CHAPTER 29 - ZAMBIA

Exchange rate 2350 Zambian kwacha to US$1

Th 10/8/99 - South Luangwa National Park, Zambia

My wristwatch alarm beeped at 530am. The lake below was loud, even more like the ocean with three foot crashing waves. We swam, washed, finished packing, then walked above to meet Cameron and Bridgett.

My face showed shock when we met Cameron at his Land Cruiser . In the States, the few 4x4 Land Cruisers about are full cab, but his was a pick-up, so my thoughts of a day-long, nice comfortably ride were dashed.

So the day didn't start as expected and things soon became worse. We sat atop our bags and faced backwards, unable to see the sky ahead. Cameron stopped to replace windscreen wipers and I looked then ahead to the darkest skies I've seen yet this trip. Soon afterward the rain was pouring down and continued for two hours. We were drenched and very cold and the misery lingered even after the rain stopped.

We stopped for some camp provisions n Mzuzu and an hour later crossed into Zambia at a small post, uneventful except that Robyn on her Australian passport was allowed in without a visa, I paid out US$25. The road was a mix of tarmac and dirt with enough bumps so that we spent our imagination for position changes and comfort and became sore. After nine hours in the back of the pickup, we stopped outside the valley, at Chitapa, and hit a big western style shopping center for more supplies and horrible Cornish pastries for a late lunch. We would soon be entering the valley, only three more hours to go. Something happened to my left mid-back, maybe the metal bar I leaned against bruised it or maybe I pulled a muscle. I was more limited to find a comfortable position and leaned on my side for the reminder. From Chitapa, Bridgette had assumed the drivers seat and she stopped in the middle of nowhere, we assumed Cameron wanted to spot another bird like the white cheeked bee-eater earlier, but instead he pointed out the escarpment of the Great Rift Valley and the mopane woodland, barren for just three weeks at the end of the dry season.

We passed through the village of Mfuwe, close to the main park entrance, near three giraffe chewing in the near darkness, and were brought to Wildlife Camp at the park boundary and met the manager Mark from England and Nikki the assistant manager. Our only lodging option was a tent for $20 total, we asked and received a discount of $5, and were happy in the large Campmor tent with comfortable mattresses, pillows, and clean sheets.

Wildlife Camp Costs:

Own tent $5/night/pp

Kitchen costs $2/pp/meal

Supplied tent $10/night/pp

Family chalet $15/pp

Chalet ensuite $20/pp

day game drive $20

night game drive $25

walk near park $20

walk in park $25

(park entrance fee per 24hr $20)

breakfast $3.50, burger and chips $6, dinner $7.50-$8.50

Staying in a family chalet, taking two games drives per day and meals would thus cost about $105 per day. Eeeks! Budget visit to Masai Mara in Kenya was $55/day, Ngorogoro Crater and Serengeti in Tanzania is $85/day. Our strategy would be to take advantage of Wildlife Camp's good game viewing location, relax, minimize game drives, and take the least expensive lodging and cook for ourselves.

Fr 10/9/99 - South Luangwa National Park, Zambia

At sunrise, I gathered my binoculars and long lens, and walked through the camp, through the restaurant, passing three people having tea and a couple of staff, and out the forest and onto the riverbed. The Luangwe River was evident of the dry season, it was shallow and had receded to only fill a small portion of the wide flat valley. I walked down the riverbed at the restaurant's edge, across uneven grass with indentations from elephant, hippo, and other animals, and to an inner riverbank dry with grass and still fifty meters from the river. Here was a open perch with a very wide view. From the forest to the bottom of this bank was short, grazed grass and dry dirt. Fifty meters away was the waters edge, between the two was a flat of dirt. The river runs from a bend to the left straight across the view to a right bend a kilometer away, obscured from view by grass. The sky was full of cloud, the sun peaked a couple of times during my sit, and the air held a cool breeze. Fifty meters to my left were thirty impala, to my right fifty guinea fowl mixed with a dozen Egyptian geese. The flightless guinea fowl, narrow black bodies with white specks and blue heads, were scratching and pecking the ground and fencing with one another. The impala herd with one buck, noticed my presence and turned their heads high and in my direction. On the far side the river cut into the earth sharply, the bank was a steep and eroding, five meters high. A handful of hippo laid on the far bank, further to the right more hippo stood at the river.

