Botswana, Zimbabwe and Zambia

---

Heading into Botswana seemed very different with the vegetation turning greener and with cattle being allowed to freely roam. At times cows had right of way over vehicles and some of their roads, such as elephant highway, meant you would come across these beasts walking across the road in front of you.

We flew over the Okavango Delta to see the size of the delta and the expanse of land it was. The delta is approx. 15000km2 and boasts elephants, giraffes, zebras and lions to name a few. The flight was in a 6 seater plane which didn’t go above 5000ft which didn’t help with the turbulence. Although great views you need a stomach of steel to do it or at least lots of travel pills. It was good at least to see the expanse of delta before we took a truck into the delta for an African massage- the term used to describe driving on unmade roads. Then we took an hour and a half mokoro. These are dug out tree trunks, used as canoes with a person standing up at the back paddling you along, similar to gondolas in Venice. Our night in the delta was pretty awesome, seeing hippos, giraffes in particular on a walk as well as rough camping it with a hole in the ground for a toilet. We were told a scary story by our guide about another trip he did in the delta when a client came across a black mamba whilst using the hole in the ground. It certainly made people not want to spend too much time there. Pool time was also interesting with an area where we could cool off that was in amongst the mud, back home people pay money for mud baths however the appeal would wear off when you realise that you could be quite close to hippos! The way back was also interesting with hippos and crocodiles being around the area we were paddling back to. Fortunately we made it though and was pretty exciting to think where we had been. During the walk through the delta we were able to see giraffes, eagles and hippos whilst battling the sheer heat in the delta. The sunsets however were incredible although as soon as the sun was setting you realised how easily you could get lost in there or come across hippos, cheetahs and crocodiles when you least expected it. It was good to get back to the camp at this point.

The next key thing in Botswana was Chobe national park. Here we did a river cruise to see some close ups of elephants, hippos and baboons. The sunsets were also amazing to see overlooking the narrow border of Botswana and Namibia. I had been reading a book about a bushvet in Chobe national park and how he had to deal with poachers and bureaucracy of the government trying to hide Botswana’s challenges. It gave a great in site to what you don’t hear about as a tourist and it made me wonder how important tourism can be in protecting the wildlife of an area, as long as people are aware of that and it is done sustainably and not overdone. I wonder what the Serengeti will be like for this.

The crossing from Botswana to Zambia was more than obscure, firstly was the fact that once you checked out of Botswana you had to take a ferry over the same river we had crossed on the night before, to get to Zambia. Their borders are simply chaotic, anyone could walk across their border without checking and people were everywhere, trying to sell us souvenirs etc. they were in the area before the official gate into Zambia, so clearly didn’t need to have a passport. Finally we managed to get everything sorted and we were off to Livingstone, named after David Livingstone who was the first white person to discover the falls much to the annoyance of Zimbabwe who now charge UK residents $55 for a Visa and every other country $30. Simply put his nephew took on the presidency at the time in Rhodesia and they mustn’t have been happy with the Livingstone’s apparent take over and enforcing his beliefs onto everyone.

Some of us headed through the border into Zimbabwe to see the falls which were simply epic, most of the time you can only see mist coming from them as the water falls so far down, creating a huge mist which is like heavy rain falling on you, it reminded me of a rainfall in Scotland which soaks you through. Luckily though the hot weather soon dried you out. The following day we took a helicopter ride over the falls to get a better look, there you could see the extent of the falls and why it is classed as one of the 7 natural wonders of the world. The water level was so high that anything in that river wouldn’t stand a chance and would be swept over the edge. The helicopter took us through some of the gorges, which felt like something from Jurassic Park as the water rapids were so intense with the steep edges of the gorges towering over us. Our pilot explained that each of the 8 gorges had at one point been the edge of the falls for around 1 million years. We could also see the new crack emerging at the top of the gorge where eventually after another million years the water will have eaten away at the rocks and created a new gorge.

Prior to this in Zimbabwe we stumbled across a lion encounter project. This had been advertised to us in Zambia but the same charity do walks with lions in Zimbabwe. The lions are not trained but the cubs have been raised with humans, making them feel part of a pack. The reason for this is because the lion population across South East Africa has declined by 90%. Allowing people to walk with these lions provides funds to rear the lion cubs as wild to be released back into the wild with the lions who do walks eventually going to a wildlife park- Antelope park a protected nature park. The guides explained because of poaching and rich American dentists killing lions, that lion populations are so low that the lionalert.org charity was created to help increase lions in the wild, however it has to be paid through tourism as there simply isn’t the funds or incentives to protect them any other way.

A few days later we headed to South Luwanga national park, after two fairly long drives. The camp was right on the Luwanga river over-looking the park with velvet monkeys hippos and crocodiles as neighbours. Hippos would wander into the camp site as well as walk right in front of the dusty road infront of cars, quite an experience seeing these beasts not even bat an eyelid at a car and chomping its way through a load of shrubbery, knowing full well that if a car knocked them it would be the car that would come off worse than the hippo would. South Luwanga is 9505km2 with over 110 species. We saw nipe crocodiles, one turned out to be 2metres away from our car at one point hidden in the undergrowth, black headed heron, velvet monkeys (with their bright blue balls), hippos, obviously, some were beside a lodge owned by Paul Allan who is Bill Gates’s business partner, puku, woodland and pied kingfisher, the latter was darting for fish in a nearby lake, waterbuck, lilac breasted roller, a pride of lions- apparently there were 9 in total but we saw 4, juvenile lesser spotted eagles, yellow billed storks, African geese, thorny croft giraffe, fish eagle, warthog and elephant. We also saw sausage trees, where the fruits weigh 8kg each. Hippos, impalas, baboons, elephant, giraffe and porcupine eat the fruit and humans use it to make beer. The fruit from this tree is also useful for nursing mothers whose milk isn’t enough make a drink with this fruit which apparently helps with milk production.one the drive back to camp we ended up literally bumping into a family of giraffes right on our track, we got to be so close to these majestic and inquisitive creatures.

On the evening/ night drive we also saw a grey headed kingfisher, leopard, elephants, crawshay zebra, which are only found in Malawi, Tanzania, Zambia, spotted hyena, hare, jenet (mini wild cat), a lion hunt- where 5 lions killed a waterbuck. I felt sorry for the waterbuck but it was pretty intense. White tailed mongoose, a chameleon, a hippo and baby out of water and sivet cat. My highlights for this drive was seeing the leopard, quite clearly in a tree. Our poor guide knew we wanted to see this so did his best to find one for us on the second drive. They are so hard to spot and even being directly underneath the tree it still took us sometime before we spotted it. The lion hunt was also intense and fantastic to see and there was some solace for the waterbuck as it was over so quickly. Whilst driving through the park the guy shining the light for the driver spotted a chameleon- how I have no idea especially when it is the same colour as the tree, that was very special as you would never normally be able to see these- we also got to hold it too, which was cool. Finally on our drive home, almost knocking into a wandering hippo just added to the highlight of the drive, we watched as it walked through a thick bush of vegetation making a path for itself simply by opening its mouth and chomping through the bushes.

As we were leaving Zambia we stopped off by a community design shop where they make fabrics and textiles from fair trade Zimbabwe cotton and vegetable inks. You could walk around their mini factory and chat with the artists and sewers who seemed really happy to work there. It made me think not many people who have a talent in an art here in Africa could manage to make a living out of it, so it was great to see how this community had been able to make a think of it and do it so successfully.

---