Inglis in Africa: April 2011

Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Margot and Zara Writing April 2011

Margot’s writing April 2011

24/04 The Lion House, Leopard Hill Rd, Lusaka, Zambia
It was already dark as we arrived in Lusaka, Zambia. We had got caught up in the Zim-Zam border post, changing money, filling forms… The phone started singing its little song. “hello” answered dad. It was the parent of one of dad’s friend who lives in Lusaka. They offered us to come and stay at their house. We drove seventeen kms down a small track that was so chocked up with dust you could hardly see the road!
We arrived at the grand ranch gate and a friendly Zambian gate-guard opened it for us. “Splosh” we drove through a big dip filled with water. That gave our car a bit of a wash! Gynny and Oliver Irwin, the owners of the ranch met us outside their house. Mum and Dad chatted with them for a while then we continued down the dippy track to the guest house. We stopped in front of the huge palatial yellow concrete house. Davey, the housekeeper met us at the front door. “Welcome to the Lion House” he said politely. We started unpacking boxes of clothes and food. I picked up a bag of tomatoes and my dressing gown and walked towards the front door. I scanned the front wall of the house. Suddenly I caught sight of two sad shining eyes of an animal. Then it was gone. Davey opened the door and I nearly fell over but instead I dropped the bag of tomatoes onto my feet as I looked at a fully grown stuffed lion staring at me. I picked up the bag of squashed tomatoes just as the low pitch roar of a lion made me drop it again. For a moment, I thought it was a sound effect made to frighten you. “Oh, that’s just Winston, the lion. His cage is half in the house half out but he can’t get out” said Davey. This is definitely the freakiest house I have ever been to. We walked into the living room and tones of buck’s heads stuck out of the wall. “I didn’t expect it to be so much luxury” exclaimed Dad as we stepped into the bedroom where Mum and Dad where sleeping. Davey showed us to our room and luckily, there weren’t any traces of animal skins or scary heads sticking out of the wall. We were really tired so we just had green beans and toasts for dinner.
The next morning, I was desperate to see Winston (named after Winston Churchill). Dad told us to stay in our room so we knew there was something suspicious happening. “Do you know what day it is today?” he said as he opened the door of our room. “Easter Sunday!” squealed Zara. I stepped outside the bedroom. I didn’t see much of the house yesterday as it was too dark, but now I could see it all. Inside it was like a jungle: goldfish pond, plants, even a waterfall! I looked at all the animal’s heads sticking out of the wall and I felt sorry for most of them: lions, leopards, elands, kudu, Sable antelope, crocodiles… There were elephant tusks everywhere. Dad said that Oliver had shot all of them. As we got out of the room, Zara had immediately started looking for Easter eggs. They were hidden everywhere: in lion’s mouth, crocodile’s mouth, buck’s nostrils…
The Grand Finale was at Winston’s cage. He looked so sad in his tiny enclosure: the King of the Jungle in a zoo in Africa!
Now whenever we walk away from him he roars! Well, that’s the story of the Lion House, Leopard Hill Rd, Lusaka, Zambia.

Zara’s writing March-April 2011

22/04 Clever Termites
At Mana Pool camp site me and my dad went for a morning jog. We were going past the toilet block when we saw an elephant. We kept going and aventuly (eventually) got back to our camp site.
I had such a good idear (idea) when I saw the cars and a termite’s mount. Me and my sister playd (played) and playd until we had to start school. When we were playing I accedently (accidently) kicked a hole and an hour later the termites had filled up the holes.

24/04 The Easter Hunt
It was dreadfully dark and I was fast asleep. I fell into a deep sleep. The next morning it was Easter Sunday and I was walking around the scary dead stuffed animal’s heads house when I stopped to look at a sweet lying in a wooden bowl. I picked it up and realized that it was part of the treasure hunt. I got a bag and put it in. We found lots of sweets and we also found Easter eggs. At the end of the treasure hunt we went for breakfast at a friends house. We ate so much food. We walked one kilometer back to our lodge and here wer are writing away on this book.

ZIM-ZAM and Great White Hunters

The Lion's House, Lusaka- Zambia. Spot the Easter Egg!

