To travel is to discover that everyone is wrong about other countries
- Aldous Huxley

Saturday 26 October 2013

Botswana - Elephants have 2 trunks


Glorious day! We woke up at a normal time…well we were meant too, habit has put me in the habit of waking up with the sun. It is still insanely hot at night in Zimbabwe but there wasn’t a hurry to get the tent packed up and be on the road before even God wakes up.
It’s only an hour drive to the border of Botswana and we made a quick exit with the most social of customs officer so far in Africa. We entered Botswana with no fuss and learned they’re a pretty big deal in the diamond industry with a growth rate of 9% year-on-year.
So yeah, they got some money.

It was another hour before we reached our campsite in Kasane. We had lunch and then packed as we were heading for an overnight camp in Chobe National Park, the biggest park in Botswana and second (I think) biggest in Africa.
We were picked up and driven a short distance to the entrance where we began a late afternoon game drive.
That night we saw a good deal of animals, including a Sable – a type of antelope – which is the first time I have ever seen one, hundreds of elephants as Chobe is home to some 65,000 African Elephants and from the distances we saw a leopard on the banks of the Chobe River (which borders Namibia).
Chobe itself was surprisingly desolate in terms of plant-life, it looked dead and clearly ready for the summer rains to come, but it was not to come that night as we camped in the middle of Chobe.
We were told the rules, no fruit in the tents as the elephants can smell it, go to the toilet (a hole in the ground) in pairs and use your torch before getting out of your tent to make sure there are no wild animals around.

Bow-chica-wow-wow

Thankfully the night was uneventful, we did hear some lions roaring and elephants trumpeting but other than that it was safe and good. Except it was so bloody hot Hell would advertise it as a summer getaway. There was little chance of sleeping that night.

The next morning we awoke, packed up and did an early morning game drive. This drive trumped the late afternoon one by a mile. We saw a pride of lions, including 4 lioness and their cubs relaxing in the sand before moving on, crossing the road and passing us nearby. We spotted 4 leopards, though they are still hard to see, we did get a good look at one with her cub and she passed us dragging along her fresh kill (Impala. Oh yeah, there were lots of impala). We also saw the usual Elephants, Buffalo, Giraffe, Crocodiles, an Owl in the tree, some Fish Eagles and a Baboon that looked like he was dying, possibly bitten by a snake.

We arrived back at camp at lunchtime and spent the day relaxing, charging cameras and laptops and just trying to stay cool.
At 3.30 we did a boat cruise on the Chobe River, we were told it was the highlight for a lot of people but I thought it was fine, but no where near the best of anything I have done. I did however spend a lot of time meeting some of the new group, including a nice couple from the USA who have been travelling for the last 6 months around the world. Aside from the social side we saw the elephants crossing the river, elephants doing the nasty in the water and another elephant with his second trunk out and in full view. Also our boat hit a hippo, not sure how the hippo fared after that.
The “party” returned to the campsite where we had dinner and were still up and talking for a couple of hours before we went to bed on a, blessed, cool night.


I woke up refreshed and happy to have slept. We had to take down our tents as we were moving on to Maun, which is the entrance to the Okavango Delta. We are going to spend the next two nights in the Delta living like bushman with no showers and a hole for a toilet.

The drive to Maun took about 8 hours but didn’t feel that long, even though the days are incredibly hot and the trucks don’t have air-conditioning.
We didn’t do much in Maun, just enjoyed the free WiFi until it went offline and had dinner and then packed for the Delta. We went to bed early for an early wake up.

The next day we woke and had a quick breakfast before packing our gear for a 45-minute boat ride to the Poler’s station just outside the entrance to the Delta. Once there we transferred our camping gear to the mokoros. Traditionally Mokoros are canoes dug out from tree trucks however the Botswana people are no longer allowed to dig out the trees for this purpose so they have a fibre-glass boat that looks like it is made of wood. Also the wooden ones leak.


