Thursday, June 23, 2005
come on tim
Okay, another few days to catch up on. Chipata was the first stop, the highlight being our hour long chat with a guy staying in our hotel, a refugee from neighbouring Congo. Defying your usual image of an African refugee, this guy was very well dressed and an auditor, formerly of Coopers & Lybrand. Naturally we got along like a house on fire, though I did decline the offer to come back to his office (hotel room) to look through the ledgers of a local mining company he was auditing. He was also anxious for us to take a letter back with us to Europe so we could deliver it personally. Turned out the letter was to Claude Makelele (top international footballer who plays for Chelsea), apparently from the same tribe as this guy. We broke the news gently that we aren't exactly on first name terms with the Chelsea first-team squad, but if he had any letters for Dougie Freedman, we'd be only to happy to pass them on. Seems Dougie wasn't from his tribe though.
The bus ride to Lusaka was enlived by another very friendly guy sat next to us (read: squashed in to our row). Telling him that, grateful as I was, I couldn't read when in cars and thus didn't want to borrow his bible didn't put him off as he preceeded to read large tracts of the holy book to us. He was only deflected from the path of conversion by us giving him our very own bible - the Lonely Planet. This proved much more interesting than the bible and he spent the rest of the interminable journey to Lusaka, reading how he should observe local customs, not give sweets to children and always observe the art of bargaining. And, no, we don't have giraffes in London...
2 days in Lusaka. This added to a list of world capitals - Ulan Bator, Lilongwe and Jakarta - where the only thing to do is 'walk around and take it all in'. Which we duly did, including a very pleasant afternoon at the huge city market. Courtney purchased fabrics galore, so she can dress up like a Zambian woman when we get back home. And we also bought a wooden spoon, largely because we'd chatted to the seller for so long we felt we had to.
Fast forward another 600 or so kilometres and Livingstone, the Zambian side of Victoria Falls. Being a full moon gave us the opportunity to visit at night and see a lunar rainbow (much like a daytime rainbow if truth be told, just with less colour and more darkness around it, still impressive though). And another visit in the daytime as well. After the great camera debacle in the rain (on the Indonesian volcano), 90% of the time at the waterfall was devoted to avoiding getting the camera wet. The remaining 10% was spent unwrapping it (the camera) from the 48 plastic bags covering it and quickly taking that all important snap in the gaps before the wind swept over another huge shower from the falls.
Evening time and back to the Jolly Boys Backpackers (actually very nice despite what the name might suggest) to listen to hordes of Prince Harries discussing that days bungee and whether they were going to 'tandem it' the next day or not....
The bus ride to Lusaka was enlived by another very friendly guy sat next to us (read: squashed in to our row). Telling him that, grateful as I was, I couldn't read when in cars and thus didn't want to borrow his bible didn't put him off as he preceeded to read large tracts of the holy book to us. He was only deflected from the path of conversion by us giving him our very own bible - the Lonely Planet. This proved much more interesting than the bible and he spent the rest of the interminable journey to Lusaka, reading how he should observe local customs, not give sweets to children and always observe the art of bargaining. And, no, we don't have giraffes in London...
2 days in Lusaka. This added to a list of world capitals - Ulan Bator, Lilongwe and Jakarta - where the only thing to do is 'walk around and take it all in'. Which we duly did, including a very pleasant afternoon at the huge city market. Courtney purchased fabrics galore, so she can dress up like a Zambian woman when we get back home. And we also bought a wooden spoon, largely because we'd chatted to the seller for so long we felt we had to.
Fast forward another 600 or so kilometres and Livingstone, the Zambian side of Victoria Falls. Being a full moon gave us the opportunity to visit at night and see a lunar rainbow (much like a daytime rainbow if truth be told, just with less colour and more darkness around it, still impressive though). And another visit in the daytime as well. After the great camera debacle in the rain (on the Indonesian volcano), 90% of the time at the waterfall was devoted to avoiding getting the camera wet. The remaining 10% was spent unwrapping it (the camera) from the 48 plastic bags covering it and quickly taking that all important snap in the gaps before the wind swept over another huge shower from the falls.
Evening time and back to the Jolly Boys Backpackers (actually very nice despite what the name might suggest) to listen to hordes of Prince Harries discussing that days bungee and whether they were going to 'tandem it' the next day or not....
Monday, June 20, 2005
dumbo's revenge
It finally feels like you're REALLY in Africa when you arrive in a country beginning with Z (I've been thinking for days now, but still can't think of a Z country not on this continent)... So we're in Zambia - and I'm feeling smug. Queen of the animal spotting sweepstakes, if not the backgammon.
In order to get out of Malawi and see some serious wildlife on the way we joined a safari heading to South Luangwa National Park in the east of Zambia. Having been told that the place was like the Garden of Eden and that it was packed with animals we felt that we were in for a treat.
You might think that 15hrs driving around dirt roads in an open topped jeep could be quite tiring and possibly dull as well, but in fact it has been one of the most fantastic things we've done - and the time flew by. Nothing quite compares with sleeping in walk-in safari tents with all mod cons on the shore of a croc infested river - except maybe rounding the first bend on our first safari drive at dawn to discover and EXTREMELY startled hippo standing on the side of the trail. From that point on we were hooked - Pete was so excited that the dreaded (at least by me) texan accent made its first appearance on the continent.