Africa is a continent of extremes and so too has our life become. We have been camping for about 7 weeks but today find ourselves in opulent luxury staying in a bizarre Dali-type 1970’s mansion with multiple stories and staircases and adorned on every wall with animal head trophies of buffalo, kudu, eland, zebra, warthogs and elephant tusks. Added to this, in the main foyer of the house is a tropical forest with numerous fish ponds, a stuffed crocodile and at the front door, and in various corridors, stuffed lion and leopard. The piece-de-resistance, however, is Winston….a real live lion who lives in a cage adjoining the house with his cage extending into and under the house so that you can watch him while you sip your G&T at one of the many bars and listen to his gut-wrenching roar which echoes through the mansion. It is all quite surreal but heaps of fun and the girls think that this is African heaven with Margot asking if we can stay here forever. This amazing reprieve from the rigors of camping and life on the road is all thanks to Carl Irwin, who is a school mate who now runs Zambeef recently floated on the London stock market and a shining example of commitment and hard work. Carl now flits between Australia where he lives and Zambia where he does his business. We have been hosted by Ginny and Carl’s Dad Oliver who definitely deserves the title of “The last of the great white hunters” having hunted everything possible and with trophies to prove it. He is also an aviator in the grand old tradition having flown multiple times around the globe in the days before GPS made it all so easy and who has held multiple speed and distance records. Thanks so much Carl and family……this has been wonderful.

Having read a bit about how Zimbabwe was recovering we were keen to see a bit more and travelled from Vic falls to Hwange national park, the biggest in Zimbabwe. Admittedly we didn’t hit it at the best time of year with game well spread thanks to abundant water supply, but we saw a reasonable amount. The park in general is looking a bit tired and the camps dilapidated with bar, shop and restaurant closed and empty. Prices are outrageous given the sorry state of the camps and we negotiated a 2 bed chalet which was cheaper than camping. They are in a catch-22, I presume, where facilities are shoddy but they are charging extortionate rates to try and survive (there was only one other group at Robins camp) and hopefully to improve things. Locals told me that it gets very busy in the dry season so maybe things are improving but it definitely looked a bit bleak. From there we headed east to Milibizi and the eastern tip of Lake Kariba.

This was a great spot, camping next to the Lake where the Zambezi enters. We had heard that the drive around to Kariba was a rough 2 day challenge so that the thought of 22 hours relaxing on board the ferry with meals included and sipping G&T watching the sunset, made the decision easy. The ferry takes 15 vehicles but only 3 like ours with gear on roof racks and offered a fabulous personal service, with short talks on the Lake, excellent food and mattresses and blankets. Passengers were all tourists from Belgium, Holland, Germany, RSA, Zim and UK. We disembarked at Kariba town and enjoyed a walk down to the dam wall and the Zambian border. None of the sluice gates were open and a croc patrolled menacingly below. The wall is an engineering marvel built by an Italian company in the 50’s and provides hydroelectric power to Zim and Zam, but one can’t help wandering at man’s interference with nature and imagining what this valley might have been like without a wall and a dam.

In contrast our next stop was Mana Pools national park, a Unesco World Heritage Site, and a unique wilderness experience on the banks of the Zambezi River. We arrived just before Easter so the camp was quiet and set up our tents near the river. We were immediately entertained by very vocal hippo and a number of sun tanning crocs on the sandbank nearby. A massive bull elephant did his rounds of the campsite skirting our tents and systematically breaking massive branches and munching the succulent top leaves. He provided a welcome relief from school for the girls and in the middle of the night, in the silver moonlight, I watched him from the flimsy protection of my nylon tent as he grazed 20metres away. Mana Pools is unique in the wilderness freedom it affords one. You may walk unguided in the Park and of course there are no fences so game moves freely. We saw no cats but plenty of Buffalo, Kudu, Zebra, Elephant, Hippo and even a fabulous encounter with a pack of Wild (Painted) dogs. A Hyena skulked around our camp at night and howled incessantly so that sorties out for a pee were brief and fast! I hauled out my fly rod and tried my luck and was rewarded with a couple of Tiger fish which fought like marlin and amazingly my fragile nylon leader survived their razor teeth. We grilled them on the braai and the meat was delicious but had to contend with mouthfuls of fine bones. As the crowds rolled in for Easter we set off for the Zambian border and after a lengthy process, multiple ‘taxes’ including toll fee, carbon tax and council tax as well as Ilda’s visa (thankfully I am exempt on SA passport and children don’t pay) we arrived in Zambia.

