-living in Spain-teaches English-with Brigitta
Brigitta German-living in Spain-teaches German-with Santiago
Ellie Dutch-living in The Netherlands-works with disabled adults
Tineke Dutch-living in The Netherlands-Bird Maven
Annelies long story of nationality-living in Zimbabwe-Bushways hired her to translate for the Dutch and Germans (who all spoke English perfectly well but did I think enjoy chatting with her in Dutch and German)
Konrad German-living in Germany (lived in the US for 7 years)-tax accountant
Allen
OT
Angelika German-living in Germany-high school teacher (I think it was Biology and English Lit?)-with Pierre
Pierre French-living in Germany-retired engineer-with Angelika
Alaoa French/Algerian-living in Switzerland-sugar commodities trader-with Lynda
OT was doing a drive-around to check a place where he wanted to stop for lunch. It’s always been totally fine. But still, every time we check.
And this time. Lions! The big guy rolled over…
OT stopped the truck and we sat for a good long while just looking around. Birds were screaming an alert call and OT just knew there was something.
I don’t remember who first spotted it or when we realized what it was – an 8 foot long Black Mamba. At first they thought it was some other snake but then they realized no other snake was this long. Wow!
Scenery. Moremi is a fat finger of land in the Okavango and water abounds. You can see it in the map at the beginning.
The big highlight of the day, and I thought that Black Mamba was a highlight, and the lions, but the highlight was the Wild Dogs.
OT loves Wild Dogs and Leopards the best, so when there was word ‘on the wire’ meaning all the guides talk on the cb and always stop for each other when passing, that Wild Dogs were around we went on the chase.
They were trotting near the road for a while so we got several chances to see them.
There are two packs of Wild Dogs in Moremi and each pack can eat up to four impala per day so it’s a good thing there are plenty of impala.
Some wiki facts: “There were once approximately 500,000 African Wild Dogs in 39 countries. Now there are only about 3,000-5,500 in fewer than 25 countries.”
“Dominance is established without blood-shed, as most dogs within a group tend to be related to one another in some way. When this is not the case, they form a hierarchy based on submission rather than dominance. Submission and nonaggression are emphasized heavily; even over food, they will beg energetically instead of fight.”
“The African Wild Dog hunts in packs. Like most members of the dog family, it is a cursorily hunter, meaning that it pursues its prey in a long, open chase. Nearly 80% of all wild dog hunts end in a kill; for comparison, the success rate of lions, often viewed as ultimate predators, is only 30%.”
A view that includes the termite mounds I mentioned before. Notice the termite mounds are about as big as the elephants.
OT and the truck were at the airport to pick us up in Maun and drive us to the campsite. Angelika had said ‘I think the tents will be already put up’ in a wishful thinking kind of way and when we got to the site and tents Were already put up we were soo excited. We told Angelika she’d have to save her wishful thinking for the next really important thing.
Day 9 Maun campsite 5
We’ll end the day at a campsite in Maun. We had a choice, to ride five hours in the truck to get to Maun or take a small plane flight for big bucks extra. All but two opted for the big bucks, me included, not as much for the flight but to save five hours in the truck.
So it’s 7AM and we’re off. It’s the same in reverse – mokoros to boats to the truck. So we’re on the boat and the driver takes an obvious detour, turning into a channel not on our way, where within seconds we see…
…him. I was absolutely sure he was fake. This guy must have been 12-15 feet long at the least. HUGE. The biggest I’ve ever seen by double. And he doesn’t budge. His eyes are glazed over. He looks like a purse.
And then, after a slow drive-by, we come to…
…him. HUGE. So now I’m absolutely sure the whole set-up is fiberglass for the benefit of the tourists. Annelies stands up straight, lifts her chin, announces ‘we do not do that here’.
I was still sure it was fake until I reviewed the pictures and saw that, it seemed that…indeed the hippo did move his head from the first time we went by to the second when we had turned around. So ok, it’s not fake. Unless…you know those Disney folk, world domination and all.