When I had walked through the restaurant, I glanced at a notice board, and noted their claim of no responsibility to guests, their advice to close tents tight at night and thus not to create curiosity in the cats. So, as I walked out to my perch this morning, I looked left and right for lion. Although the park officially started across the river, there were no gates or fences and the wild animals didn't recognize the boundary. The herd of impala walked slowly passed me before the river. And fifteen minutes later when they stampeded from the upper bank to the river - I readily noted this. The fowl then also moved to my left and I noted this too, and walked back to the lodge area to the comfort of more secure surrounds.

I walked back into camp to our tent, then Robyn and I gathered some of our provisions and made grilled (fried) cheese and tomato sandwiches for breakfast. The mess block contains two kitchens, a large one for the camp chefs and a smaller one for self-catering clients. The small kitchen has a fridge stuffed full with lettuce, a four burner electric stove, and some shelf space. Anything we need for cooking is fetched from the large kitchen.

During lunch, from a picnic table near the short restaurant wall, we saw two elephants strolling near the river only a hundred meters away, so we walked out onto the riverbed and sat on our viewpoint. Warthogs scuttled and gnawed on little short patches of grass in the wet dirt. Across the river were hundreds of holes burrowed into the bank like honeycomb and dozens of carmine bee eaters, bright crimson and blue, flitted about. The elephants slowly ambled along the bank and into the grass to our far right. We sat peacefully, absorbing the picturesque African scene that would be our home for days.

I pursued an invitation to watch World Cup Rugby, a chance for an activity a little different for us, and a chance to meet people around the camp. We watched New Zealand versus England (30-16) with Mark (The Wildlife Camp manager, soon to venture own on for small short term overland safaris in lesser reached portions of Zambia), Matthew (from Cape Town and working in Namibia, here for reconnaissance mission for potential new lodge), Mike and Ann Marie (English and Dutch, own Gecko's Guest House in Livingstone, Zambia (Victoria Falls)).

Afterward Matthew invited us to dinner. Since he was soon returning to Namibia, he was cooking up the rest of his stock brought from Namibia, this time gemsbok and lamb. He cooked over a wood fire in front of the restaurant and lounge hut, and the camp provided chips and salad. Robyn and I hadn't been very excited about our measly stock of food and were about to cook pasta when the invitation was extended. Now, we were eating wonderfully prepared wild game and domestic meat and for some reason the chips were exceptionally good. We sat with good company, all told we had a great night.

Su 10/10/99 - South Luangwa National Park, Zambia

At 530am, better prepared with a jacket and thermorest pad for sitting, I returned to the long short hill overlooking our piece of the Luangwe River valley, and. Robyn joined me a half hour later. We sat quietly with the early morning sun behind us, watching the hippos, carmine bee eaters, crocs, guinea fowl, impala, and a pretty saddle-billed stork. After an hour of relaxing, talking, and gazing, I requested that we walk along the riverbank to a point across from some hippo. She was nervous but followed and protested a bit when I walked further than promised. There wasn't a problem though. We stood on the dry mud bank, at the foot of the brown river, and across was a mother and calf hippo laying like beanie bag animals on the bank. Directly in front of us was a white and black bird hovering above the river, diving in, then hovering again. It was a pied kingfisher and we watched with curiosity.

After a breakfast of eggs, toast, juice, and tea, we walked into Mfuwe Village carrying Mark's bird guide and careful of elephants. The village is small, at one end are many traditional houses of wooden poles and mud walls, and straw roofs. Some homes were round, some square, and most were painted brown with a black stripe near the ground. From the Christian Bible Church across the road we heard the sweet singing of children. Further along are square mortar buildings - a restaurant and a few stores. The restaurant was closed, at one store we sat and drank cold Sprites, then across the street we found flour but no bread or reasonably priced crackers or biscuits. Next door is a small market, open fronted stalls of wood selling clothing and some produce. We bought four eggs and four tomatoes. Back across the road at the local homes I was halfway through a photograph when Matthew pulled along side with Ed (goofy bald ex-real estate man from London, now working as a consultant remodelling Chichele Lodge in the park, and travelling and looking for investments in Southern Africa). Matthew offered us a game drive, we would pay just our entrance fees, and I jumped with excitement in a boyish manner. Since our arrival to the park area I hoped for a private game drive, then with a pass lasting for twenty-four hours, we could then add another one or two drives through the camp and leverage the cost.

