Another early (pre-dawn) wake up. It seems as if every day starts about the same, with an early wake-up. Well, we said we didn't want days of "relaxing," as we can do that anywhere. If we're going to experience Africa, we might as well experience it to the fullest!

Our flight to Lusaka, Zambia was scheduled to depart at 8:30 AM, so everyone was in a bit of a "fizz" mode, scurrying around to make sure we didn't forget anything. We would not be returning to Nairobi after this morning. I had "checked" my Masai spear a week earlier, and retrieved it after breakfast. Les and Linda had also checked a bag of clothing, which they now retrieved. Now that Uganda was behind us, they began divesting themselves of some of their items of clothing they didn't think they would need. They had intentionally brought things that could be left behind to make room in their bags for souvenirs purchased during the trip. Good planning! In fact, Les gave his old hiking boots to his porter after the first day of unsuccessful gorilla search. Once he decided he would not go on the second day, he was ready to leave the boots behind. Linda had several "cold weather" garments that she also gave away.

Carolyn, who had survived her night in the un-air conditioned "closet," was booked on the same flight as we were. Her next stop was Harare, Zimbabwe, for a canoe safari on a river. The plane was to fly to Lusaka, then to Harare, refuel, and return to Nairobi. Thus we all went to the airport together for the 8:30 flight. Joyce and Joseph found us in the lobby of the Stanley, and we loaded up their van one last time for the trip to the airport.

At the Kenyan Airways counter, we learned that our flight time had been moved up from 8:30 to 8:10. We were happy now that we had "fizzed" around and allowed plenty of time! Now all we had to do was check our bags, go through passport control, and wait in the departure area. We were surprised to see that the airplane was not another 737 as we had expected, but a wide-body Airbus. The departure area slowly filled up, 8:10 came and went, and 8:30 came and went. Finally they began loading the aircraft. We actually left the gate at almost 9:00. Africa time strikes again!

Once we were taxiing, the pilot informed us that our routing had been changed. We would be stopping in Harare first, then in Lusaka. Apparently Zimbabwe had been (and as of this writing still is) undergoing some political turmoil and unrest. We saw two separate pieces of evidence of this. The first was our pilot's reason for changing the flight plan, and the second involved the foreign money exchange rate and black market, which I'll explain in the installment covering Zimbabwe. The pilot informed us that due to the political situation in Zimbabwe, there was no jet fuel in Harare. Thus the plane could not refuel there for the return flight to Nairobi. Therefore we would fly first to Harare, drop off the Zimbabwe-bound passengers there, pick up any passengers for Nairobi, then proceed to Lusaka. In Lusaka the plane would refuel, and passengers who had boarded in Nairobi could get off, but no one who boarded in Harare could get off in Lusaka. Direct travel between Zimbabwe and Zambia was not permitted. It seemed that if you wanted to go from one of those countries to the other, you had to first pass through a "neutral" country like Kenya. Then it was OK. Go figure! It's the old story, "You can't get there from here, you have to go over there first."

The flight to Harare was smooth and uneventful. Carolyn said goodbye there; we all promised to communicate back in the States, perhaps exchange or share pictures and stay in touch. Some Nairobi bound passengers boarded, and we took off for Lusaka. Lunch was served on the plane, including canned soft drinks in 200 ml cans. These are the same diameter as the 12 oz cans we are all used to seeing at home, but only about half as tall! They really look unusual, like a regular can that has been cut in half. I even brought one home as a souvenir.

The airport in Lusaka did not seem very busy, and the hassle of passport control and customs was not as bad as in some other places we had been. Once we cleared customs we were met by a man who identified himself as Tinus Gouws (from South Africa, but of European origin). His first name is pronounced "TEE - nus." I thought at first that he had said "Dennis" with a long "E," but he later said it was a shortened version of "Martinus." He was the manager of the Kiambi Safari Camps along the Zambezi River.

He loaded our things into a vehicle that was a cross between a station wagon and a minivan, and we drove out of the airport towards Lusaka. Tinus explained that the airport was on the opposite side of Lusaka from the river camps, and that it would take us about 3 1/2 hours to get to our destination. Driving into and through Lusaka, we were impressed that this was a fairly modern, European looking city. We even took a picture of a new strip mall at a large intersection, complete with elaborate traffic lights and an elevated pedestrian bridge over the highway. The names on the stores were unfamiliar, but the architecture of the mall was reminiscent of home. It was much more open and spacious than either Nairobi or Kampala, and no automatic weapons in sight!

Grocery, hardware and clothing stores. Lots of auto and pedestrian traffic. Looks almost like home!

 
Left: a unique 4-way suspension bridge for pedestrians over a busy intersection.
Right: even in Zambia, "Ministry of Health Warning. Tobacco is Harmful to Health."

Beautiful downtown Lusaka! Note the calculator salesman. You could buy all sorts of items while driving
through the downtown areas of several cities. Probably not much warranty service, though.

It was warm and sunny in Lusaka with scattered thundershowers around. In fact, speaking of rain, the entire Zambezi River watershed (which includes parts of Zambia, Angola, Botswana and Zimbabwe) had seen so much rain in the past month or so that the Zambezi River was flooded. Back in Uganda, Michelle had warned us that the river was flooded, and that part of our itinerary would have to change because one of the camps we were scheduled to stay in was under water! At that point we had no idea what the area looked like or how big a problem that would be, so we shrugged it off thinking we would deal with it when we got there. Frankly, I was envisioning the Zambezi River as being maybe one hundred yards wide and meandering through a jungle, with vines drooping into it from overhanging trees. Wrong! More on that in a bit.

