Basil and Fred go wild in Zambia

---

Zambia

Driving back to the hostel in Lusaka we got our first glimpse of the city in the fading light, and apart from the odd bright flame tree it was another dirty sprawling city with life being played out by the roadside. Soon after arrival we headed to the city’s main bus station to get our tickets for our morning trip to Kafue NP. Our introduction to public transport chaos in Africa; there were people everywhere trying to lure us to their company and destinations we weren’t interested in “Livingstone….Livingstone….”, huge numbers of other loiterers (apparently people from over the border in Zimbabwe) , and the usual sales people selling various odds and ends. Luckily for us our taxi driver, James, was great and shepherded us through the mayhem and we successfully completed the task.

We took the bus to Kafue the following morning; our eyebrows were raised when the preacher came on to bless the bus and the driver to get us there safely….some indication of Zambia’s highway safety record! God seemed to do his thing even though we declined to tip the priest for his work, and we arrived safely 3 ½ hours later. Yes it was pretty hot and sweaty, but nowhere near as unpleasant as it could well have been; Zambia was very dry and dusty, incredibly straight roads and compared with what we had seen really quite sparsely populated, there were very few settlements along the route.

Our pick up to Mukambi lodge was waiting for us and we were teleported into another world (amazing that Zambia should be so far ahead in such technology!). The lodge was right on the banks of the Kafue river in a beautiful location; whilst being given the tour of the property by the manager he mentioned that they had a few loiters who hung around the place; 6 wart hogs (one of whom was taking a break and snoozing on the deck), and elephant who they named Fred who was often around, and finally (to Lynda’s unrestrained delight), a Hippo, Basil, who apparently would stroll up from the river and sleep on the deck….this had to be seen to be believed.

Our package was all inclusive; three meals, two game activities and all drink, there was a small pool and great places to relax watching the river. Occasionally it is good to see how the other half live!

During our time we had 6 organised activities, we chose 4 game drives, a walking safari and a river cruise. Although the animals were not as plentiful as Kruger we had a great time on the drives (1 morning and 3 evening), the usual animal sightings were the antelope (Impala, Puku - these were everywhere and only after entering Botswana did we find out that they were rare almost everywhere else!, Kudu, Bushbuck, Waterbuck), hundreds of wart hogs, there were also monkeys and baboons in plentiful supply. For the first 2 days we barely saw am elephant (except Fred), no zebra or giraffe, and we also didn’t catch any Lions despite the best efforts of our guides. However we were obviously in Leopard season as we saw 3; one at night prowling, one by the side of the river during our cruise and best of all we tracked a 4 month old cub for a while eventually having an incredible sighting of it up a tree….fabulous. However, perhaps the rarest sighting of our trip so far was of a spotted cat rather like a small cheetah but with very large ears…a Serval and it was our guide’s first one in 9 years. The cheetah itself however continues to elude us!!!!

The wildlife spotting was certainly not confined to the trips and we spent many hours of amusement watching the ‘residents”. One of the wart hogs in particular was almost always snoozing on the deck, really liked its tummy being stroked like a large fat pig-like dog, and often nuzzled for attention. Fred made a couple of appearances the first within an hour of our arrival where he came with a couple of metres of us on the deck and demolished much of a large tree there…and finally Basil….ahh Basil!! We’d scarcely believed that his antics were true but sure enough on the first evening after our game drive he was asleep on the deck, Lynda could hardly contain herself, a hippo (huge but still only about half grown) about 2 metres away!! She had died and gone to hippo heaven. Sure enough this was a regular occurrence and we also watched him graze in the front garden of the lodge (much to the displeasure of a nuzzling wart hog!), and then on our last day during breakfast he wandered up the stairs to spend the entire day on the deck...priceless…not many can say that have seen a Hippo climb a staircase!!!

Although great to see these animals so relaxed and close to hand they were still wild so you needed to be careful around them. This was born out one afternoon when Lynda was heading through the campsite and had a run in with Fred the elephant, trying to give him a very wide birth she must have startled him as he turned and did a mock charge towards her, despite falling over (in true scared-person-running-away in horror-movies style) she was able to get to the safety of the managers chalet. Certainly an experience, and a story for years to come! This added weight to our concerns that having such animals close to hand was a risk. No long term damage done and despite Lynda’s concerns that she didn’t need to see any more elephants for a while (and this was likely as we’d not seen any on the previous 3 drives) we immediately saw a herd within 2 minutes of the next drive. As they say if you fall of a bike get straight back on!!

We were sad to leave the lodge, but it was time to go as we were dangerously close to getting used to the luxury!! We were back to reality soon enough though waiting 3 hours on the scorching highway for our bus to come with no shade at all (until a local chap who had been snoozing underneath his truck appeared with an umbrella). Africa time!!! Once the mirage of the bus appeared on the horizon we were delighted, they crammed us on for the rather hotter, cramped and smellier return trip to Lusaka.

A very quick evening stroll allowed us to see half of downtown Lusaka, really nothing of note except a sprawling urban mess. The following morning we had a walk around the part of the city that housed the government - plenty of fairly well kept colonial buildings, flame trees, a pleasant stroll; nothing more.

Back at the madness of the bus station we started our trip to Livingstone, gateway to Victoria falls. It was crazy again and eventually we found our way onto the right bus, aided again by our trusty taxi man James. Luckily the bus was half empty so we spread out and had a very relaxing six hour drive down to Livingstone, and made our way to our next camping spot. Fawlty Towers! (there were lots of German’s there, I mentioned the war once but I think I got away with it!).

Lazy first day in Livingstone was ended with a booze cruise up the Zambezi, weather was great, didn’t see too much in the way of wildlife but it was very pleasant way to spend the early evening and have a couple of drinks. Such a hectic day meant we were asleep by 8.30pm…crazy hey!

Then it was off to the falls, one of the seven wonders of the world….you’d probably not have guessed that from the initial Zambian view of the trickle (sorry, falls). We knew it was the end of the dry season and therefore would be low water but hadn’t quite expected how low, and the only significant water coming over was only visible from the Zimbabwe side. We wandered over the bungy bridge (they weren’t jumping today, such a shame as we would definitely have done it, honest!) and inquired at immigration as to the cost of visas. US$55 for Brits, and when you add that onto the park fee of about $20….ouch! It did make up our mind,however, to do a helicopter flight which was only a little more than that. Before the flight we did the best thing that you can do in the dry season and took the opportunity to boulder hop across the very top of the falls, an incredible experience topped off by a refreshing dip in a pool at the top (ok Matt was in his pants following the local way, and Lynda fully clothed)…simply great.

Helicopter flight followed that and it was incredible. Great views of the waterfall, gorge downstream, and even caught sight of a herd of elephants and buffalo. All in all, a great place for Lynda to take her first flight. That being done we finally felt we had done the falls and could happily move on.

Next stop, Botswana...

---

Comments

[Joools]

Hippo heaven
Can't believe you lived with a hippo for 3 days - so jealous! That place has definitely moved to near the top of my must go places! Keep up the blogs - and the fab photos!