Friday 23 – Saturday 24 September: Livingstone to Sydney

THE BIG FIVE

Throughout the tour we’ve heard of a few different variations on which animals make up the Big Five and Innocent clarified this for us over a leisurely breakfast this morning but what I found especially interesting was why they are the Big Five. To start with, the Big Five are elephant, rhino, Cape buffalo, leopard and lion. The only one we didn’t see was the leopard which is pretty elusive. I’ve always been under the mistaken belief that the Big Five was what the tourists came to see and photograph because you always hear of them ticking off their sightings but then why weren’t hippos, giraffes, cheetahs or zebras included which I think are more interesting to photograph than Cape Buffalo. Innocent explained that the Big Five term came from hunters who have a 50/50 chance of killing one of the Big Five or being killed by one of them while hippos and giraffes are easy game.

My taxi ride to the airport took me through the town centre again where there were lots of celebrations as the results of the elections were announced – the Opposition Leader has won power. Car and truck drivers were honking their horns and flags were flying from the windows – a bit like a football grand final back home. Hopefully he will prove worthy of their faith in him, although I doubt that he will line the streets with copper!

Livingstone airport is a small airport mainly catering for the tourists flying in and out although a new terminal was being constructed next door. It’s the first airport I’ve been through where the passengers’ names are ticked off a manifesto before you’ve even gone through security and checked-in.

As I arrived early it didn’t take long to check-in but the wait to go through immigration with only one official working was another story. By the time I entered the departures hall, the queues for both check-in and immigration were very long and it didn’t take much time for all available seating to be filled in the waiting area. Apart from my South African Airlines flight, there was also a British Airways plane departing at roughly the same time and the terminal wasn’t really built to cater for this occurrence.

My connecting flight to Johannesburg was just under two hours and uneventful, the way flights should be. In Johannesburg, though, my three hour transit time turned into nearly six hours with a technical problem on the Qantas flight. I hoped the technical problem was only that the on demand entertainment wasn’t working correctly and they were fixing it!

I had booked the window seat towards the back of the 747 again, with only an aisle seat beside me, similar to my flight here but this time I had a large gentleman sitting next to me who had little leg room so tended to encroach on my space – all up quite an uncomfortable flight home!

With the Rugby World Cup being held in New Zealand at the moment there were a lot of Springbok fans sharing the flight, en route to Auckland, to follow their team. For rugby fans, they were extremely well behaved!

Back in Sydney to a dreary day and the first rain I’d seen since I had left home, I breezed through immigration and customs without any problems and within an hour of stepping off the plane I was at home.

Now, where to next?

Thursday 22 September: Livingstone, Zambia

SEPARATE WAYS

Our tour officially ended this morning so mid-morning Ted headed off to the airport to fly to Europe, Sue and Rob transferred to another hotel for the start of their next safari adventure, Cosmos went home to visit family in Zimbabwe, Sophie off to try white-water rafting and the remainder, except me, crossed the border so that they could explore the Falls for the day from the Zimbabwe side.

I only had one planned outing on for today, a sunset cruise later on this afternoon so to fill in time I caught a ride with the rest of our group to find somewhere which had the internet. We drove through the town but Innocent decided it probably wouldn’t be wise for me to stop there so I ended up getting dropped off at a small ‘upmarket’ shopping centre which had an internet café being used by other tourists. After checking in online for my flight home tomorrow, getting news from home and updating my blog, I caught a taxi back to the hotel.

With a few hot hours to fill in I tried to keep cool in my non air-conditioned room – the ceiling fan wasn’t particularly effective – so having a shower was the best option. The bathroom is unusual, partially built from brick and stones, and the shower itself falling from a small protruding ledge out of the stones walls. In theory it was a good idea but in practice it meant that I had to lean awkwardly into the wall to wash my hair.

 

Not long after 4pm I was picked up for the transfer to the Lady Livingstone, the newest cruising vessel on the waterways near the Falls.  It can hold 120 passengers but there were only under 30 of us spread across the 3 deck levels. I stayed on the middle deck with 3 other Aussie ladies and a group of 4 South Africans and throughout the cruise we were served nibbles and drinks. When we saw some of the other vessels which were very crowded, they listed to one side when everyone rushed to view the animals, but we didn’t have that issue on the Lady Livingstone – there was plenty of space for everyone!

The wildlife viewing wasn’t in the same league as the Mazambala or Chobe River cruises but we did see hippos, several elephants, etc. Two of the elephant sightings stood out. The first was an elephant swimming from one of the islands across to the Zambezi side – its head would pop up every now and then but usually only the tip of its trunk could be seen, acting as a snorkel as it swam. The second was a baby elephant separated from its mother, running along the water’s edge, trumpeting as it splashed through the water, disturbing the nearby hippos. Hopefully it was reunited with its mother but we didn’t see it while we were watching.

