Zambia and Victoria Falls

Zambia and Victoria Falls Part I
The journey began very early 0500 hours when Shaibu my trusty taxi driver picked me up right on time and took me into Lilongwe and to Devil Street. (This apparently is or was the street where the prostitutes plied their trade but at this hour the only people out were the operators of the take out places who were starting their cooking fires). The bus looked fine from the outside but inside was another story. The seats were worn and dirty as was the floor and the bus was clearly made to accommodate small Japanese not big Africans. Many people had already staked out seats so I ended up about 1/3 of the way back next to a big bale of used clothing that blocked the aisle. The bus guy jammed my backpack into the overhead shelf and I sat down in the window seat but soon moved because the seat was at a funny angle and within a few minutes my back was sore. We left Lilongwe not quite full but already the aisles were blocked with luggage. When we got to Mchinji it got worse. There we picked up enough passengers and their luggage to overfill the bus. Two people were sitting on the bale, a very skinny man was in the window seat next to me thank heavens. The woman closest to me on the bale had a very large basin in her lap which as the trip progressed and she fell asleep was painfully digging into my body in various places. We went 30K to the border where everyone got out of the bus and trooped toward the Malawi Revenue and Immigration building. Once in the Immigration building we all filled out a form and had our passports stamped and were sent over to the Fiscal officer who wanted to know how many kwacha we were taking out of the country. We were informed we could only take 3000Kw out (that’s $20). Unfortunately for me I had $10,000 Kw ($66.00) in my waist belt along with $50.00 US for my Zambian visa. I actually had a lot more than this but it was in my hidden belt. The fiscal officer informed me that I could be arrested for trying to take more than allowed amount out of Malawi. I was sent to NBS forex bureau (National Bank Foreign exchange bureau) where my $10,000 Malawi Kwacha became 150,000 Zambian Kwacha. (a terrible exchange rate). Having escaped the revenue officer I headed for the Zambian immigration. The place was a mess. All the Zambians and Malawians had to write in one log book and there was a lot of pushing and shoving to get to it. Luckily I and the other non African were given a yellow form to fill out. We then went to the window where the officer took my passport and disappeared. After a long wait during which several workers took a tea break the passport reappeared and I was asked for $50.00 in US which I had. The poor Belgian girl, who was a volunteer worker, had only Euros and Zambian immigration wouldn’t take them. She was told she had to pay in USD or Zambian kwacha and was sent to get Zambian Kw for which she got a terrible exchange rate and then paid more than $50.00 in kwacha because the immigration guy gave her a bad rate on dollars. She was pretty upset and I certainly don’t blame her why should she pay in US dollars when that’s not her currency and she had perfectly good Euros. Meanwhile my passport disappeared again – after a long wait it reappeared much to my relief and I was sent on my way. The border consists of two metal gates one on the Malawi side and one on the Zambian side with about 100 ft of no man’s land in between. The bus was in no man’s land and stayed there for another hour while the Malawians and Zambians wrangled over the customs fees for the bales of clothes. At last we all piled in the bus again and drove 20Km to Chipata where most people got out again – we accomplished this feat by walking on the armrests down the aisle because the floor was packed with luggage, cookers, bales, and buckets. I am glad I have good balance. I felt worried for the 3 Poor Clare nuns in their long habits trying to negotiate out but they made it without mishap. I hoped they were praying we did not get into an accident since if we did there would be no way out.
After buying a coke so I could get small enough bills to use the pay toilet again (in Zambia it cost 1000 kw) we got back on and started the long journey through Zambia. The country is quite beautiful and seems to have more trees, rolling hills and mountains than Malawi. This part of the trip was miserable as the woman with the basin kept falling asleep and leaning her rather large self and her basin into my body and the woman sitting on the back half of the bale kept leaning her head on the back of my seat. My legs were completely wedged in and I couldn’t move them and there were boxes under all the seats so I couldn’t stretch out at all. At the next stop at least 150 km on (a town that begins with L) the skinny guy next to me got off. The large woman moved into the aisle seat and I to the window seat. I had a bit more leg room but the problem with the basin got worse and worse and my patience with it shorter and shorter. Although there were still more people than seats at least the bus was a bit less crowded and the pails that were stacked on top of other things in the aisle were left behind.
