The Land of Many Zeds

Victoria Falls from the Zambia side

We managed to get out of Malawi before the demonstrations started.  I will say that Malawis struck me as an exceedingly laid back and mellow people.  Things must be pretty bad for them to take to the streets, and the President, "His Excellency", must feel pretty threatened for his security forces to open fire on them.  I hope things improve significantly and rapidly.

While languishing in Lilongwe, I had been unable to face the idea of getting to the coast of Mozambique via three minibuses and a potentially multi-kilometer walk across the Malawi/Mozambique no-man's-land of the border crossing.
 James and Rob, two thirds of the Gang of Six, took pity on me over a most delicious Indian curry and let me continue to tag along.  The rest of the Gang had gone to Zambia already.  We crossed into Zambia and began to look for a nice spot to bush camp in.  Bush camping is basically short term squatting.  You find a place where there are no signs of life where you're consequently likely to go unbothered by inquisitive locals.  It took a while, but just before the last light went down on the day and after we'd purchased an enormous bag of charcoal, we pulled off the road, into an untended field covered with high grasses, and made camp with a nearly full moon, saving a lot of AAA battery use in my headlamp.

The next morning, we drove through Zambia's capital, Lusaka.  Lusaka is a strangely bland mix of Africa and suburbia.  There are dudes trying to sell you iphone covers and wooden carvings at the stop lights just outside the spacious parking lot of a fully Western mall, complete with home furnishing superstores and fried chicken chains ("Steers").  I think James was a little embarrassed by Rob's and my excitement at the prospect of drip coffee from an overpriced Starbucks-ish cafe, but even he was impressed by the toilets at the mall, fully equipped with Xlerator hand dryer!  This was where I realized that heading south in Africa means heading towards, admittedly potential, luxury and infrastructure.  A hand dryer sighting is pretty significant for me.  A functioning hand dryer is definitely noteworthy.  An Xlerator sighting is gaspworthy; the only thing that could top it is a Dyson Airblade, and I don't want to be greedy.

After doing some supply top-ups in Lusaka, we continued along the smooth, recently paved main highway for some kilometers before heading south towards the Zambezi River, which marks the border between Zambia and Zimbabwe.  An overlander heading north had recommended a campsite called Zambezi Breezers.  While the name is evocative of a strangely colored, sweet wine cooler, it is one of the nicest campsites I've visited.  The owners go to great pains to ensure green grass, which is so much nicer and cleaner to camp on than dirt.  Sited right on the Zambezi, you can see Zimbabwe on the other side of the river, you can hear the hippos snorting below you, and you are advised to stay well clear of them when they are on land.

This is a good time to talk hippopotamus.  Along with buffalos and crocodiles, they are responsible for more human deaths than any other African animals.  Fear not the leopard and the lion, but tremble before a hippo making its way to the water!  Hippos spend all day in the water, protecting their skin from the sun.  I might do the same in Africa, were it not for the omnipresent crocs and/or bilharzia.  The hippos come out of the water at night to graze.  They can trek quite a ways inland to forage for their food.  They can also run surprisingly fast for such cumbersome-looking creatures, both along the river bottom or on the ground, and they don't like for you to get in between them and the water.  That's where a lot of the trouble comes in, and it generally results in the human being bit in half or some similarly gruesome outcome.  They also have a reputation for bumping the underside of boats with their considerable bulk.  That gives the crocs a good opening to make a meal of you, even if the hippo's rage is then fully vented.  All this adds a new dimension to the calculation of getting out of the tent and going to the toilet in the middle of the night when you are smack in between the hippos' river refuge and feeding grounds.  It really is easier to wait until the morning.

Elephants crossing Zambezi, pic taken by Jimbo

For all that, I never even got a good look at a hippo at Breezers, but I also didn't wee in the night.  Our last night there, I'd finished my shower and was heading back to the truck when I saw James running with his camera to the river.  It was a still night with a full moon.  I joined the guys on the bank where the hippos were snorting just below us, hidden from view by reeds and bushes.  In the middle of the river, right under the bright moon, three elephants walking in a line were crossing the Zambezi.  It was one of those unexpected and beautiful moments, a prized memory I'll remember for a long time.  And to think that those ellies brought no passports, had no visas, got no entry or exit stamps when they moved from Zim to Zambia (they saved at least $85 USD, assuming they're not citizens of either nation).