Danni and I packed our gear onto the Mokoro and hopped on with our poler named Manual. We relaxed along the delta as we were poled for 90-minutes to our camping spot. The delta is lovely, the water is shallow and all you can see are reeds or lotus flowers, and the ride to the island is so peaceful, you cannot hear anything but the breaking water from the poler.
There are spots where you can see where the elephants have trampled through but thankfully we did not come across any.
Once we arrived at our campsite we set up and were told the rules (don’t go out at night, go to the toilet in pairs etc.) and were then left to our own devices. Since the weather was stifling we decided to head for the Hippo Pool nearby which is a natural pool that used to be occupied by Hippos before they moved on. Hippos are interesting in that once they have left a pool, no Hippo will ever use it again. I guess it is a territorial thing.
The water was filthy and dirty and probably a good way to get a nice exotic disease, however it was so hot that we didn’t care and the water was so refreshing that it was worth the risk of getting something.
We spent the rest of the day relaxing, talking and trying to stay out of the sun before I went on a game walk.
The game walk was a bit boring in that we didn’t see a whole lot, only a couple of elephants from a distance away but it was nice to get out and see the island. There are a lot of palms around thanks tothe elephants. The fruits of the trees they eat take 3 years to plant and grow if they fall of naturally but if 
an elephant eats the fruit, the nut comes out in their poo and, along with the fertilization, it only takes a year for the palm to grow. So while elephants are destructive they do create some vegetation.
Once we returned we had dinner and afterwards, relaxed again trying to cool down. Sleep was hard to come by and the heat didn’t help but I managed to get some sleep. Apparently during the night we have a few elephants very close to the camp and one of the guides says they hear a lion/hyena (the story changes per person).
The next morning there was a nature walk but I did not go. Danni went and walked 4-hours and didn’t see much. I was thankful I didn’t go, happy to try to sleep in. Once they returned we had brunch and then headed back to the Hippo pool to cool down.
The rest of the day was spent relaxing, trying to cool down in the shade, as it was another day that would melt plastic. We had dinner at sundown and were treated to a performance from the guides. They sang some songs to us in Setswana, some which included some funny dance styles, before we went back to bed.

The next morning there was another nature walk that I again didn’t partake in, preferring to pack up our gear and get ready to leave. It had been almost 3 days since I’d had a shower and while the Hippo pool was cool, it didn’t clean us at all. I felt some dirty and grimy that I would have walked over my own mother to have a shower.
Thankfully the mokoro ride and subsequent boat ride back was quick and once the tents were up I had the best shower of my life.
The rest of the day was spent relaxing, washing out clothes from the Delta and enjoying the time off.
Dinner was had and the weather was cooler so sleep was easier thankfully.

We woke the next day and had breakfast. We packed and left by 7am as we were heading to our penultimate African country (on this tour) – Namibia.

Sunday 20 October 2013

Zimbabwe – Mugabe country.


Ahh Zimbabwe, how I’ve missed you and your corrupted government, lead by Mr Soulpatch himself, Robert Gabriel Mugabe. We were dropped off at the Zambian border and after a quick exit we walked about 2 kilometers through no mans land, over the bridge connecting Zambia and Zimbabwe and over the Zambezi river as well before we were greeted by a customs official who looked about as interested in his job as a gay guy in a lesbian porn video.
$50 later we were granted entry into Zimbabwe, more specifically Victoria Falls. We took a taxi to our campsite and paid for a tent with twin beds.
I found that to be a nice change from the air mattress and it was a comfortable bed as well.
We spent the day relaxing and sussing out the prices for all the different activities to do in Victoria Falls (there’s a lot of them).
Having woken up early, we had an early dinner of which I had the Impala Steak (not very nice) and Danni had the Warthog steak (very nice) before heading to our tent.

The next day we decided on the activities we wanted to do and negotiated the best prices for them before we relaxed, had some lunch (Danni had a Wildebeest hot dog and I had a similar game hot dog but I can’t remember the animal it was. Regardless it was very nice) while we waited for our tour group to arrive.
After they did arrive and we set up our tent, we got some washing done before we were assaulted by some sugared-up baboons who were trying to steal our food (and stole 2 lollypops from our bag). They continued to annoy us, one even charging Danni in an example of alpha maleness. It was actually a bit scary because there was no way of knowing how they were going to act.
The baboons and monkeys are pests in the campsite, the baboons especially because they know to tip the metal container over to get to the bin inside, it’s actually quite fascinating to see them and how they’ve worked it out.

