The travel to Livingstone in Zambia, though it took 24 hours, was not bad at all. From my town I hiked into Oshakati, then took a taxi to the next big town of Ondangwa. From there, I caught a ride with a kindly old man who spoke almost no English. He owned a bunch of stores that made wooden furniture, and after about an hour and a half, he proudly dropped me off at one of his stores. From there I paid for a minibus to take me to Tsumeb where I met up with several other volunteers to wait for the bus to Vic Falls.
Tsumeb was one of the more surreal cities that I’ve been to in Namibia. Like many cities in the south, it has a number of affluent white residents who have developed the town along fairly western lines. In the part of town where we waited for the bus (which was only 3 hours late), all the roads were paved, with trees on either side. Small but cute houses with driveways lined the side streets, and cars zoomed up and down the road. I saw more white people in those three hours of waiting than I would in a month or two up north. All in all, it had the feeling of a small, quiet, American suburb.
The overnight bus ride was crowded but uneventful, and when I woke up we were nearing the Zambian border. The landscape was similar to Namibia’s north, but now there were some rolling hills and much more greenery. This section of the country, unlike everywhere else, receives substantial rainfall and has one river, the Kavango, running through it. From the border, we drove a scant couple of hours to Livingstone, which is the gateway to the Falls on the Zambian side.
In Livingstone, we stayed at the Jolly Boys hostel. It was a perfect hostel, designed by people who had spent a lot of time on the road. It was built around a covered, open-air courtyard that had a recessed seating area of comfy couches and futons. Near the futons were a small shop and internet café. In the yard, a small pool lay next to a friendly bar. Although there were loads of activities to do, you could have a nice time just relaxing as well.
The first day, we took a day trip to Botswana’s Chobe National Park. At 6am, a group of 25 or so hostellers clambered into a rickety double-decker bus that looked as old as I am. After an hours’ drive, we approached the border crossing into Botswana. 18-wheel trucks lined the road for a reason that soon became obvious. To get to Botswana from Zambia we had to cross the Zambezi river, but there was no bridge. Instead, two motorized ferrys went back and forth all day. Each ferry could accommodate a large number of people, ONE car, and ONE truck. Our guide told us that at this time of year, when the river was low, the ferry crossing took only 10 minutes. As a result, truck drivers could get their turn on the ferry after waiting “only” one or two days. During the rainy seasons, truckers might wait four or five days to cross. Still, the guide told us, it was better than the alternative: taking the bridge across the river into Zimbabwe, where petrol shortages and runaway inflation made freight hauling fraught with difficulties.
We debarked from our ancient bus, walked onto the ferry, and then were picked up by a different guide on the other side. Once in Botswana, we took a half-day game drive through the national park, followed by an afternoon game-and-lunch cruise on the Zambezi river. Between the two, we saw loads of beautiful wild animals: elephants, roan antelope, kudu, lichwe antelope, crocodiles, water buffalo, and hippopotami. The best part was the game cruise on a pontoon boat. We ate a leisurely meal of chicken and salad, while our driver took us right to the edge of a marshy island in the middle of the river. From there, we were less than 30 feet from water buffalo and hippos. Later, we came across a small herd of elephant crossing from the mainland to the island. One little baby elephant wasn’t tall enough to walk across, so he wrapped his trunk around his mama’s tail and she pulled him across. It was so cute!
The next day, I indulged in my aviaphile tendencies by purchasing a 15-minute microlight flight over Victoria Falls. I was more excited by trying a microlight that I was at seeing the falls, but it turned out the view was more fun than the ride itself. From the air we could see the broad swath of the Zambezi leading the very wide falls (I forgot exactly how long, but over a kilometer). My pilot/guide also pointed out how the water was starting to cut the next Victoria Falls. At the right side of the waterfall, the force of the water over the rock etched a fissure in the rock, just upstream of the current falls. In time, this fissure will grow into a new waterfall. When that happens, water will then cascade over the newer falls, a couple hundred meters upstream, and the old falls will just be a chasm the water flows through.
That day I also had fun running with a military escort. On the advice of the hostel, I ran out by the airport and then beyond, down a dirt track. I was enjoying the greenery when a Zambian military chaplain drove by in a pickup truck. He warned me that there might be buffalo or elephants roaming about, and then he drove curiously slowly behind me until I ran the back to the main road. Thanks, Father.
That same night, we went for a dinner/booze cruise on the Zambezi, whose highlights were meeting a bunch of Indian peacekeepers, an American volleyball coach, and learning about Zimbabwe. On our cruise there were three soldiers on holiday from their work in the Congo, where they serve as U.N. Peacekeepers on the border with Rwanda. Vivek, Avek, and Munish were extraordinarily nice guys, very articulate and interesting. Back in the states, many people frown on U.N. Peacekeepers, and my impression is that many military personnel would not want to be part of a peace-keeping mission. In contrast, Munish saw his duties in a very positive light. He said that his unit was assigned to Congo as a reward for its excellent anti-terrorism work in Kashmir. Some reward I thought to myself, but he was very proud of it. Recently I have read that fighting near the border flared up again, and I hope that those three are ok.
Our bartender, Tyson, told us a lot about life in Zimbabwe just across the river. The country is imploding right now because of the misguided policies of Robert Mugabe, its president since 1980. He has crushed the opposition with intimidation and beatings. Electricity is only available a few hours each day now. He began a program of land reform which took the land out of the hands of white farmers and redistributed it to black subsistence farmers. As a result, the agricultural output of Zimbabwe has plummeted. Where it was once called the “breadbasket of southern Africa,” now it has to import grain to feed its own people.
Inflation is a massive problem. The rate of inflation is nearly 10,000% per year and rising, similar to the skyrocketing inflation seen in Weimar Germany after the first world war. I heard the story of a businessman who went for a trip to Zimbabwe with two suitcases: one for his clothes, and the other for his money. Tyson showed us some Zimbabwean currency which had an expiration date!! The money had been issued on August 1, 2006 and it expired July 31, 2007.
As a result of all these problems, The Economist has estimated that roughly 3m of its 12m people have fled the country. South Africa in particular is a favored destination, because of its strong economy, but all the surrounding countries have migrants because of Zimbabwe’s collapse. Some of these are poor workers, but many are well-educated people who would love to go back if only the country could sort things out. My doctor and my pharmacist here are both from Zimbabwe. In fact, one of my colleagues once drew for me an acrostic during a meeting:
ZIMBABWE =
Zero
Income
Because
All
Brainy
Workers
Emigrated
As sad as the situation is, the surrounding countries are also now happy that someone else is in far worse condition than they. A bit of African schaudenfreude.
The last day in Vic Falls, I went to see the falls themselves with Steffi, a volleyball coach from the U.S. We hiked down a canopied trail that led to the river below the falls, and watched crazy people bungee jump off a bridge. Then we hiked around to see the falls up close, seeing rainbows, double-rainbows, and triple-rainbows in the spray of the falls. Finally, we found an ‘illegal’ tour guide to take us rock-hopping across the Zambezi river just above the falls. After a half hour's walk, we came to the “Angel’s Armchair.” This pool of water was surrounded by tall rocks just at the edge of the falls. We could safely jump in and swim around, just meters from the mighty falls. It was an excellent and exhilarating way to wrap up my trip to Vic Falls.
1 comment:
I am speechless. What an awesome adventure. XOXO
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