My phone stopped working at the Zambian border despite assurances that my Airtel sim card would work in Zambia. So in order to call Mary Rathert and Zambian nuns who had already been waiting an hour for me at the bus station in Lusaka, I had to use the phone of the woman sitting next to me. (the one I had grumbled about when the basin pinched me one final time). When at last we arrived in Lusaka I was so delighted to see Mary and the two Zambians that I nearly jumped out the window. Although Africans queue all the time they do not do it in an orderly fashion, consequently everyone was trying to get out of the bus at once and the young, the big, and the strong overpowered everyone. I was in the last group to get off.
I was delighted to be upright and to be at my destination. The two Zambian nuns Sr. Margaret the superior and Sr. Patricia along with my friend Mary were absolutely delightful companions for the rest of the journey. We went back to the Dominican convent in Lusaka which is on embassy row between Kenya and Ghana! I was introduced to the small Lusaka community of Zambian nuns and one elderly German. I was greeted, fed and given a lovely bedroom with a hot shower. The next morning at 0630 we were on the road to Livingstone and Victoria Falls in a dual cab truck filled with food and luggage as well as few parcels for the community in Livingstone. The sisters in Africa wear veils and I soon learned the advantages of doing so. Only once were we stopped at a police check point. The sisters also have an enormous network. When we needed a potty stop they called the convent in town and arranged for us to go there. When we needed a place for a picnic another call was made and a niece arranged to meet us and take us to her work place where we had a lovely lunch under a big tree. Of course when we arrived in Livingstone we were accommodated in the guest house of a local group of sisters.
The ride south was lovely as we passed maize, sugar cane and tobacco fields; crossed the lovely Kafue river and climbed up into some mountains. As we moved closer to Livingston it became warmer. Sr. Patricia spent a good deal of time in Livingston as a girl and knows the area well. She was raised Anglican and was baptized Catholic in St. Theresa’s church which we used as a landmark to get back to our guest house. The Livingston nuns had to come and get us to show us the way the first time as we went down a narrow roller coaster like dirt road then made a sharp turn to the right headed straight for a wall until the road turned suddenly left into the convent yard. We would never have found it alone and in fact the first time we returned there in the dark we got lost.
The next day we packed a lunch and a change of clothes and headed for the Falls. All I can say is they are spectacular. You have to experience them because they are indeed an experience not just a view. They are very wide and straddle two countries Zambia and Zimbabwe. The local people call them Mosi oa tunya which means “the smoke that thunders”. You can see the mist rising from the Falls from all over town and when you approach the Falls especially when the water is high as it is now the sound is overwhelming. As you approach the falls along the path you can glimpse portions of them but as you walk you are engulfed in mist and are soon blind and soaking wet. Occasionally the mist clears for a moment and you can glimpse another section of the falls but soon they are once again obscured. And there are rainbows everywhere you look – sometimes two or three at a time. It is a magical place and we spent hours walking around it, going up above the falls to watch the mighty Zambezi River roar over the precipice and hiking down to the river below the Falls to visit the boiling point. The boiling point is an area below the falls where there is a permanent whirlpool. From here you also have a an excellent view of the bridge and the bunge jumpers flying off of it into the Zambezi canyon. When we climbed back up to level of the Falls we went to a small park near the vendor sites to have lunch but we had to hire a man with a slingshot to keep the baboons away while we ate. When I tried to take the trash to the trash can a baboon and I got into a tug of war which I won much to the delight of the onlookers. [I think I was nuts to tussle with a baboon but I didn’t even consider that I could get hurt I just didn’t want her spreading trash all over]. After lunch we walked across the bridge into Zimbabwe but weren’t allowed to leave the bridge since we hadn’t paid for visas. The view from the bridge is spectacular with more rainbows everywhere and the mist from falls boiling out of the gap in the banks. We watched the bunge jumpers fly – some went head first others feet first and one guy with a lot of money – each jump is $140.00- went both ways.