Before the elephant reached deep water - after that only trunk tip could be seen

Wednesday 21 September: Chobe – Livingstone, Zambia

TO HELL AND BACK

Talk about the night from hell: camping for a start, having a woman in the next tent (not one of our group) snore like a freight train all night (did I mention I’m a very light sleeper!), animals foraging through the garbage bag, starting the day before sunrise with only some water to wash your face – and to top it off an animal thought right in front of my tent was a great place to relieve itself (and it wasn’t a herbivore – I’m becoming an expert in animal dung!). The day could only get better!

After a breakfast in the pre-dawn light we left on a game drive on our way out of Chobe. After all the animals we’ve seen, it was a bit disappointing – only a few elephants, giraffes, kudu, hippos in the distance, mongoose, etc. The boat ride yesterday on the Chobe River was much more successful than the two game drives here.

We left Botswana just before the Zambesi River where we had to cross on the ferry across to Zambia. The ferry takes about one large semitrailer, a passenger coach and possibly a car but as there were no passenger vehicles in front of us we didn’t have too long to wait. This is a totally different story to the poor long haul drivers with their very long queue. Some can wait up to two weeks to get onto the ferry, sleeping in their cabs so they don’t lose their place in line. The ferry ride only takes about 20 minutes each way but with the small ferry, loading and unloading and the large number of long haul vehicles, there is quite a backlog.

Looking at the ferry coming from Zambia, across the river

Once on the Zambian we each gave our passports and visa money (US$50 for a single entry) to Innocent who went to get our visas. This has been the first border where we didn’t have to appear in person – but also the first border where we had to pay for the visa. This was accomplished fairly quickly but we had quite a wait while Cosmos had to go from office to office to get clearance for the vehicle. It was here that we learnt about the plight of the drivers.

Filling in time while waiting to cross into Botswana

We also found out that Zambia has just held national elections and hawkers who were chatting with us were hopeful that the Opposition Leader would win. He must have had some election campaign as the hawkers said that once he gets in they will be able to go to university to study as engineers and that he had also promised to line the streets with copper, which Zambia has plenty of!

We arrived at Livingstone and before checking into our lodge we went to the little airport nearby and several of us booked helicopter flights over Victoria Falls, or as they are more commonly referred to in Zambia - 'Mosi-oa-Tunya' meaning 'The Smoke That Thunders'. As I don’t intend to cross into Zimbabwe to see the Falls from that side I opted for the sightseeing flight. After dropping off our luggage and lunch we headed back to the airport for the flight. Gillian, Ted and I were on the second helicopter ride so with only the three of us we were fortunate enough to have a window seat each, and as I sat up front I could also take photos out through the front window and the window below my feet.

I’ve been very fortunate to have visited the three big falls – Niagara, Iguazu and now Victoria Falls – and they are all different.  Each of the three falls are on the border of two countries but whereas Niagara and Iguazu drop into more of a basin area, Victoria Falls flows into a narrow gorge dividing Zambia and Zimbabwe with its spray visible for some distance. From the air we had a great view of this gorge and the wide river dotted with islands which fed into it. We circled the Falls several times, flew over some of the islands and also the nearby game reserve where we saw elephants and hippos.

Back on the ground again, we drove around to the Victoria Falls National Park for a walking tour with a local guide. Along the way we passed a statue in memory of the explorer, Dr David Livingstone, who was the first Westerner to discover the Falls. By now it was very hot and humid so after taking numerous photos it was a relief to head back to a shop to stock up on ice-cold drinking water.

Dr Livingstone, I presume

The bridge which is the border crossing between Zambia and Zimbabwe

As our lodge is fairly isolated, we had dinner here, and again sat around afterwards and took stock of the highlights of our trip. Even after Chobe and Victoria Falls, Etosha and the Mondesa town tour are still the favourites of the majority of our group.

Tuesday 20 September - Mazambala to Chobe National Park

THE GOOD, THE BAD AND THE UGLY

We continued further along the Caprivi Strip, stopping to get some lunch supplies, before leaving Namibia and crossing no-man's land back into Botswana. We've passed through several of these sovereign-less strips of land over the course of our trip and it makes me ponder that if they were all added up worldwide they would make a decent sized small country!