That night most of the group and the tour guide, cook and driver all went to a restaurant called The Boma. That place was awesome.
It’s a buffet restaurant and they cook the food in front of you as you select it. There is a massive variety of foods, including the soups, salads and starters (I had a Guinea Fowl, tastes like a dry chicken) before you get to the pig out menu of mains. There was Boerwors (some kind of sausage), Warthogs steak in some sort of marinade (delicious), Eland Balls (not testes! They were ok, a bit spicy), pork sausage wrapped in bacon, and a whole bunch of different chicken. They also had a challenge where you would get a certificate if you ate a Mopani worm.
I certainly ate it. It really had no taste to it, it was actually dry, like eating beef jerky I guess.
During dinner we were treated to traditional African drumming and even had the customers involved. It was really an amazing experience.


The next day was the one I’d been waiting for: White Water Rafting.
The second time I have done Rafting on the Zambezi and it was just as awesome as I remembered. We went with a different company this time (Shockwave) and it was only the five of us from our tour group who went.
We were picked up and taken to their office and given the down low on safety, putting on helmets and safety jackets and all that fun stuff. We also met our Raft Guide – Wilson.
He was awesome, very funny guy who clearly didn’t take anything seriously, but clearly knew how to raft.
Once we were done with the formalities we jumped in the car and took a short journey to the starting point…well the top of the starting point because you have to walk down the gorge to get to the river and the rafting meeting point.
After about 20 minutes of walking down some suspect ladders and routes we arrived and got in our raft.
We went through the basics, how to get in if you fall out, flipping the boat over, etc. We also got a great view of the waterfalls as well.
The rafting itself is 19 rapids over 25kms, thankfully following the current so not as much actual rafting as there was on the Nile, and it consists of mostly grade 4 and 5 rapids, with one grade 6 that you have to walk around.
As with the Nile rafting, it is hard to go into details about White Water Rafting suffice to say it was amazing, we did not flip at all and only one person in our raft was washed out of the boat. The incredible thing about it was that the rapids were tough, especially the grade 5’s, we were battered every which way and even got airborne and vertical but we still held on and kept the raft upright (I did get thrown around a bit, sitting in the front) and survived some that others didn’t all the while we were told twice to get down, all the others we were expected to keep paddling through the rapids.
Once we hit rapid 19 it was time to finish up and do the worst part of the activity: Climb up the friggin gorge.
Climbing up the gorge of the Zambezi River is what I imagine towing a truck by your balls feels like. It’s tough, it hurts and it feels like you’ll never stop. But we persevered and I was one of the first to make it to the top and had downed 3 drinks by the time the others made it.
Danni and I knew what to expect as we had done this before, but there is no way to prepare anyone else for this experience. You simply cannot describe what it is like in a way to make someone realize how friggin hard it is.


Once we were all up and satisfied we weren’t dead, we had lunch. A simple, but nice fare of barbeque chicken, potato salad and another salad and all we could drink. Once that was done we drove about 45 minutes (35 of which is an African Massage) back to Victoria Falls.
We said goodbye to our tour guide and promptly wished we were dead. Legs were very sore indeed.
That night we met the new tour guide and driver (the cook was visiting family), as well as some of the new people we would be travelling with over the next 3 weeks. There are still 5 of us from the original tour going all the way to Cape Town so it is nice to not have to get to know everyone on the trip.
I haven’t formed a judgment on the new people or the guide and driver, though they are very much the beer-drinking types who want to drink every night. Not that it really bothers me as long as they aren’t annoying or obnoxious about it. Or they don’t take all the space in the cooler for their beer while my drink gets boiling hot.
Yes, the next couple of weeks should be interesting indeed.
Day three of our challenge to Mother Nature was a cage dive with crocodiles. Much like Devil’s Pool and Rafting this was an incredible experience, but in a different way.
We arrived and got into the cage that was suspended above the Croc pool and were lowered down into the cool, green water. (although the croc wanted to lay where we were meant to land so the Divemaster had to poke it with a stick to get it to move).
There we were able to watch the croc watch us, climb on the cage and be fed food on a stick by the divemaster. The croc was a female, about 26 years old, missing some teeth and over 2 meters long, great with kids. It was fascinating to watch her probe and prod the cage and when she climbed on the cage, her foot would fall through and we could touch her. Surprisingly, their feet are really soft. Danni also got to touch her belly.
They had an extension on the cage where you could stick your head through when the croc was on top to get a closer look at them. It was there I realized how scary they look, also how similar they look to dinosaurs from Jurassic Park. She would bite the cage trying to get food and look at me with eyes that are expressionless when she rested on the cage for a little bit.
It is not hard to imagine why they have survived for millions of years. They are big, bad and scary to be around.