Then we headed to a hotel Patricia knew about that had giraffes and zebras on the grounds. Visiting the animals is free but the cheapest room at the hotel is $507.00 USD and the most expensive is $2500.00 per night. There were a lot of Europeans/Americans staying in the hotel. I can only wonder how they got so rich or more likely who was paying for their stay. The first giraffe I saw strolling about the grounds was amazing I couldn’t stop watching it move about – they are so elegant and at the same time very ungainly with their long legs and necks. I took a million pictures of the zebra too because the patterns of their stripes are so interesting. The babies in particular have amazing patterns of stripes that are closer together than the adults and some of the babies were brownish rather than black. I enjoyed watching these semi tame animals but it didn’t seem right. They should have been out in forest not grazing about a posh hotel.
After the hotel we went to a restaurant on the Zambezi river to watch the sun set. The light was fabulous and there were just enough clouds to make the colors beautiful as they reflected into the water. Then we went home and made a spaghetti dinner and I learned a new trick. We made the sauce from fresh tomatoes which Sr. Patricia grated into the pan – this way she got all the tomato and no skin – pretty cool! After watching the news on Iranian TV (a truly interesting and somewhat discomfiting experience) we crashed into bed.
The next morning we were up fairly early so we could go to the museum which details the culture of the region as well as David Livingston’s first encounter with Mosi Oa Tunya. I particularly enjoyed the “village” set that went from a typical Malawian village to the new urban centers dramatically showing the change over the last 50 years. The artifacts from Livingston were also interesting but I was captivated by the art work in the courtyard. After a quick visit to the museum store we decided to go to the stalls on the main street to buy some gifts. Patricia let us know what we should buy there and what we should wait to buy in Lusaka and also helped us negotiate prices that weren’t azungu. We then went to lunch and had a GOOD pizza with real recognizable cheese. I thought I died and went to heaven. Then it was off to the wildlife reserve. There we hired a guide to ride with us and help us find the animals and find them we did – zebra, giraffe, impala, wildebeest, Cape buffalo, baboons, vervet monkeys, secretary birds, and storks. These animals were not tame and they looked like they were where they belonged. We mostly had to watch them from the car but I still got some marvelous .photos. Then we heard that there were 7 white rhinos in the park. So Sr. Patricia asked the guide how we might get to see them. To prevent poaching each rhino has a guard 24/7 and the guards know their animals and their habits so they can almost always locate them. So for a 70,000 zkw we got a second guide who had just returned from his shift of guarding and took us to see the rhino who was sound asleep under a tree. We had to walk through the bush and both Mary and I had on sandals and skirts because we dressed for the museum! However nothing was going to get in the way of our seeing the rhino so off we went praying the snakes were elsewhere and they were. He was really BIG and really asleep thank heavens – the guide said we could touch him but we demurred he was too big to take that risk looking was good enough.
We went home to dinner and got ready to go to a venue to watch a cultural dance performance, I was tired but I never can pass up dancing . The venue is a restaurant and bar with a stage that is part of a non-profit designed to support traditional Zambian arts. They teach traditional arts and sell the products as well as produce traditional Zambian dance shows using local talent. They also have a jam session for local musicians on Sunday nights. The show was excellent they told stories and performed traditional dances from the four regions of Zambia.
The next day we were up early to drive to Lusaka. The drive was beautiful and comfortable and we made excellent time so we reached Lusaka about 2 PM. This gave us time to shop in the huge city market which is like the one in Lilongwe but is at least 4 times larger. Mary and I bought some beautiful chitenges to bring home. Later we went to a cultural handicrafts place and bought a few more items. Then because I had to be at the bus station at 0430 Patricia, Mary and I went to mass at a Jesuit church that had not one single piece of African art and no music. Very disappointing. After dinner and more Iranian TV news mostly about Bahrain I was off to bed.
The bus ride back was shorter than the ride in and a lot more comfortable since they did not overfill the bus in Lusaka or anywhere else. The aisles were only semi blocked but one could get out fairly easily. The ride through Zambia was beautiful and the only really interesting thing happened around 0630 when the bus stopped in the middle of nowhere and the guys got out and stood in the tall grass at the front of the bus and peed and women squatted behind the bus. After that all potty stops were at more conventional pay toilets. I was happy to have experienced Zambia but glad to be home.