Robyn and I hopped into the back of Matthew's company Mazda Courier utility vehicle and sped toward Mfuwe gate. We paid the $20 entrance fee each in kwacha around 11am, Matthew put in another $15 for the vehicle, and then we stopped few hundred meters ahead at the center of Luangwa Bridge.

The river here is deeper and wider than at Wildlife Camp, filled to the banks with water, a big lazy brown river with hundreds of hippopotamus and crocodiles, supposedly more than any other river in Africa.

Not much further on we dropped Ed at his sick Toyota pickup, gave him a tug with a tow rope to start the car, then went on with Robyn and I sharing the passengers seat near Matthew.

Our first drive in South Luangwa National Park was great. We had the independence of a private vehicle and Matthew was just as excited. even though he had been in the area for three weeks, it was all work, and this would be is first time truly playing tourist in the park. He has a degree in environmental park management and has spent his life in the bush. His knowledge of the wildlife including birds was extraordinary.

South Luangwa National Park totals 9000 square kilometers but most facilities are centered around Mfuwe Gate. Most tourists, including us, see less than five percent of the park. This area is mopane (MO-PAN-E) forest, much of it destroyed by elephant. The sad trees are torn down to shredded stocks about seven feet high, a surreal landscape. There are many other scenes though, including nice stands of ebony, wild mango, and cedar trees. The great Luangwe river flows south toward the Zambezi River and is the areas lifeblood. The river is very photogenic, filled with hippos, attended to by many herbivores and birds. Wet exposed riverbed nourishes a bright green grass.

We drove past the expensive, attractive, African designed, Mfuwe Lodge with its pond of hippos and crocs outside, where six weeks ago a first day guide was attacked on the veranda by a hippo, a very unusual event. She was ripped open, intestines strung out, but didn't suffer internal injury and is now returning to her post.

The freedom of movement afforded by a private vehicle can not be understated. Although Matthew didn't venture from the worn roads to investigate we did leave the vehicle on foot for different angles and closer looks at things of interest.

We had passed many animals - elephant, zebra, waterbuck, puku (small bok like a bushbuck that I've never seen before), giraffe, and many birds (rollers, longtailed starling, lilan's lovebird, helmeted guinea fowl, sacred ibis, great white egret, and marabou stork). Then, in an open riverbed with patches of iridescent green grass, we happened upon a buffalo kill by lion two days earlier. We stopped under shade atop the bank and watched vultures tearing at the carcass. The body was just skeleton and laid on it's sternum, the head wasn't touched and was on it's left cheek. I walked down the bank and toward the scene for a close-up, but as Matthew said it, the vultures lifted slowly away in the light breeze. That was okay though, I wanted to inspect the carcass closely anyway. It was a unsettling sight. I walked over dried mud imprinted by thousands of hoofs and feet, most notably from elephant. The eyes stared blankly ahead on the outstretched head and flies were happily swarming over body and through the ribcage. I placed Blacky on for a picture.

Other birds we saw were the yellow billed stork, lappetfaced vulture, woodland kingfisher, whitefronted bee-eater. Other mammals included buffalo, bushbuck, kudu, warthog, baboon, vervet monkey, and impala.

We drove on, stopping for birds, mammals, trees, and views of the great river and the life inside it. Occasionally one of us would yell and slap at a tsetse fly biting. Matthew had one chore in the park - to see Chichele Lodge. The signs in the park were lacking and some that were there were misleading. The longer it took to look for it, the faster he drove, speeding up to 80 kph along the dirt and dusty roads.