At our request, Tinus not only stopped to let us buy an ice cream snack, he even paid for it! We proceeded out of Lusaka and across rolling countryside. Far in the distance some mountains could be seen. We were driving generally Southeast, and slowly descending. Tinus told us the camps were about 3,500 feet below the elevation of Lusaka, and the lower we went the warmer it became. After we had been driving a short while, opening the windows for some breeze, then closing them when we passed through a shower, Les noticed the dashboard vents and controls, and asked if the vehicle was air conditioned. Tinus said, "Yes," and turned it on! We had simply come to expect that a vehicle would NOT be air conditioned! We happily closed all the windows and rode along in cool comfort.

As we drove through the countryside on a modern, paved road (!), we saw at several different places men standing on the shoulder of the road waving very thick wads of paper at us. The paper looked like money! Tinus explained that it WAS paper money, but it was Zimbabwe money. The highway we were on eventually would cross the Zambezi River into Zimbabwe, although we were not going to cross at this time. People on the Zambia side who WERE going to cross and wanted some Zimbabwe dollars (yes, they actually call their money "dollars!" In Zambia, the unit was the "Kwacha.") could buy them cheaper on the side of the road than at the official government exchange rate in Zimbabwe.

It struck me that some of those men were awfully trusting to be standing on the side of a highway waving very fat handfuls of money at cars as they pass. It seemed that it would have been fairly easy to rob them, out in the middle of nowhere!

Your author, still able to smile. Zambian rolling hills behind.

From the same spot as the previous picture, looking the way I was facing. Down a valley with mountains in the distance.
That's where Tinus said we were heading, towards those mountains.

Tinus told us that since this was the main highway between the two countries, it was a major truck route. Unfortunately, the town of Chirundu on the Zambian side of the bridge was choked with trucks waiting to cross. Whatever the political situation was in Zimbabwe, it seemed that it took days or sometimes weeks to clear a truck carrying cargo to cross the border. Tinus didn't tell us if the problem was corruption or just bureaucratic inefficiency, but it clearly made life miserable for the truckers and trucking companies.

We did not cross the Zambezi (in fact, we didn't get close enough to even see it), but turned off on a dirt road on the Zambian side that ran along the river. This road was by far the worst we had yet driven on. Made of dirt only (no gravel or other stabilizing agent), it had eroded horribly in the recent rains and had some SERIOUS washed-out areas. We crawled through the worst places, and eventually it became a bit smoother as we continued. Tinus told us this section of road was scheduled for re-grading within a week or so, but they had been waiting for the frequent rains to stop because one big downpour could negate several days of road grading.

This picture doesn't do it justice. There were ruts and holes over a foot deep in places!
The kids on the right were typical; everywhere people carried bundles on their heads.

Les had begun to talk about how good a COLD beer was going to taste, and asked if the beer would, in fact, be cold. Tinus assured us that it would be VERY cold, promising that if it were not cold it would be free. When we were about 30 minutes from camp he radioed ahead and told the staff to put some beer in the freezer!

We had to cross a tributary river to the Zambezi, called the Kafue (pronounced, "ka - FOO - ay"). As we approached this river, I was surprised that the road simply went down into the water; there was no bridge. But there was a ferry, which at present was on the opposite side of the 200-yard wide river.

Might be a bit difficult to drive across here. That's the ferry in the distance.

This ferry consisted of a simple floating flat-bottom hull with a flat deck for vehicles and passengers. No cabin or superstructure of any kind. Also no engine or power plant of any kind. It was probably long enough to accommodate two or maybe three vehicles, and it seemed to be the only way across this river, probably for many miles.

The Kafue ferry. The elevated cable at left kept the boat from being swept down river. The propulsion system is shown below.

There was a (roughly) one-inch diameter steel cable anchored on our side of the river. This cable was slowly wound onto a steel drum on the ferry by two men turning a long-handled winch. Meanwhile another similar cable, anchored on the other side of the river, was being slowly played off of a second steel drum on the ferry. This was the ferry's means of locomotion! Needless to say it took nearly 20 minutes for the ferry to cross from one side to the other. This scene reminded me of several old movies (one was "True Grit" with John Wayne, I believe) in which a ferry across a river was simply a floating raft with a couple of long ropes to move it across from one side to the other.

Tinus told us that there had been until recently a second ferry a few hundred yards downstream. It had sunk in the river. and had taken months before it could be pulled out. It was still not back in service, with no estimate of when (or IF) it would be.

While we were waiting for the ferry to inch its way over to us, we were entertained by three or four local children who were washing dished and pans in the shallow river where the road ran down into the water. The kids were up to their knees in the water. One of the kids was catching tiny minnows in a piece of cloth and putting them in a pan of water by the river's edge. A chicken would sneak over to the pan and snatch a minnow, then run away with one of the children in hot pursuit. After a few minutes the kids would ignore the chicken and it would snatch another minnow!

The lady at left had just gotten off the ferry. The kids are busily washing dishes, and the marauding chickens are at right.

 
Kids hard at work. At right, a child hauls water from the river back home for…??

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Crossing the Kafue, and on to Kiambi Camp.