That said, and as I said above, it was an incredible thing to do and well worth doing if you are in Victoria Falls.
We relaxed for the rest of the day, it was incredibly hot so we tried to stay in the shade, or find a place with air-conditioning before we had our last dinner as a group (Pizza. So classy) as the next day we would go our separate ways, though most of us going to Chobe National Park in Botswana.

Friday 11 October 2013

Zambia - Dr. Livingstone, I presume.


We left Malawi in the early morning and hit the Zambian border around midday. Exiting was easy enough though entering Zambia was a matter of how long they wanted to take more than anything else.
Zambia is noticeably different than Malawi, and really the east of Africa. At times it feels like we “crossed the tracks” so-to-speak. Despite 80% of the Zambian population living in rural areas, the areas are somewhat built up and the housing looks more like what we are used to back home with brick housing and backyards. But it still does retain some of its ruralness and there are still the mud housing but it is less frequent.
1 hour and $50US later we were back on the truck and heading to Chipata, a campsite called Mama Rula’s.
The campsite was nice and the weather was cool. The only issue we had was another tour group deciding they were in desperate need of companionship and placing their tents amongst ours rather than using the wide open spaces available to them.
WiFi was the most popular item at Mama Rula’s, despite it being slower than a stoned snail and dinner was most interesting.  We had delicious French Onion soup and then Chinese Chicken, feet included.
Whilst it was disgusting to see the feet amongst the actual chicken pieces, the chicken meat was nice and the feet led to some interesting dinner shenanigans.

One cold shower later and some post dinner conversations we went to bed and were grateful to see the air mattress had survived inflated throughout the night giving us some hope we may have fixed it.

Another early morning wake up saw us leaving Chipata and heading to the capital of Zambia, Lusaka.
It was another long drive, taking us 8-hours plus an hour stop at a shopping center, before we got to our next camp, Eureka.
Eureka was another large campsite with plenty of space and not many people around. It also has a bunch of wild animals roaming about including Giraffes, Zebras and velvet monkeys.
I took a walk outside the gate where I come across a family of Zebra’s and some others who were quite content on grazing. Judging by the fencing and the food they were eating, I assumed they were not wild, rather “pets” but they were still timid and I got close to a male, within about 2 steps, but when I took another step closer he would look at me, and then when I tried again, he started moving towards me.
I figured I better not test my luck, lest he turns me into a rug for his living room floor.
Continuing my exploration, I saw an Impala who ran as soon as he saw me and a family of Waterbucks who were wary of me and then moved off as I got closer.


The next morning we left early and headed to Livingstone, the border of Zambia and Zimbabwe. After a brief stop to get something to eat, we arrived at our campsite sitting on the magnificent Upper Zambezi River. The campsite was huge and full of velvet monkeys who would play amongst the trees above our tents. We sat at the bar and had lunch overlooking the Zambezi before organizing our plans for the next day. Our original plan was to go to Botswana and do a game drive at Chobe National Park before heading to Victoria Falls on the Zimbabwe side, but the tour also takes us to Botswana and Chobe after Victoria Falls so we decided to head to Victoria Falls the next day and also do Devil’s Pool rather than go to Botswana twice.

We had our final dinner with our chef, Dom, who will be leaving us once we hit Victoria Falls and went to sleep.