At this crossing Botswana was more concerned about foot and mouth disease than at the other border so we all had to get off the truck and take our shoes to be treated for the disease.  We only had to step onto a sodden mat, pressing each pair of shoes into it, all the while overseen by an official who also had a handy sideline of trying to sell souvenirs us. At the same time, our truck was driven through a large 'trough' about eight inches deep of chemicals.

This afternoon we transferred to a boat for our cruise on the Chobe River - definitely THE GOOD! We saw hippos, huge numbers of elephants (estimated at about 120,000 elephants in Chobe National Park!), Cape buffalo, zebras, giraffes, fascinating birds, etc.

We also saw the 'Zambesi Queen', definitely the houseboat I would want to stay in - 5 star all the way with incredible wildlife viewing from your balcony, or if you are really lazy, bed.

Warthogs and this Marabou Stork below (looks like the undertaker bird portrayed in cartoons) would rate as THE UGLY. Fortunately we didn't see enough of these to outweigh the other wildlife.

We stopped in a couple of places to watch different groups of elephants, one herd swimming across the river from one island to the next, another group having a mud bath, either rolling in or spraying themselves with mud, plus a third group nearby who, after showering themselves with water, headed for the shore and covered themselves in dust.

  

Interesting bit of trivia, or I thought it was, elephants can be 'left-handed' or 'right-handed' and you can tell their dominant side by the wearing down of one of their tusks.

After leaving the boat, we boarded an open-sided safari vehicle for a game drive through the park. I was very surprised at some of the landscape - it looked as though a bushfire had gone through it as so many of the trees had been destroyed but the damage had all been done by the massive elephant population. We had already seen evidence of this in the Okavango Delta where they had ringbarked and shredded trees.

Elephant damaged landscape

We went down to the riverside again and watched as the elephants made their way from the river inland to wherever they go to at night. Some of the younger male elephants trumpeted at some of the vehicles, including ours, but most just went on their way.

We stopped to watch sunset over the river plain then headed past a group of baboons towards our accommodation for the night - THE BAD! I had mistakenly got the impression that our safari tents would be quite comfortable but the reality was that they were two man tents with a mattress on the floor, no running water (i.e. no showers after a long day of humidity and dust), toilet was surrounded by a canvas screen and no lighting other than a couple of lights on the trestle table where our dinner was served and the campfire. I've camped around about twenty countries in the past – been there, done that, and hoped never to do it again! The tents were arranged in a semi-circle and there was nothing between us and the wildlife and I wasn’t reassured when we heard a lion roaring only about 200 metres again and were warned not to go to the toilet alone during the night!

With nothing to do after dinner, we sat around the fire for several hours, each of us recounting what the highlights of this tour have been. Most agreed that the town tour of Mondesa or Etosha National Park were the favourites.

Sunset by the river

Monday 19 September - Okavango Delta to Mazambala

THIS IS MORE LIKE IT

Another two and a half boat transfer back to our truck this morning saw us retrace our route through the main Delta channel in this area, spotting various birdlife along the way, including several eagles.

We crossed into Namibia again then travelled along the Caprivi Strip, a 500 kilometre narrow strip of land that connects Namibia with the Zambezi River – and all paved. Along this mainly straight roadway there were numerous warnings to be alert for wild animals, especially elephants, on the road. By late afternoon we reached our stop for the night, a lodge at Mazambala on the banks of the Kwando River. A motorboat transported us and all of our luggage to the lodge, this time only a twenty minute transfer. Between the lodge and the landing there was a gated fence – the hippo gate which is closed each night between sunset and sunrise to stop hippos coming into the grounds. The gate would be easy for a human to step over, but not hippos with their short legs

After being assigned our cabins for the night, most of us opted to go on a sunset game cruise on the river. This was more like what I had expected to see in the Okavango Delta.  In the two hour cruise we saw lots of elephants, including young ones, hippos, antelope, a crocodile and lots of birdlife. It’s hard to beat sitting quietly having an icy drink while watching the hippos from a safe distance.

Bee-eaters - but not sure which ones

 

Not the best photo of hippos - but you take what you can!

One herd of elephants was right on the water's edge, with several of the adult elephants challenging us not to come closer. They eventually crossed the river in front of us, one mother pushing its baby ahead of it. When they came out the other side most of them had a 'tide' mark on them, showing where the water came up on them, except for the baby which was completely wet. It didn't take long for them to start covering themselves with dirt - their own form of insect repellent.

After a buffet dinner, we sat around an open fire in the grounds and talked until I decided to call it a night so that I could repack my overnight bag for our stay in Chobe National Park. I gave up camping years ago so I’m hoping our camp tomorrow is more in line with tented accommodation with a solid floor and washing facilities.