Victoria Falls: "The Smoke that Thunders"

PHOTOS FROM THE TRIP

Saturday, July 7, 2007

It's hard to believe I've already been in Zambia for over a month! Time is passing by so quickly and things with the urban survey have really kicked into high gear...so much so that: 1) I've decided to stay a week longer so that I can be here through the whole survey enumeration period; and 2) this is my last weekend without either Saturday and/or Sunday being booked with survey activities. So, it was either now or never for me to make the trip to Livingstone and the Victoria Falls this time around so on Wednesday, I booked my room at the Maramba River Lodge and bought my $20 bus ticket to Livingstone on Friday.

Had a cab pick me up at 5:30 AM this morning to take me to the bus station to catch the 6 AM bus. Since there was an actual bus schedule, rather than a "wait until the bus is full, then leave" approach, I falsely believed that we would actually leave around 6 AM. We actually pulled out of the station around 7 AM. Ahh, African time. At least I become a more patient (or late!) person when I spend time in Africa. The bus was only 1/3 full but despite all the empty seats (even empty rows!), this Chinese woman decided to sit right next to me in the narrow seat. Otherwise, the "CR" tour bus was quite clean and comfortable. Before we left Lusaka and at various stops along the way, vendors of gum, fruit, cookies, DVDs, CDs, jewelry, gloves, scarfs, you name it, came right onto the bus to sell their wares. Very convenient, actually, and they weren't aggressive at all so it wasn't annoying. The bus driver was FLYING though and I was glad that I couldn't see out of the front of the bus and all of the crazy passing he was probably doing.

We stopped briefly in Kafue, Mazabuka, Monze, and Choma, and finally arrived in Livingstone around 1 PM. The road was good about 5/6 of the way, all the way to Zimba, but from there to Livingstone, the potholes were a nightmare.

I was expecting Livingstone to be more bustling and touristy but I actually had to wander around a bit before I found a place to set up a visit to the game park and only saw a handful of other muzungus (white people). The town was nice and laid back, though, especially relative to the chaos of Lusaka. I had a Bradt travel guide with me but more or less winged it after I arrived in L/stone, and things ended up working out extremely well.

I booked my ticket for the 1 PM bus back to Lusaka and then tried to find a tour company and a place to grab some lunch. I walked down the main drag back in the direction where we came into town but didn't really find either of these things, except, that is, fora camper turned into a tour booking agency near the tourist trap curio market.

The rates posted there for the game park and Vic Falls were consistent with what was in my travel guide so I decided to go for it. I paid my $40 for the game park tour and Mumba, who would be my guide, told me to come back around 3:30 PM so that we would have about 2 hours in the park before it closed at 6 PM. He also assured me that we would see more animals if we waited until later in the afternoon. He also pointed me to Kaazmein, a restaurant where I had chicken, nshima and cabbagge for lunch. I really enjoy nshima and find myself seeking it out even when there are lots of other options. After lunch, I had about an hour to kill so I decided to go to the Livingstone Museum. The museum was well worth my $5 and I was particularly interested in the traditional culture exhibits and the section on David Livingstone, which included many of his original letters and belongings. I hit up the curio market on my way back to meet Mumba for the game park drive but didn't find anything too exciting, plus things seemed overpriced relative to Lusaka (probably b/c of all the tourists in L/stone).

Mumba and I hopped into his beaten up, white sedan and headed for Mosi-oa-Tunya National Park. Mosi-oa-Tunya means "the smoke that thunders", and is the local language name for the Victoria Falls. This is the smallest national park in Zambia but we managed to see a lot of different animal in the 2 hours or so we spent inside the park: impala, baboons, zebra, elephants, giraffe, velvet monkeys, and wildebeest. We also heard hippos grunting along the banks of the Zambezi but didn't actually see any. Mumba was a great guide and I didn't feel like he was trying to milk me for all I was worth, so when he asked if I wanted him to take me to the Victoria Falls the next morning, I agreed.

After the game park, Mumba took me to the Maramba River Lodge, where Dingi had recommended I stay. En route, we stopped at a riverside bar where the "booze cruises" depart from (I didn't have enough time to squeeze in one of these during my visit). There was some traditional dancing, drumming and singing going on there -- I think Mumba said the performers were from a tribe in Eastern Province.

We got to the Maramba River Lodge just before dusk. It was really nice here and I couldn't wait to see it in the morning light and take some pictures. My "chalet" was really cute: thatch roof, 2 twin beds, and a nice rustic, though comfortable feel to it. And no TV, which is a good thing. After I arriving, I just put down my stuff and headed straight to the restaurant. On my way, though, I came upon a group of people gawking at the only big animal we didn't see at the game park: a hippo! Since the Lodge is right on the banks of the Maramba River, apparently a hippo or two wanders into camp every night to feed. It was so chubby and shiny black -- I don't think my pictures turned out though because it was nearly dark out when I took them and the hippo blended into the darkness.

