Advertisement
Published: February 26th 2013
<strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">Days 15 - 22
<strong style="mso-bidi-font-weight: normal;">River cruise in Botswana, the famous Victoria Falls, sunset cruise & walking with lions in Zambia & game watching in our campsite
Hey guys, we have had some long bus days, with plenty of time to kill, and needless to say, this is quite a long detailed one. Just thought I would give you the heads up so you can go and grab a cuppa before starting.
Saying goodbye to Kruger NP meant saying goodbye to South Africa. Botswana was our next port of call. We were told to watch out for wild animals, as here they were not fenced in and were free to roam as they pleased. Quite frequently Josh (our driver) would suddenly slow the truck down and beep at cows meandering across the road. This has now become the norm. We were welcomed into Botswana with a little bit more rain just for something different. By now we have realised (little slow on the uptake) that we are travelling in the official rainy season. I think Simon and I were pretty much the only ones not aware of this. I just saw 28 degrees (better than -5 in London) but failed to see the rain on the forecast. However, a little bit of rain has not dampened our spirits, just our undies.
Our first night in Botswana was spent watching the African Cup of Nations Final at the bar, where Nigeria beat Burkina Faso. It turned into an unexpected boozy night, where Simon teamed up with Gary in pool against Josh the bus driver and Chris, the New Zealander who is an amazing talent with a camera in hand. The losers of each game had to shot Stroh , which was a brutal 80%!a(MISSING)lcohol. Simon and Gary lost the first of three games and were challenged to a second and third game which thankfully they won. Josh spent the next 30minutes asleep at the bar standing upright, unable to talk or move. Watching Josh find his tent consisted of one step forward, five steps sideways, one step forward, five steps backwards. He was ready to go as driver in the morning though!
Our second night in Botswana we resided in a small village called Nata where the Makgadikgadi Pans National Park is situated. This used to be a super lake covering 80 000 square kilometres and reaching 30m depth, however, over time as the climate changed the lake dried up leaving a huge salt pan. Unfortunately, due to our luck and with the rains,(there had been 19 days of torrential rain prior to our arrival), the salt flats were no longer dry, and instead what we saw was 20 square km of waist deep water (that wasn’t even salty- I tasted it). A tad disappointing as the salt flats are supposed to be pretty cool where you can have thousands of animals collecting here. The wild life extended to one pinkish pelican and no flamingos. Nevertheless, it was educational as we saw the burrows of aardvarks (of which I still haven’t managed to google to find out what these creatures are).
The next day we arrived in Chobe National Park to a campsite that was slightly on the muddy side. An executive decision was made that we would upgrade for 2 nights into one of the onsite hotel rooms. This was absolute bliss and our beds that night felt like we were sleeping on heaven. We even had our own mozzie nets. I woke up to Simon looking over me looking like an African bride with his white mozzie net/veil covering his face. We had a lazy morning, a work out session with Keisha and Gary and a skype home, before commencing a river safari of Chobe NP. Simon looking the part with his khaki, binoculars and a newly acquired straw hat, he was more than ready to see some hippos up close and personal. A beautiful sunny afternoon with the clouds rolling in, the cruise was most enjoyable and we saw lots. It seemed like all the animals were posing for us right at the water’s edge just as we were cruising by. We saw more elephants, freshwater crocodiles, water buffalo, baboons (with blue balls- yep had to give you the visual), lots of giraffe and plenty of hippos up close. We managed to see a big hippo perform a nice belly flop into the water for us, but unfortunately much to my disappointment I am still waiting for the money shot of the hippo with his mouth open. A really lovely cruise, with a few beers, looking over the other side of the water to Namibia and a rainbow at the end, Simon and I both felt like we were really starting to feel like we were in ‘Africa’. That night we enjoyed learning a new card game called Nominations with our mums and dads on the tour (Margi, Janet, Wayne and Gary) which included holding cards on our foreheads, while Simon waited excitedly for the Man United vs Real Madrid game. A late night watching the football and Simon happy with the draw, we settled in for our second night in heaven.
The next day we set off to the next country on our list, Zambia, and the first stop being one of the 7 natural wonders of the world, The Victoria Falls. Crossing the border into Zambia on a not so OH&S safe barge, getting our first lot of visas was a breeze. On the way to the falls we learnt from our tour guide Sarah that Zambia is a country which shares its borders with 8 other countries and is heavily reliant on the mining of copper as a major source of income. Compared to its neighbour Zimbabwe, Zambia has basic agriculture, with no large commercial farms and poor healthcare, with high child mortality. HIV however, is reported to be slightly lower, 13-20%!o(MISSING)f the population compared to 30%!i(MISSING)n Botswana. Malaria and TB are the main causes of illness and there is still a big belief in using local witch doctors. Sadly, as I am sure we will continue to hear more over the coming weeks, 67%!o(MISSING)f the population in Zambia live below the poverty line (less than £1/day).