The next morning we awoke, had a light breakfast and was picked up and taken to the Royal Livingstone Hotel, a 5-star hotel that would cost more in one night than this whole trip would cost overall. It was one fancy hotel.
We had a briefing and jumped in a boat and took a 5-minute ride to Livingstone Island, where David Livingstone was shown Mosi-O-Tonya (Victoria Falls).
Having been to the Falls before, I am stilled amazed at it. It is such a beautiful, and powerful, place to visit. Even during the low season, it exudes power to make you respect nature.
In saying that, we practically dropped our pants and mooned nature as we waded out to the Devil’s Pool. A rock pool formation sitting right on the edge of the Falls themselves.
It was exhilarating to peer over the edge and see the falls and the Lower Zambezi. We sat on the edge and then leaned over the edge and had our photos taken. It was such an adrenalin rush to do and, after missing out two years ago, I was stoked with doing it now.
Definitely a top-3 highlight on my holiday so far.

After we finished the Pools, we had another breakfast (including Bacon, woohoo!) and headed back to the hotel where we were taken from there to the Zambia/Zimbabwe border to cross over to a new country.


Thursday 10 October 2013

Where in the Malawi, are we?


We crossed the border into Malawi early in the morning and then stopped to get some money and some supplies. Also had a surprisingly excellent strawberry milkshake. One noticeable thing about Malawi is that it is cheap and another is that it is noticeably poor.
It is also known as the friendliest country in Africa. Time will tell.

After getting what supplies we could, we headed for our first two-night stop called Chitimba Beach, which is situated on Lake Malawi.
Lake Malawi is the 3rd largest lake in Africa and 2nd deepest, the lake itself is an amazing sight to behold and the beach is quite nice as well. We arrived at Chitimba beach around 4pm (also gaining an hour due to time zone change at the border) and set up camp. The campsite itself has a really nice set up with the bar over looking the beach and the lake. Unfortunately they only had cold showers and not much in ways of things to do.
We brosed the local curios just outside the campsite and I got to play the local game called baobowl (or something along those lines) against a local and I won despite not knowing exactly what the rules were.

I suspect he let me win, but still I retire with a 1 – 0 record.

I bought a wire bracelet to add to my already thickening collection, it has the Malawi colours on it and actually looks pretty cool. Danni bought a similar item but as an anklet and not in the Malawi colours.

Day 2 at Chitimba Beach saw us sleeping in, exhaustion had set in after a couple of days of early wake ups and we decided there wasn’t too much we wanted to do and took it easy, did some washing.
We were hoping to see the local witch doctor but this was before we saw a photo of him on the signboard and he looks like Snoop Dogg and dresses like a normal guy, not exactly the image of a witch doctor we had so we decided to skip it.

It was nice to sit back and relax a bit, we also had to try to fix the hole in the air mattress which has so far eluded us much to the disgust of my shoulder and back that suffers when it goes flat at night.

Once again we had an early wake up and headed to our new camp site about 150km away from Chitimba Beach called Kande Beach.
Kande Beach was an even better set up than Chitimba with fuseball, a pool table and a handmade table tennis table that plays like a day 5 pitch in India.
But still I managed a 1 – 0 record to retire as table tennis champion.
Unfortunately the first night we were stuck hearing from loudmouths on another overland tour who just wouldn’t shut up and were acting like dickheads, doing rude poses on a statue and other idiotic stuff.
We were glad to get rid of them the next day but not until they yelled and talked as loudly as they could at 6am.

Sigh idiots!

General Sherman (Simpsons Reference)

Anyway, the day we arrived we did a village tour of the local area, which included seeing the school, medical center and orphanage.
As we left the campsite we were jump upon by locals, most of us had two, who would pepper us with questions asking about Australia or wanting us to ask them questions and, of course, showing us what they sell so we can buy them.
We passed by the local village and saw how they made bricks for building which basically was done by collecting mud (I think) and placing it into a giant kilns made of mud and hay with an opening on either end. Depending on which way the wind would be blowing they would block one end of the kiln while the wind blew in the other and with a fire going underneath they left it for 48-hours to create bricks. These kilns were all over the village.
The villagers didn’t build the houses themselves, rather they would hire someone to do it with the bricks they had.
After showing us how they made bricks our guide shows us his home, it was a most 4-room house with very little in terms of furnishings but he did have a bed and toys for his kids and, strangely enough, a satellite dish yet no TV.
He took us on a long walk to the school next.
The school was modest with 3 buildings and over 1500 students and only 10 teachers. Yep, that’s right, each teacher would have 150 students in a class.
School for the kids is free in primary school, which runs to grade 8, and then they have to pay 150US per term to stay in school.
That is when they threw us the sponsoring angle at us to try to get us to help a child go to school.
We thought about it but no one had the money on them to do it at that stage but we did donate some exercise books, pencils, chalk, erasers and other stuff for the kids, which didn’t even elicit a thank you from the vice-principal who was talking to us.