And so the animal spotting contest began. To amuse us (well, himself mostly) Pete kept a running tally of who saw what (counting things - related to accounting I presume). He shot into the lead with the first giraffe and zebras. I was stuck with some bobbins impalas (that Martin, our guide, said were too far away to count), while the poor Dutch family who were also on safari with us had to make do with nothing. By the end of the first day's 2 drives (at dawn and sunset) Pete was still in the lead with warthogs, hyenas and elephants; while I seemed to be specialising in 8 kinds of antelopes and 1 stork. It wasn't until we sat down to dinner around the picnic table that I came into my own...
'Uh, isn't that an elephant over there by our tent' said I. 'Oh shit' said everyone else. The tusks were illuminated by the moonlight as it sauntered towards us - taking a sharp right turn to eat from the garbage bin 2m away. We spent the next 20 minutes in a panicky huddle with all the camp staff clustered on, around and under the picnic table, until some clever outdoorsman drove the Landrover at it and scared it away.
My next (and possibly best) spot came the next morning as we woke up in the dark at 5:15 for the next days drive. Having spent all night petrified of leaving our tent you can imagine the sprint for the loo. Pete darted out of the tent, just as I noticed sleepily 'I think there might be another elephant over there.' Before my horrified eyes the elephant rounded the bend between the tents and started munching a tree right in the centre of the path to the loo.
'Uh, Pete, I think you'd better stay in there. The elephant is RIGHT by our tent' I shouted across the camp. Pete being MrAtOneWithNature thought it would be good idea to brazen it out... exit the toilet and RUN right past the elephant's trunk. The elephant thought different and did a petrifying trumpet and charge. Pete spent the next 5 minutes locked in the loo and Dumbo eventually wandered off - but I still think my lifesaving animal spot beats a hundred zebras any day.
My final, and for the trainspotters most crucial spot, came on our last drive when at 200m I snagged a very rare and tough to see leopard.
Now if only I could do so well with the backgammon - having initiated operation Unassailable Lead (4 games in front) while on Safari, I then lost a heartbreaking 4 sets in a row while in the armpit that is the town of Chipata where we had to spend a night on our way to Lusaka... so we are neck and neck.
In order to get out of Malawi and see some serious wildlife on the way we joined a safari heading to South Luangwa National Park in the east of Zambia. Having been told that the place was like the Garden of Eden and that it was packed with animals we felt that we were in for a treat.
You might think that 15hrs driving around dirt roads in an open topped jeep could be quite tiring and possibly dull as well, but in fact it has been one of the most fantastic things we've done - and the time flew by. Nothing quite compares with sleeping in walk-in safari tents with all mod cons on the shore of a croc infested river - except maybe rounding the first bend on our first safari drive at dawn to discover and EXTREMELY startled hippo standing on the side of the trail. From that point on we were hooked - Pete was so excited that the dreaded (at least by me) texan accent made its first appearance on the continent.
And so the animal spotting contest began. To amuse us (well, himself mostly) Pete kept a running tally of who saw what (counting things - related to accounting I presume). He shot into the lead with the first giraffe and zebras. I was stuck with some bobbins impalas (that Martin, our guide, said were too far away to count), while the poor Dutch family who were also on safari with us had to make do with nothing. By the end of the first day's 2 drives (at dawn and sunset) Pete was still in the lead with warthogs, hyenas and elephants; while I seemed to be specialising in 8 kinds of antelopes and 1 stork. It wasn't until we sat down to dinner around the picnic table that I came into my own...
'Uh, isn't that an elephant over there by our tent' said I. 'Oh shit' said everyone else. The tusks were illuminated by the moonlight as it sauntered towards us - taking a sharp right turn to eat from the garbage bin 2m away. We spent the next 20 minutes in a panicky huddle with all the camp staff clustered on, around and under the picnic table, until some clever outdoorsman drove the Landrover at it and scared it away.
My next (and possibly best) spot came the next morning as we woke up in the dark at 5:15 for the next days drive. Having spent all night petrified of leaving our tent you can imagine the sprint for the loo. Pete darted out of the tent, just as I noticed sleepily 'I think there might be another elephant over there.' Before my horrified eyes the elephant rounded the bend between the tents and started munching a tree right in the centre of the path to the loo.
'Uh, Pete, I think you'd better stay in there. The elephant is RIGHT by our tent' I shouted across the camp. Pete being MrAtOneWithNature thought it would be good idea to brazen it out... exit the toilet and RUN right past the elephant's trunk. The elephant thought different and did a petrifying trumpet and charge. Pete spent the next 5 minutes locked in the loo and Dumbo eventually wandered off - but I still think my lifesaving animal spot beats a hundred zebras any day.
My final, and for the trainspotters most crucial spot, came on our last drive when at 200m I snagged a very rare and tough to see leopard.
Now if only I could do so well with the backgammon - having initiated operation Unassailable Lead (4 games in front) while on Safari, I then lost a heartbreaking 4 sets in a row while in the armpit that is the town of Chipata where we had to spend a night on our way to Lusaka... so we are neck and neck.
photos
Okay, to make up for the fact that we've just had to pay someone $16 to download the photos onto CD (and that was beating him down from the advertised price of $40 ffs), here are literally hundreds of the things....
You'll notice that we failed miserably in the Let's-take-better-wildlife-photos-than-the-Etchells stakes. They must have a better camera.
You'll notice that we failed miserably in the Let's-take-better-wildlife-photos-than-the-Etchells stakes. They must have a better camera.