Dinner was fabulous: beef curry and rice. The night air was crisp but they had charcoal heaters around the open-air restaurant so that kept things quite comfortable. There was drumming and singing in the distance as I ate. Called in a night early on Saturday to get some rest for the visit to the falls and long drive back to Lusaka on Sunday.


Sunday, July 8, 2007

Day 2 of the Livingstone trip was as enjoyable as the first. The night air along the Zambezi was chilly and I was glad there were about 4 blankets on the bed and that I had brought along a sweatshirt. Thatched roofs look cool but don’t seem to do a very good job at insulating! I made arrangements with Mumba on Saturday when he dropped me off for him to pick me up at the Maramba River Lodge. I woke up a little early so that I could check out the Lodge area in the daylight. I’m glad I did! A hippo was lazing in the water near the Lodge restaurant so I got a few nice pictures and stood and watched it for a while. Every minute or two, if would could up from underwater, look around, and then slowly sink back down into the river. Chatted briefly with another muzungu from Cape Town.

Mumba arrived right at 8 AM as I was checking out. We headed straight for Victoria Falls and could see the mist, which looked like low clouds, from several kilometers away. There were only 4 other people there when we arrived and even the raincoat and umbrella guys were just setting up shop. I invested the 5,000 Kwacha ($1.25) for a poncho after the 4 people that arrived before us emerged from the rainforest soaked to the bone. Mumba decided not to get wet so I walked into the mist solo.

The experience was magical. The vegetation along the upper banks of the Zambezi was brown and dry but the constant rain of the mist makes for a rainforest ecosystem on the rocks opposite the falls. I walked along every stretch of the path, trying to get views from as many vantage points as possible. Probably the most amazing was walking across the footbridge from one rock ledge to the next as the mist came down like a heavy rainstorm. The two rainbows growing out of the falls nearly made a full circle in the gorge below. Apparently, the falls are so wide (something like 1.5 km across) that it’s only possible to see the full width from the air – hence, the all the helicopters and microlights passing overhead. Most of the time I just stood in the mist, gawking at the massive, overpowering nature of it all.

About an hour later, I emerged from the mist and met Mumba, who showed me some of the dryer vantage points upstream. Our last stop at the Victoria Falls national heritage site was the information center, where a tour guide was giving us the history and geology of the falls.

We wrapped up at the falls around 9:30 AM and headed back toward town. Mumba was really keen on my seeing the crocodile farm (he brought me there on Saturday, too, but they were closing up shop when we arrived) so we spent about an hour checking out the crocodiles and poisonous snakes. Yuck. Makes me shiver just thinking about them. The crocodiles didn’t move much at all, except when poked by a stick by our (insane!!!) guide. Many of the crocs there had been trapped from the Zambezi because they had been eating fishermen and pet dogs. The snake section consisted of about 20 different species of poisonous and non-venomous snakes. I hate those things!

After the crocodile farm, I had about 3 hours to kill before my bus for Lusaka was scheduled to depart, so Mumba recommended I walk around Livingstone and see some of the historical buildings. He gave me a guidebook and wished me luck. The only problem was that the map in the guidebook was outdated so a lot of side streets had since been added and of course none of the streets had street signs, so I wandered a bit. I had sort of given up on seeing specific buildings and was heading to get a late breakfast when Joseph, a friend of Mumba’s, caught up with me and said that Mumba sent him because he had seen that I wasn’t having much luck with the map. Joseph was great about taking me around to places like the Northwest Hotel, a now dilapidated building that used to be a nice resort in its hey-day in the 1900s. We convinced the guard at the gate to let us walk a bit inside. The place kept reminding me of the hotel in The Shining and I imagined the British colonists all dressed up lounging in the now overgrown courtyard. The place was trashed but for some reason the building owner still had an office there, and a secretary! Not sure what kind of work they’re doing – my guess is that the owner guy has lost it!

We passed by the old Nanoo’s Corner Store, which I think dates back to 1907, and then saw the Zimbabwe Market, and took the 30 minute walk back to the main market: Maramba Market. It was sprawling but not very crowded – probably because most people were at church at that time on a Sunday morning. It was about noon at this pint and although I wasn’t tired, time was getting a bit tight so we took a taxi back to the town center. Joseph and I ran into Mumba there and I decided to treat the two of them to lunch. They were both really helpful and great about showing me around. We ended up back at Kaazmein, the same place I had eaten lunch the previous day, and this time opted for egg sandwiches, egg rolls and burgers. Not great but enough to hold me over the rest of the afternoon.

The bus to Lusaka was already 2/3 of the way full when I arrived at the bus station around 12:30 PM. Unlike the trip to Livingstone, this time we had to pick specific seats and I opted for the front seat. The driver was saner today than yesterday so I was only white knuckled at a few points on the trip. We left the station at 1:30 PM, just 30 minutes, as opposed to an hour the day before, behind schedule. The drive was unremarkable except that the 2 Indian guys that I saw at Vic Falls were on the same bus. Got back to Lusaka right around 7:30 PM and had no trouble getting a taxi back to the apartment. So glad I took this trip this weekend – it was a blast and really nice to take a break and be a tourist for a few days.