Read about Ron & Viv's journey so far through Africa - Botswana May 2007.
Botswana
The big flood down the Okavango has pushed water deep into the delta, cutting some tracks, we just made it.
Camping in Savuti is interesting .
A Fish Eagle in Chobe .
Chobe sunset from our cruise boat .
Zambia
The ferry from Botswana into Zambia .
Our camp site at the Bridge Camp.
The flood plains of the Luangwa river made game viewing easy.
The wide expanse of the Luangwa river - the view from our camp.
The Luangwa river - and our camp right beside it.
AFRICA TRIPEarly to Mid May 2007 - Botswana again and into Zambia
BOTSWANA – Maun, Okavango Delta, Savuti National Park, Chobe National Park; ZAMBIA – Livingstone – Victoria Falls (Zambesi River), Lusaka, South Luangwa National Park
Return to Botswana
Our return to Botswana was marred by a shifty looking copper at one of the first road blocks we had to go through on the way to Maun.
By all accounts I didn't ‘stop' exactly at the stop sign and he wanted to know why? I told him I stopped at the ‘check point', where he told me I was only to approach the checkpoint when directed – after stopping at the stop about 5 metres back! He indicated I was to pay P100 fine and he directed me towards the side of the road. I played dumb, refused to go, asking why I needed a ‘permit' and ‘what I was paying for'. In the end he smiled sickly and waved me through but I think his boss was walking towards us by then. Fred was hassled a little and Neil was waved through with little consideration. I would have insisted to see his boss before paying any bloody bribe – if it had come to that! Still, it's not a great way to start off a day in a new country.
Our luck wasn't running good anyway. We had tried to get into one of the camps along the ‘pan handle' of the Okavango but there's a big flood coming down the river and most of these camps are cut off. Certainly the one we tried to get to had its access track cut by water so it was push on to Maun.
Once again we stayed at the Audi Camp, done a bit of shopping and caught up on emails before heading north to Chobe NP and Savuti.
Once in the park and before the track splits, we traveled along the edge of the Savuti Marsh but didn't see much – even though at the right time of the year it is pretty good animal viewing through here. All we saw on the long sandy drive north was a few small mobs of impala, a couple of kudu, a small group of zebra, a solitary wildebeest and a sole elephant.
Charismatic Chobe
The northern section of Chobe National Park along the Chobe River is fantastic. Once again the heavy rains in Angola that had pushed a flood down the Okavango had also flooded much of the Chobe River floodplain and with the one and only camp in the ark booked out we headed to Kasane and the Thebe River Lodge to set up camp. What a great choice – plenty of room right on the river, pool, bar, good showers and toilet facilities and pretty quiet even though most nights there was an overland truck or two in.
Took an evening river cruise from the Chobi Safari Lodge for 3 hours from 3.30pm – what a beauty! Chobe was just as good as it was when we first visited with Trent some 16 years ago. It was fantastic - saw quite a few elephants drinking down along the river bank, which we thought was really good, but faded into insignificance the next day during our drive through the park. Saw hippo and some really good birdlife, and got a great view of the Chobe River and its islands and channels - it was a great cruise and we were really glad to we did it. Better still the cruise boat which wasn't very crowded and they took you in very close to the animals.
Next day we got into the park at about 7am and didn't leave until that evening. We saw lots and lots of elephants, big groups of buffalo, impala, mobs of kudu, gatherings of giraffe and even rare sightings of Puku (an antelope - a stockier version of an impala, but only lives along the river in the Okavango/Chobe and places further north).
At one point we spent over 1 hour sitting and watching groups of elephants swimming across a channel of water to an island in the river. At first there were about 35 elephants on the island, by the time we stopped watching there was at least 100!!! At times they were only 100 metres from us. The little baby elephants had their snorkels up (trunk) and swimming, with Mum helping them along, seemingly guiding them with their tail. Some would stop in the channel and play and carry on. What a fantastic sight it was.
To Kazungula and Livingstone - Zambia
After exiting Botswana we got onto the vehicle ferry for the crossing of the mighty Zambesi River, into the mad house that is the Zambia border at Kasungula. The ferry takes a semi (there was a line-up of trucks on both sides of the river), plus a couple of smaller vehicles while passengers ride for free.