Arriving at Victoria Falls named after David Livingstone (I presume…..) in 1850, they are also known as ‘The smoke that thunders’. After being assured that in the rainy season the volume of water is just as spectacular viewing it from the Zambia side we didn’t venture over the border, and we were not disappointed. They were spectacular! The shear volume of water (……… L was just incredible. At 1.7km long and f…m high the falls were truly breathtaking (even more so than Niagra-sorry Canadians and Yanks). After having an hour and a half taking it all in at the falls, the torrential storm that followed didn’t seem to bother us as the spray from the falls had already drenched us.
Once in our new campsite in Livingstone we were shown a video of all the adventurous activities we could get up to. As Simon had already tweeted his way off the highest bungee in Africa we decided that the bungee here (where the cord broke on the Aussie girl) would be left for another day.
Instead we decided to part take the following morning in the Lion Encounter. An early start saw us at the African Lion and Environmental research Trust (ALERT), which is a non-profit organisation dedicated to the facilitation and promotion of sound conservation and management plans for the African Lion. It has been run for the last four years.
They explained to us that there is four stages to their project. Stage 1 sees the birth of cubs from their own breeding program. At around three weeks of age the lion cubs are introduced to humans in small pens where they will play together, and at around six weeks they are taken on walks to introduce them to the African bush and allow their natural hunting instincts to develop. Human contact is maintained with the lions normally till around 18months to two years of age. Throughout this time they are also encouraged to hunt for animals that are in their enclosure, and we saw impala and other animals in their habitat that they would have possibly hunted.
Stage two involves stopping human contact and introducing the lion to a purpose built 500 hectare enclosure, where they are given the opportunity to develop a natural pride social system. There is plenty of game to hunt and they remain here until they are socially stable and self sustaining. Any cubs that are bred here stay with the pride and are raised naturally. The ALERT program currently has one pride at this stage, with stage three yet to be reached.
Stage three will consist of moving the pride of lions to a larger managed ecosystem, where they will continue to hunt wild animals and also be introduced to competitive species such as hyena.
Stage four consists of releasing lions and their cubs into the great wilderness of Africa, with all the skills and human avoidance behaviours of any wild borne cub.
The key points to take on board when we signed our life away was not to crouch down (sounds straight forward- but easy to do when you want to take a good photo) and whatever you do, don’t run. With our sticks in hand, and Go Pro’s on forehead, our guide Friday introduced us to three lions, 2 females and a male ranging from 10 mths to 1 years old. They are the most amazing animals and quoting Simon ‘you can see why they are the top of the animal kingdom’. Our lions were so playful, constantly jumping and biting each other. The one thing I couldn’t get over was the size of their paws- just huge! We all got to have a pat and just observe them with fascination. The thing that I most enjoyed was that although they in are in captivity at this stage, it still felt very natural and not commercial and due to this amazing animals aura and strong presence, you still felt quite wary and not completely relaxed around them. It really was a truly amazing experience.
On a high from the lion walk, we took to the local markets. Here, we were greeted with - ’my brother, my sister, come into my shop, it is free to look’. We tried our hand at bartering and purchased a few of the local textiles and trinkets. For the rest of the afternoon we relaxed by the pool, awaiting our sunset booze cruise on the Zambezi River. The cruise was most enjoyable, spotting the odd hippo, elephant and giraffe but focusing more on the company (as it was our last night as a group for some) and the concoction that was ‘The Zambezi Special 2014’. We did achieve our goal that night at getting our tour guide Sarah sufficiently drunk and we sampled what the night life had to offer in Livingstone.
Feeling a little dusty the next day, we enjoyed a day relaxing in the sunshine, dozing and reading our books.
The next two days were travel days en-route to Malawi. We stopped in Zambia’s capital Lusaka. Driving into Lusaka once again gave us the feeling that yes, we are now in Africa. The roads were lined with huts and shop fronts, women with baskets on their heads, little ones strapped on their backs, and selling bananas (these women sure can multi-task). Kids running around with miss matching clothing, no shoes, but big smiles on their faces and waving to us as we drove by. The campsite we stayed at was awesome as we had a pleasant visit from the local zebras, just walking on by, around next to our tents whilst we were cooking dinner (yep pretty cool). The next day, whilst waiting for our truck’s gear box to be fixed, produced my favourite African moment to date. We went for a walk about 300m down the road to stumble across a tower of 7 giraffes, of which one was a baby of just a few weeks old. We followed them for a good 30 minutes and we were able to creep slowly to about 30m away from them. For me, they are one of the most interesting animals to watch, so odd looking but so intriguing. Amy I agree, they are definitely the ‘models’ of the African jungle.
This morning we have crossed over into Malawi, where we are all looking forward to the famous Kandi Beach. We are looking forward to hopefully doing a bit of snorkelling as well as a village tour as well. The scenery of the villages, and corn fields as we drive today is something else, so basic and third world and a reminder of how different and privileged a world we live in.
So that’s it for now, sorry it’s a long one. Also, sorry there have been no photo updates, the internet is both sparse and poke yourself in the eyeball frustratingly slow/TIA. We hope all is well and we will hopefully have internet tonight to touch base with you all.
Love to all
Love Simon and Alex
Advertisement
Tot: 0.087s; Tpl: 0.011s; cc: 10; qc: 49; dbt: 0.0425s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Valerie.
non-member comment
Thank you for fab. update.What great experiences.