We immediately felt like we were really in Africa proper with massive potholes, multiple roadblocks and roadside markets selling delicious fresh veggies and fruit as well as delicious fresh Bream from the Kafue River, which we feasted on. And so we laze in this colonial splendour and plan our next leg through Zambia and (hopefully) across Lake Tanganyika and on to Rwanda.

Hammacop on hippo- Hwange National Park- Zimbabwe

Mana Pool- Zimbabwe

Girls playing cars on ant heap- Mana Pool- Zimbabwe

baobab- Mana Pool

Margot doing school in Mana Pool with elephant roaming around the camp!

Fly fishing in the Zambezi River- Mana Pool- Zimbabwe

Sandy fast asleep, supposing to look after the girls on the Zambezi River bank

Tiger Fish

Baby Zebra- Mana Pools

Sandy at sunset

Wild Dogs- Mana Pools- Zimbabwe

Kariba Ferry

Lake Kariba- Zimbabwe

Arrival in Kariba

School day at the Lion's House- Lusaka- Zambia

Market on road side- Zambia

Winston the Lion- Lion's House- Luzaka- Zambia

Africa Overland/load

Hyenna at Ethosha after a mud bath

Africa Overland March-April 2011.

Mosi-oa-Tunya (The smoke that thunders in the local Kololo language) is far more apt than the somewhat jaded Victoria Falls, but either way this place is dramatic. I trotted off for a morning jog today as the sun crept up through the thick fog thrown up by these massive 108m high and 1.7km wide waterfalls about which Livingstone wrote “On sights as beautiful as this, angels in their flight must have gazed.” My run took me through the slightly tired village of Vic Falls to the opulent grandeur of the Victoria Falls Hotel where the breakfast verandah gazes directly up the thundering gorge at the Zim-Zam bridge and the sight of one of the highest bungees in the world. I leave by a front gate passing a man with a rifle who assures me that there are no lion but beware of elephants. I jog cautiously side-stepping massive mounds of elephant dung and hopping over fresh broken branches to a viewing deck perched above the swirling, snaking river far below. The grey-green water boils and bubbles and bucks and banks thrashing down the narrow gorge in a frightening display of power and perseverance, having just crashed over the mighty falls. I feel humbled and skirt along a narrow path past the insane rope swing and then on to the entry to the Park where I talk briefly in Zulu to the rangers. Ndebele is very similar to Zulu and so I have the opportunity to communicate a little, at least, with the locals. I return back through the village to our campsite and the girls where Ilda is preparing school for the day. Margot and Zara are excited at the prospect of an elephant ride at midday and then the visit to the Falls themselves……provided school goes ok!

Lion at Ethosha with a Zebra kill

Giraffes at Ethosha

I think that we have been on the road for about 6 weeks now and the last time I wrote we had just arrived at Etosha National Park in Namibia. So many memories since then have created the rich tapestry of our African Adventure that it is hard to know where to start and what was most profound. Was it the cheetah chase or the lion kill near Namatoni camp? Was it relaxing on a deck over the Okavango River with cold beer in hand at sunset or camping with local Tswanas when we found all the official camps flooded? Was it the boat trip up into the Okavango Delta where we gazed in awe at majestic Fish eagles or camping at Savuti in the Chobe National Park where a bull elephant seemed to adopt us and hung around our campsite all night? Or was it the sunset boat cruise on the Chobe River where herds of elephant frolicked unperturbed only metres from our small boat and sucked up water through outstretched trunks and sprayed it over massive rumps under the golden glint of the setting sun? Or was it simply seeing Margot and Zara lying in their tent in the soft morning light reading their novels and Zara telling me that “Stone Fox” was the best book she had ever read in her life! Or seeing them engrossed in fantasy play involving elephants, huts and bartering with hawkers? Or watching them diligently doing their school work in their 37th classroom on a deck stretched over the Chobe River while Ilda patiently guides them? I don’t know, but all in all this is proving to be one of our most profound life experiences and we somehow hope that it will never end.