Once we were finished at the school we walked a short distance to the medical center that is used for pregnant women in the local area.
They only do natural births and if there are issues they have to send them 70kms to the nearest hospital, even though they don’t always have a car to do so!
It was a bit eerie in there, the only room they had only had 6 beds and it just felt more like an abandoned mental hospital you see in movies right before the ghosts or something appears.
Very errie indeed.

Thankful to get out of there we took a long walk to the orphanage where the kids were utterly fascinated by our cameras and us. They loved it when we took a photo and showed them the image.
They followed us around the outside but stayed outside when we went inside. The house was a single building with a couple of rooms, some used for a sitting room, some as bedrooms and one as a classroom for learning. We donated more exercise books, pens, pencils, erasers and colour-in books, which got a huge thank you from the matron of the orphanage (take note vice-principal!)

Afterwards we walked back to our campsite along the beach still being questioned by our new friends (my guys were named Shawn and, I kid you not, Sisqo. I expected him to breakout a rendition of the Thong Song). They kept on asking questions and what I thought of Malawi and if I wanted to buy their paintings or woodwork and all that fun stuff.
In the end I gave them a shirt, some socks and jocks and a pair of god-awful-coloured flip-flops that elicited an interesting response. Shawn seemed happy about it but Sisqo wanted to keep selling me stuff and when I wouldn’t purchase anything he just seemed angry.

Whatever, I did my good deed, no matter how selfish the guy wanted to be.

The next day we did our first freshwater dive ever. It was so much better than I expected, though to be honest I didn’t have high expectations because all you would see were fish. But I wanted to do a freshwater dive to see how it goes and I had read that Lake Malawi is one of the best freshwater dive sites in the world.
Besides it’s diving, as if I could not do it.


However I was pleasantly surprised with the dive, not only with the abundance of colourful fish, but we also saw some freshwater crabs, a big, resident catfish but we also saw some fallen trees, a sunken boat, a sunken canoe and a jeep. I suspect they were all deliberately put there but it added to the experience. I was also thrilled in swimming through some natural canyons, between boulders and I was pleased that my buoyancy was excellent and we dove for 45 minutes at 18 meters and still had 100 bar afterwards.

Overall I was very impressed with the two dives we did. I was also pleased to see that aside from diving, the dive company there does marine research and I got some information on how to go about doing such a thing without the need to have a biology degree, though I am seriously considering educational options in marine research to some degree.
Another pleasing, and redeeming, aspect post-dive was as we were departing the boat carrying our stuff, Shawn showed up wearing the shirt I gave him the night before. It was nice to see him make the effort to come out and wearing the shirt I gave him.

This was incredibly eerie when we approached it

After taking a nap, we just hung around the campsite for a bit, enjoying the sun and shade and our last day in Malawi before heading to Zambia tomorrow.

Malawi is an interesting place, it is one of the poorest countries in Africa (I think 3rd on that list) and I think aside from Lake Malawi, which is worth the visit, and some Game reserves there isn’t a whole lot to see. It would be a nice visit if they didn’t throw there rubbish everywhere (really getting annoyed with this in countries) as the countryside is nice. I don’t know if I would call it the friendliest place in Africa due to some of the responses and looks we got from people (right at you Sisqo!). Also the children have an annoying habit of running up to the window of the truck, rubbing their fingers together and saying “Give me some money”.
I get they are poor and want money and I do feel bad for them, but it’s just not the way to go about it.