Chichele Lodge sits at a large rolling hill, an ugly building original built in the early 1970's for the president then, xxx. Now it is leased to Ed's company and will undergo restoration. We sat admiring the great view from the back, sipping Cokes and Sprites. We gabbed with Ed and a woman named Katherine while watching a large herd of buffalo in the distance cross a dry riverbed and fill a grassy patch in the forest.

We left the park at 330pm and on the way to The Wildlife Camp, Matthew convinced me into a short run.

I strapped on my black and white Reebok from Singapore and realized that this would be my second time running in them since July 2nd. With a caution from Matthew to watch for elephant - there had been many around the camp recently - we were off on the hot and dusty road. We run to Chinzombo Safari Lodge, a simple and neat affair on the edge of a riverbank. We ran back to the Wildlife road, a bit toward Mfuwe village then turned around. By this time I was very wet and dehydrated, but I hoped to make the distance without asking for a stop. I saw a beige Landrover ahead that had stopped, then it continued on, and I wondered what was up. As we approached the spot I looked at Matthew looking at the ground and then into the forest to the left at two young bulls. One took noticed and flapped his ears in alarm. Breathless I told Matthew and then followed his lead. We walked slowly back along the road to a line where sight of the beasts was blocked by a termite mound, then started into the woods on the right, but stopped when we saw an elephant cow and calf, even more dangerous. We split the two pairs and slowly and quietly walked through the forest without altercation. The incident made the run worth the anguish.

I showered and afterward sweat still poured over me. Robyn and I then joined Mark and others at the owner's house again for the Rugby World Cup, this time South Africa versus Spain (41-3).

After the game, Robyn and I combined food resources with Matthew and we cooked in a kitchen he has had sole use of in a remote area in the camp. We ate outside the kitchen, in the warm darkness, listening to the wild sounds of Africa - birds, hippos, cicadas, and monkeys. Then, a loud lion's roar blasted through the night and stopped us in mid-sentence. Matthew was curious and worried, and since he worried, we were also nervous. After cleaning up, with his flashlight poking into every corner of darkness, "It's better we see them first", he escorted us back to our tent. Yes, Robyn and I were nervous.

We were both very tired and crashed quickly, tomorrow we would be up early for a game drive organized through the camp.

Fate is funny at times, a string of events in this case. A chance conversation with Cameron at Lake Malawi led to a lift to his home area and to a highly recommended lodge situated upon the Luangwa River, lifeblood of South Luangwa National Park. With Cameron's introduction to Mark, we received a discount, and with a little forethought, we were invited to attend a gathering to watch World Cup Rugby and then dinner. Meeting Matthew brought us into the game park for a private and personal tour with a professional. And with dinner that night, Matthew passed on his leftovers to us.

Mo 10/11/99 - South Luangwa National Park, Zambia

I woke before my alarm at 5am and laid until 530am, then dressed, and prepared my daypack. We ate a quick breakfast of bread rolls, jam, and tea then boarded one of two Landcruiser safari vehicles, beige 4x4's with three bench seats behind the driver, the last mounted beyond the rear of the car. Unlike East African safari cars, these were totally open - no doors or roof. There were twelve people and a driver / guide.

On this drive, like yesterday's, we entered through Mfuwe Gate, stopped on Luangwa Bridge to view hippos and passed Mfuwe Lodge. Our guide gave canned descriptions of the different animals, talked of their breeding and eating habits. This was nice background information and made the trip interesting.

Different from yesterday was the time of day. In the early morning and late afternoon animals are more active in the cooler air, but I was even more thrilled with the better lighting with the sun low. It lent itself for more moody scenes and stronger and deeper shades of color. Unfortunately, in contrast to yesterday, I couldn't take full advantage of the lighting since we weren't allow to leave the vehicle.

The drive was nice though. We saw many of the same animals as yesterday - elephant, hippo, waterbuck, kudu, and many impala, warthogs, and guinea fowl. We missing seeing buffalo, lion, and leopard. One is more likely to see cats on a night drive. The drive was comfortable, with a high vantage point, and relaxing and sometimes exciting. We returned to camp around 10am.