Maybe it’s Global Warming but anyway, the rains were supposed to be over. We have been accompanied by massive thunderstorms most of the way which only now, in Zimbabwe, seem to have abated. So Etosha should have been a disaster. The famous salt Pan now a lake; roads closed by massive muddy puddles and animals somewhat remote, enjoying the glut of water. Well the pundits were wrong! During first 2 nights at Okaukuejo camp there was certainly a paucity of game with sparse antelope and giraffe and fruitless nocturnal sorties to the camp waterhole. However as we moved eastwards things changed dramatically. The highlight of course was witnessing the preparation, execution and completion of the killing of a Springbuck by a Cheetah. It was quite the most exhilarating and dramatic thing to watch and left the four of us in an awed silence. We felt privileged to have witnessed the food chain first hand! The sight that met us as we approached the plains before Namatoni camp was “Out of Africa”. Black Rhino, herds of giraffe, multitudes of antelope, blue wildebeest, zebra, hyena, jackal, vultures and to top it all, a pride of lion, which that night killed no less than two zebra and were feasting on them when we passed the next morning.

Hoba Meteorite Namibia

From Etosha we drove east to the mining town of Tsumeb and enjoyed the luxury of a campsite with restaurant, internet café and Olympic size swimming pool! (serious….one of only two in Namibia!) All at half the price of Etosha. It was good to head north again into Boabab country and up into the Caprivi Strip. This was the region of gruesome fighting in the 70’s and 80’s were RSA was at loggerheads with Angola and Mozambique and based the South African 32-Battallion whose dilapidated barracks we visited. Nature had consumed the old buildings with trees and creepers and Kudu and Buffalo grazed where soldiers once walked. Our campsite on the Okavango River was sublime and our wake up call was provided by resident hippo and my favourite bird, the Fish Eagle. We were lucky to get a site because many of the other camps were flooded and closed. We left wonderful Namibia and eased into Botswana via the Okavango panhandle.

Our first nights accommodation was problematic as all camps were flooded but some friendly locals let us set up camp in their yard. It was lovely to feel part of their rhythm and to observe first hand life in a hut away from the bustle of our lives. The next morning we visited the excellent local clinic and had a tour of the local school, where ‘learners’ appeared to be grappling with some fairly complex stuff! Then on to Maun, which had metamorphosed since I was there in the early 80’s. A sleepy gateway to the Delta had now become a big town with supermarkets, big hotels and even a university. We had a relaxing couple of days there but at 450 US$ night the inner Delta was out of reach. After much apprehension about road conditions we set off on the famous Maun to Kasani route via Moremi and Chobe. Our first night at Mankwe was rewarded with elephant sightings and our first leopard…..at last! We had our own private camp and enjoyed a pristine night under a rich blanket of stars. Then on into Chobe where mud detoured but didn’t stop us and to Savuti camp. Here again we enjoyed relatively private campsites, this time perched on the side of the Savuti channel which was flowing for the first time in 35 years. This is where we were befriended by Savuti the local bull elephant. What an experience it was! He spent most of his time on the periphery of our camp about 20 metres away, fought off 2 other bulls as if protecting us and then wandered nonchalantly around our car, sniffed the table and pots and then eased off as we cowered in the car with half cooked dinner and Ilda’s fresh rolls! That was something and the girls immediately snapped up pencils to record what had happened.

Sunset over the Okavango River- Caprivi

The roads across Chobe were sandy and sometimes corrugated, but we got through fine. We had been a bit worried about not having a Hi-lift jack but all went well. We were even able to help dig out a Belgian couple who were stuck in sand down to their axles and then casually cruised through were they had just been stuck!

Kasane is quite a hub. Straddling no less than four countries it has an air of excitement and provides an excellent base to explore. Our campsite at the Chobe Safari Lodge was awesome, fully equipped with resident crocs and wrestling hippos and the lodge pool was sumptuous. We did a double whammy with morning game drive in Chobe and then boat cruise on the Chobe River at sunset. By the end of it we were swirling in a cloud of visual delights of massive herds of buffalo, hippos grunting and cavorting with the sunrise, elephants frolicking at sunset and a myriad memories of exquisite birds. After a good morning of school we farewelled Botswana and headed off to Zim.

And here we are! We had a big walk today via the grand old Vic Falls Hotel, the gorge views and the rope swing and then on into the park. Folk said we would get wet and that was no lie and the thunder and drama of the Falls was spectacular. Fortunately the girls had donned swimming costumes and we all dried quickly in the sun. The walk across the border and then bridge into Zambia was great and we had a laugh watching a few chaps Bungee jump. Zara assures me that she will never do one but I have my doubts.

Tomorrow to Hwange and then we take the 22hour ferry across Kariba and on to Mana Pools.