There were hassles from all directions from people wanting to help us (and get money as well) as well as sell us everything from food to trinkets as well as change money. Then there was the official government requirements - there was the ferry crossing to pay (US$20) a Council Levy (all of 15 Pula - not very much), then the immigration and visa - another US$25 each, then along to the customs and excise to organise the vehicle, more paperwork, more money - another US$50, another counter, then finally we passed through the gate and then paid another 170pula (Botswana money) for our 3rd Party vehicle tax. All in all it was a very hectic and stressful crossing, but it won't be the last. Still we survived and while it took 2.5 hours we all got through!!
Headed for Livingstone and after an uneventful drive we got there and set up camp at the Waterfront Camp and Lodge. Located about 7km from the Victoria Falls and right on the Zambesi River it is ideally situated and well set up although it is extremely popular with overlanders and can be full.
Took a helicopter flight over the Falls – an incredible sight with the river in full spate – and well worth the US$200 each it cost. Because of the flood there is no rafting on the river but most other activities – jet boating, ultra-light flights, bungee jumping, etc, is all on offer. We chickened out on the bungee jumping and just explored the town of Livingstone which is booming with new resorts going in and the old ones enlarging – all because of Zimbabwe's problem president.
Our friend Gay left us and headed for the famous Vic Falls Hotel in Zim before she was to head back to Aussie. Fred went over with her and had ‘High tea' - scones and cream - on the back verandah of this famous Old British hotel which has a fantastic outlook down the gorge towards the falls! It'll be a bit quieter with her gone! But she will be missed.
Lusaka
Headed to Lusaka and found the old joke about the drunken Zambian driver – who was caught driving in a straight line - to be true. The bitumen roads here in Zambia are chronic - big sharp-edged potholes make you duck and weave all across the bituemn, which is particularly hard thru' the towns and villages when you have to dodge and weave amongst the people, the vehicles (car, trucks and bullock-drawn carts) and the local stock (goats, cattle, pigs and chooks). The dirt roads are variable from absolutely terrible to reasonable.
Got to our campsite – Eureka Camp - on the southside of Lusaka and about 10km from the centre of the city. Set in a small game park it has lodges, chalets and a large area for camping, popular with overland trucks. There's a pool and bar as well and it is very pleasant – camping costs US$5/person per night.
We spent the following day and part of the next chasing up some vehicle parts sent to us via DHL Express and getting visas for Tanzania.
Just near the cement works on the south side of town there were a number of people cracking rocks into gravel. They start off with a pile of big rocks and with a small geological hammer crack them and split the rock into small pieces – gravel size small pieces! It was time consuming and slow but when you get a few people doing it you end up at the end of the day with quite a bit of gravel. A truck was being loaded as we drove past. What a hell of a job – but at least it is a job!
The road east is pretty good – one of the better ones in the country by all accounts with only the ‘occasional pothole' to worry about! It rolls through fairly closely settled areas and farmland for much of the way especially in the latter half of the trip to Chipata. The countryside is mainly hilly and the scrub is quite thick although patchy where it has been cleared for the growing of crops. Once again there is few stock – probably due to the fact that tetse flies are so bad and knock the stock around. They grow a lot of vegetables and there are stands on the side of the road selling sweet potato, peanuts, bananas and tomatoes. We pulled up and bought some tomatoes – as well as green ‘white guavas' – the 10 tomatoes costing 5000Kwachas ($1.20) and the half dozen guavas costing 1500Kw. There is also quite an industry in the making of charcoal and there were dozens of blokes pushing and peddling bikes loaded down with up to 8 bags of charcoal.
The small outdoor markets in each of the towns were busy with people. The meat shops do a roaring trade and have pig, goat and parts of cows hanging from the tree branches – chickens are sold live. It's not like what you see at home and I don't think we'll be buying our meat there, but the locals do and survive.