After the game drive, we cooked a big breakfast of eggs and ham, courtesy of Matthew, at the remote kitchen. Here, Robyn discovered a neat little lounge area with a small, unused bar.

The view overlooked a dried section of the river, but not the river itself. Although the river was out of sight, the pan was long with view and many animals grazed here. After breakfast we returned and spent the afternoon reading and typing and enjoying this different perspective of the camp. We watched impala, egret, stork, and elephant in the distance on the large dry protrusion of the riverbed. A female trailing two adolescent warthogs tiptoed across our view and hours later return to pose on the dry bed, lined up perfectly one behind the other on front knees, paying before grazing. Some people find things in this world so ugly that they are cute - warthogs are Robyn's favorite animal, my comment is normally, "A face only a mother could love".

Courtesy of Matthew again, we ate boerwurst, potatoes, and corn. Boerwurst, translates "farmer's sausage" in Afrikaans, and is one of the great South African things. Although I do not habitually eat sausage, boerwurst is spiced very nicely and is often lean. The taste is unique and not to be missed. This boerwurst was made of gemsbok.

Tu 10/12/99 - South Luangwa National Park, Zambia

Today was a very lazy day. I didn't even rise early with the sun to visit the river and instead slept until 7am.

After breakfast of pancakes and ham, Robyn and I met a German couple named Martin and Sandra. They purchased a 1986 Unimog (German four wheel drive commercial transport vehicle, often mentioned in Wilbur Smith books), outfitted it, and drove from Germany through Egypt, Sudan, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi, and to Zambia. They spoke mostly of Egypt and Ethiopia, strongly disliking Egypt for the rude and disgusting people in behavior and hygiene, and loving Ethiopia for the scenery and friendliness of the folk. Martin schooled for three years in Johannesburg and could speak English well with a South African accent, Sarah trained as a nurse. They hoped to sell the Unimog and find a spot to settle in southern Africa. A friend was on his first trip outside Europe, flew into Lilongwe, Malawi, and is flying home from Zimbabwe after a stay of four weeks. He is drives an armed services truck for banking. Over the next two days we would have many conversations with the three while at Wildlife Camp.

I made two attempts before success in reaching Ralph Cheesman in Zimbabwe. I caught him on his cell phone while in Harare. Ralph and his wife Ann live in a village near Kariba, Zimbabwe called Chalala.

To describe how Dan Fazakas and I found our way to Chalala in January 1991 is my story of South African dominoes.

I fondly recall my meeting of my first South African. In the summer of 1988, I was with the current group of rowdies visiting O'Brien's Pub on Thames Street in Newport when standing near the bar I noticed a BOC sailing T-shirt on a wild looking man. I asked if he was involved with the yacht race and where he was from. Alan Staniforth replied that he was a sailor but not involved directly with the BOC, but was a professional sailor tending a BOC boat in Newport, and that he was from Cape Town, South Africa. I was relatively green in world travel, I didn't know much about Cape Town and South Africa, and I offered the subject of my recent visit to Kenya. The conversation continued, and being the gregarious and excitable chap he is, he joined our group after cancelling a previous arrangement for dinner, and we were all off to the Inn at Castle Hill for the late afternoon social scene. Within the week Alan moved into the house near O'Brien's that Dan Glenning and I owned, and stayed for four three months. Also traveling about that summer was Alan's ex-girlfriend's (Bloss) sister, Claire Mulliner. Alan introduced Claire who spent most of the summer coming and going from our house also. The group about Newport and Martha's Vineyard (the yacht Alan tended spent time there) that summer was simply fun, an active and crazy crowd including Alan, Claire, Dan, Michele Dallaire, Deb Deb Moniz, Deb Profitt, and Dennis Peront. And this summer I met my future wife, Kerry, an old friend of Claire's, who very recently had travelled the world and landed in New York City. Kerry spent summers in Hermanus, South Africa, and there met Claude Centner who also travelled the world and married Melinda from Newport Beach, California. Claude took a job in Trumbell, Connecticut, and frequently visited Newport with Melinda and Kerry. A friend from Claude's past, Ian Bachelor, rocked up with Newport with his wife Lynn for the summer of 1990, working in O'Brien's as a chef and waitress, two job they had never undertaken before. Ian is the brother of Ann Cheesman in Kariba..