Vic Falls Bridge - the lady in the hat directs traffic

We could have stayed another relaxing day at Zambezi Breezers Wine Cooler, but we packed up the next day and headed for Livingstone, Zambia, a prime beneficiary of Robert Mugabe's wrecking of neighboring Zimbabwe.  We've already had the biology lesson for the day; now let's tackle history.  If you were already confusing Zambia with Zimbabwe, let me muddle you further.  Back in the day, i.e. the 1960s, there was no Zam or Zim, there was Northern and Southern Rhodesia, named after Cecil Rhodes, who was the British Prime Minister of the Cape Colony, a founder of De Beers, creator and funder of Rhodes Scholarships, and a great colonial booster at the turn of the turn of the 20th century.  He was instrumental in building the railways from South Africa up, including the bridge over Vic Falls, and generally comes off as an autocratic and flawed visionary (though I admittedly know very little about him, and most of that is from Wikipedia and some informational hut at a bungee jumping office, so take that into account).  Both of the Rhodesias were white-ruled, as was true in most of Africa up into the 1960s.  Independence movements then began to gain momentum across the continent, and by the 1970s, it was a different kind of governance in the former British colonies.  If I may generalize, unfree minority rule by whites was replaced by unfree minority rule by blacks.  And a lot of places changed names.  Southern Rhodesia became Zimbabwe, and in 1980 Robert Mugabe became its president.  By 1997, once the UK stopped funding the "willing buyer, willing seller" program, he  began his policy of land redistribution, which largely entailed squatters taking over white-owned farms amidst escalating threats by armed militias, eventually driving white Zimbabweans off the farms or out of the country entirely.  Pretty soon, Zimbabwe had to start importing maize, which it formerly used to export around Africa.  Hyperinflation set in, hitting 79,600,000,000% mid-November 2008. These were not good times for Zimbabweans, and tourism fell off.  What was once Zim's main tourist draw, the town of Victoria Falls, which is at the base of the eponymous waterfalls, stopped getting the visitors.  Tourists still visit the falls, they just do so from the Zambian side, at Livingstone.  The worst thing to happen to Zimbabwe is probably the best thing to happen to Zambia.  You can now buy $50 trillion Zimbabwean notes as a souvenir.

The Pilot, the Monica, the Angels - Vic Falls Microlight

Livingstone is the "adventure capital" of Zambia.  You can bungee jump off Vic Falls Bridge, you can jump off the gorge in a gorge swing, you can take a microlight flight over the falls, ride a helicopter through the gorge, white water raft the Zambezi, etc, etc.  There are endless ways to spend your dollars; I had to choose widely.  But whatever choice you make, it won't be cheap.  First expensive choice:  microlight over Vic Falls.  I'd never even heard of a microlight, but it's basically an ultralight airplane that seats a couple of people.  It's loud, it's chilly, but you're in the open air, not enclosed in a cabin.  It was awesome.  It would have been even better if my German pilot weren't trying to use the event as a prostylizing tool.  Here are a few choice quotes that I managed not to snort at:  "Doesn't it (the spray from the Falls, which typically rises 40m or 1300 feet) look like angels rising up to heaven?"  and "Do you see that rainbow?  If you let it, it will follow you forever."  Those quotes don't quite get at his pushy conversion agenda, but I think they give you the flavor of what was making me roll my eyes.  Nonetheless, when he was quiet, I was enthralled with the view.  We flew directly over the Falls, the twisted gorge below, as well as the Zambezi upriver, where I spotted elephants, hippos, and crocs just chilling in the morning sun.

None of us fell out!  On this rapid....I fell out twice.

My next dollar-sucking adventure activity was white water rafting on the Zambezi.  First item on the morning's agenda was signing the indemnity form.  Now, when you're given an indemnity form IN AFRICA, you should take heed.  Which I did.  I still ended up with two black eyes.  This was my first white water rafting experience, though I do not plan for it to be my last.  Somehow Rachel and I ended up spending most of the 15 rapids in front (that's me upper left, holding on for dear life), and I managed to thwack my forehead right between my eyes just below my helmet with my very own paddle.  Because I'm a very coordinated woman and a natural athlete.

Nonetheless, the hardest part of that day was the hike down to the river, made on some kind of typically African janky ladder-like structure made of random branches that went on forever.  I made the mistake of wearing my "Peps", which are knockoff Converse Chuck Taylor wannabes that I picked up at the Pep store in Livingstone and have no tread whatsoever.  The oar was basically my walking stick on the descent; without it, I would have gone down it ladder-style, no question.  After that indemnity-reflection-inducing activity, I was relieved to climb in an inflatable raft and traverse crocodile- and hippo-riddled rapids.  The day really was loads of fun, and I would like to commend SafPar for doing a great job and having very fun, competent, and professional staff.   Sadly, this is unusual in Africa, all the more reason for me to mention these guys here.

Another campsite where you don't want to wee in the night

The night I was nursing my-soon-to-be-black-eyes, we sneakily bush camped where this photo was taken.  Pictured here is the gorge that the Falls have been carving for millenia.  In fact, Vic Falls has moved many times.  As the water dissolves the sandstone that's layered in with basalt, the drop moves further upriver.  The basalt is hard stuff and takes a long time to erode, but the sandstone is easy work for the average 38,430 cubic feet flowing per second over the falls.  While Victoria Falls may make David Livingstone and my German microlight pilot envision angels gliding up to heaven, I think it's impressive and beautiful enough without the celestial comparisons.