We stopped overnight at Bridge Camp which is perched on the side of the hill that climbs up from the Luangwa River, the river being about 150 metres wide at that particular point. The camping area (30,000Kw per person per night) is on about the only flat land west of the road and is tucked amongst the trees and is just big enough for our three vehicles. It's a very shady camp making it dark at night. A shower with a hot water donkey, with toilets, along with a bit of a shelter shed and a braai area make up the camping area. Up the hill a bar and pool gives visitors a drink and meals and a good outlook over the river. There's also 9 chalets here, perched up the hill and around the bar area. The couple who own and run the place look like a couple of hippy drop-outs from the 60s.
There's quite a competition for souls out in rural Zambia with the RC church, the Seventh Day Adventist Church and Zambian Church, plus a heap of others, competing for the souls of the heathens!
South Luangwa NP
With a torrid time in the Chipata supermarket carpark behind us we headed for South Luangwa NP. I've got to say though apart from the hassles in the occasional carpark and at the border the people in this country are friendly and go out of their way to make your stay a pleasant one. They nearly always greet you with a smile, a wave and a friendly ‘hello'.
The Luangwa River valley is part of Africa's Great Rift Valley and consists mainly of Game management Areas (hunting leases) surrounding some of the wildest national parks in Africa. There's more than 100 species of animals and over 400 species of birds.
We set up camp at Wildlife Camp which is located on a big sweeping bend of the Luangwa River and consists of a number of chalets and a camp site, bar and pool. It is magic spot! We got a camp – we were the only ones there – right on the river and we had a magically view of the river with pods of hippos just offshore and the national park on the other side. The toilets and showers (hot water from a donkey) are good – the water from a bore is delightfully clear and good enough to drink. Even had power and the cost was just US$5/person/night – you could not beat it!
We took a drive next day into the park - US$15/per car and US$30/person/day - and headed up to the Luangwa Wafwa, which is a large ox-bow lake on the river's floodplain. Many of the tracks we tried were dead ends as the last wet season flood was a big one and the tracks were washed out, overgrown and not cleared yet. Still we managed to get around and see plenty of wildlife. Much of the floodplain was covered in short green grass and looked like a park – it was very picturesque!
During the day saw a lot of puku and impala as well as some small groups of waterbuck, two mobs of giraffe and two family groups of elephants – they were the best tuskers we've seen since Kruger NP. Also a couple of small groups of kudu – but no big males amongst them. We first came across a pair of lions - a young male with just a half-grown mane and a female, possibly a mating pair - while the female was lying on the road in front of a couple of vehicles. They wandered off into the scrub and laid down so we left them after a while. Later in the day we came across them again – the female leading the male down towards the river or a small side stream at least – where they drank in a small creek, much to the consternation of the group of mainly puku antelope that were nearby.
Later we saw what appeared to be an injured spur-winged goose being hotly pursued by a large croc. The croc chased the flapping goose for at least 100 metres, the goose finally heading for shore and getting up the bank just a few metres in front of the croc, which stopped just short of the water's edge and watched frustratingly.
Stopped at some big boabs north of the main entrance gate for lunch. There was lots of wildlife around so we parked the cars pretty close together, as you can imagine. You are not supposed to get out of your vehicles but they do not cater for self drivers in this park with picnic sites or anything like that and occasionally you have to get out of the vehicle – but you want to pick the spot very, very carefully! For our lunch time stop we had a family group of 4 elephants 100 metres away, hippos were in the green covered pool 50 metres away, while zebra and impala were 200 metres away in the shade of the nearby scrub.
It was such a good camp on the banks of the river we stayed for another couple of nights. It was a truly African experience and probably our best campsite we have ever had in Africa!
Now we were due to head for Malawi and Mozambique but we really didn't want to leave Zambia – it is a magical friendly place and one we'd recommend to anyone, especially if they are after a truly wild African experience!
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The road through to Chobe NP from Maun .
Much of the flood plain in Chobe NP was flooded .
There are lots of elephants in Chobe .
We spent over an hour watching groups of elephants cross the channel to an island - the little ones were swimming.
The spectacular Victoria Falls was flowing really well, sending lots of spray up into the air!
Our camp site at the Waterfront Camp.
Shopping locally from a roadside stall - the tomatoes where great.
There were lots of hippos, wherever there was water, they were in it!
We were lucky enogh to come across this youn g male lion and his mate.
There were quite a few Waterbuck around.