So, with a large piece of ground between us and Kariba, I leaned toward departing immediately but was persuaded against it by Mark, who commented that would only sit in the sun in Mfuwe and see no cars leaving the valley. He suggested leaving early that next morning with the one minivan that makes the run each day to Chipata, then bus into Lusaka.

The day was very lazy. Martin and his mate joined us at 11am with beers and for the next couple of hours we talked, mostly about travelling an Africa. Maybe Robyn and I should have spent more effort looking for a lift to Chipata, but we didn't and would later regret it.

Martin excitedly told us that during the night, while he and Sandra slept atop the Unimog, a hippo sauntered by - a huge and dangerous animal within an arms length of the truck. I believe a midnight relief of ones bladder isn't recommended here.

During the afternoon, four elephants descended the steep bank on the far side of the river. I walked out to the bed to sit and watch. There were two adult females, a adolescent female, and a male calve. At the rivers edge tey drank, then crossed, stopped halfway for a quick roll about. The calve was cute, playing more than washing, and obviously enjoying himself.

Later, a herd of eighteen repeated the scene, and it was more spectacular. After drinking and washing and rolling about, they also passed into the bush on our side of the river, to the right of camp. Since the river on it's flow southwest bends to the north about a kilometer east of camp, then bends south in front of camp, the elephant had walked over the park boundary and onto a peninsula in the shape of a spoon. Without crossing the river again, they would be close to camp and I wondered when we would see them again.

Robyn, Martin, Sarah, and their friend joined us for sunset on the grassy rise in the riverbed. The sun set in a fiery ball behind low clouds. Hippopotamus bellowed up and down the river in the quiet air, calling one another, perhaps to ask what was for dinner. From behind an elephant bellowed, just to the left of camp. A worker came down to call us in, fearful of an incident if the female and calf moved between the camp and us.

Later that night, after a very boring dinner of rice and chips, we sat with the Germans, hearing more stories of Ethiopia. They crossed into Sudan at a border plagued by bandits and so hired an armed guard to be posted on the roof, a good vantage point, albeit exposed. However, he was frightened, and asked Sarah to instead sit on top. She asked, "Why should I"?". He shrugged one shoulder and replied, "Because you're just a women".

We 10/13/99 - Traveling from South Luangwa, Zambia to Lusaka, Zambia

Rather than write out the whole long miserable trip from South Luangwa, Zambia to Kariba, Zimbabwe, I have listed events as a log:

4am - Wakeup call

420am - On ride to Mfuwe in open Landcruiser safari car, cold.

450am - In minibus to Chipata, 130k away. Paid too much for lift, K16,000 each. Only saw one car on road to Chipata.

930am - The ride should have taken 2.5 hours but they drove like a snail, we arrived 4.5 hours later, averaging 29kph (18mph)

1030am - Sitting on bus for Lusaka, 600 km away, waiting for bus to be more than filled. Cost ZK24,000 plus ZK5,000 for one bag, total ZK59,000. Old bus is in style of inter-city bus, very square and plain, big windows, handrails for standing passengers, no luggage racks, all storage on top. Board ceiling falling, sits ripped up. Told ride would take between 8 and 10 hours.

1pm - Bus moving to Lusaka, over 70 people, 7 standing although there is a law prohibiting standing, screaming babies, people sharing everything including water, Vaseline for fungus on legs, lips, face, and laps for babies and luggage. We sat in last sit, asses very sore. In front were a handful of drinking and loud men, two in particular very big with baritone voices.

130pm - Sitting next to Maxwell who wants everything, "You're travelling to Zimbabwe, you must have a lot of money". Answer, "If we had money we would be flying or with a car". He comments on Robyn's daypack and asks for everything - water, book, address in Zimbabwe, peanut butter.

3pm - Little girl with cropped hair wearing Popeye ("I yam what I yam") cotton jersey stared for whole trip at us, mostly Robyn. Another girl, about ten, also short hair, with grandmother (or great-grand), stood most of trip quiet, dirty blue shirt and skirt, dirtier white smock.

4pm - On stop in small village, many women outside selling bananas through window. Maxwell is active ferrying bananas to friends for inspection, eating one on the way, and passing them back out. He was helping a women buy a bunch (ZK500) and bus started up. He yelled that he needed change for a 5000 and that they should hurry, "Fasty, fasty!". We it started to move, he didn't give back bananas and from outside a banana peel flew in through the window, big, juicy, and inside-out - to smack him square in face! Funny! He was bewildered, thought about what happened and grabbed the bananas back from women to keep himself.

6pm - I had noticed the women's leg in front of me - a large sore, maybe fungus on her calf. In the African spirit of sharing, when a women near her took out a small jar of Vaseline, the fungus women asked for it, then rubbed it over her sore and into her hands and face. It was returned and the owner spread vaseline on her lips and eyes. Urgh!

10pm - Eight hours down, should have been in Lusaka, no idea where we are. Bus stopped many, many times, to be fixed (shifter), to stop for drunks, only a few times to let people on or off. Unfortunately, we will arrive dangerous Lusaka in nighttime.

Th 10/14/99 - Traveling to Chalala, Zimbabwe

1am - We are both exhausted and sore from sitting, can't find comfortable position for sleeping.

5am - Light outside, but no sign of city, at least we saved on lodging for the night.

6am - Passing interesting villages, mud huts painted shades of tan, red, and brown with simple decorative borders along bottom in black. Roof is shaggy with straw.

7am - Stopped in village to load passengers. Robyn's eyes go wide - at his parent's direction, a small boy is dragging his butt along dirt to clean it after dumpy.

8am - Starting to see signs of city - beef processing plant, nursery, greenhouses, farms, schools.

9am - Into bus station in Lusaka. In receiving bags from roof, caught man in my pocket, pushed him away and yelled forcefully, trying to appear tough, but I had backpack on and stumbled over wheelbarrow. Man and friends laughing, me too - inside.

915am - taxied with bus passenger to mini-bus station

930am - Had heard Lusaka has international ATM, took Robyn's card for cash - not true, none!

11am - hurried away for email, paid 5000 for taxi across town to Chachacha Guest House to find they can only send and receive messages, real Internet cafe is near mini-bus station.

1pm - Away in minibus for Kariba via Chirundu ZK9000 each. Argument about stuffing people into eight passenger minivan - we took fourteen.

315p - Dropped most off and picked up more in Chirundu, out of our way to Kariba. Wanted to be in Kariba by 330pm to get through customs and to marina by 4pm. Another 80km to go! Urrghh! Talked with Bryan about WWF, boxing, primaries.

410pm - Arrived Siavonga, Zambia. Into Zambian immigration and customs. Ralph said to meet between 4pm and 5pm - maybe we'll make it, nervous now. Transfer to Chalala would be 50-70 dollars (US or ZIM?) otherwise

420pm - Started walk down dirt road to dam. Man in pickup gave us a lift - it would have been a long walk!

440pm - Out of Zimbabwe immigration ($30 each, single entry) and pickup man dropped us off at filling station

455pm - Found out that Kariba Breezes Marina is 8 kilometers away, taxi! Urrgh!

505pm- Beeline Co., told at desk that Ralph would meet us at 530pm. Made it!!

With third world travel - you never know where or when you'll be somewhere until you get there. It took many vehicles - Landcruiser, minivan, bus, taxi, minivan, taxi, and boat - to get there, to Ralph and Ann's home. We had two bum rides that took twice as long as normal. The bus ride in Zambia from Chipata to Lusaka was by far the worse. We first spent two hours sitting and waiting for the bus to be sufficiently full, then twenty hours moving at a slow pace where a car would have made the 600k m run in less then eight hours. The bus stopped too many times to repair the shifter, and lacked power such that it could just crawl up slight hills in low gear. We were filthy - really filthy - hands, clothes, hair, spirit - filthy!

We witnessed some pretty disgusting sights while on board. As much as it is possible in Africa, we rushed to our destination over a 35 hour period, stopping only to wait for the next transport, and came nervously close to missing Ralph's family with their boat.

-end