Zambia on the Zambezi

It's a long, long way to Africa from Sydney - but fortunately we were flying Singapore Airlines, who have to be one of the best airlines in the world, even in cattle class.  Seats were comfortable (even for Trev's long legs), service was prompt, food and drinks were delivered without fuss, and a couple of Singapore Slings helped to pass the time.

Johannesburg airport was surprisingly good, easy to get around - except that Trev and I actually left the international airport and entered the domestic airport for our flight to Livingstone, Zambia.  We obviously weren't thinking straight after about 26 hours of travelling, cos although we knew when we left Australia that Zambia is actually another country, we totally forgot it when we arrived in Johannesburg.   We blamed it on tiredness, Singapore Slings, and just plain stupidity!  Luckily, a porter explained our stupidity  to us, and we were on the right track.  Several hours later we arrived in Livingstone for the start of our African Adventure.

We arrived at Chundukwa Lodge on the Zambezi River at about 2.00pm local time.  This is a rustic lodge with cabins built on stilts overlooking the Zambezi - our first 'over-water bungalow'!  It takes a maximum of 10 guests, and each cabin is open to the river (no windows), with a fully mosquito-netted bed in the centre.

We had a late lunch, then settled into our room before joining other guests for a sunset cruise on the Zambezi.  This was lovely - we spotted our first hippo (although I only have photos of his ears and eyes above the water), lots of beautiful birds, a waterbuck and a couple of impala.  The river was beautiful, and we had wine and munchies on the boat while we watched the sun go down.  A lovely introduction to Zambia.  After a lovely homecooked meal of roast pork with Charmaine, our manager, and other guests, we had an early night  and slept like logs.

Next morning we had coffee in our room, followed by a good breakfast in the main eating area.  Then it was off to visit Victoria Falls and do our helicopter flight.  This was amazing!  After some discussion we elected to do the half hour flight instead of just 15 mins, as  this included a flight through the gorge at low level.  Twice the price but well worth it!  Seeing the falls from the air was unbelievable - as the water is very high at this time of the year, much of the falls were hard to see as the mist rises so far into the sky and returns to the earth as very heavy rain.  Something like 9million litres of water per second (or minute, can't remember which) drops over the falls!  The view was amazing, and we circled the falls a couple of times before dropping down into the gorge to follow the Zambezi.  I filmed this as we twisted and turned through the gorge, trying not to feel sick - fantastic.  Then we flew over the Mosi ao Tunya National Park and spotted some elephants, wildebeest and warthogs before returning to the heliport.

Then our guide, Bright, drove us to the falls for our walk where we were greeted by baboons and their babies.  We were advised to take a change of clothing, as we might get a bit wet, and to make sure that my camera was in a waterproof bag so it didn't get damaged.  Bright also had ponchos for us to wear through the wetter areas.  Well, we got soaked!  Even with ponchos and hats  the amount of heavy 'mist' that we walked through was unbelievable.  More like torrential rain!  What we could see of the falls was just stunning, but when we went across the bridge, we totally lost sight of the falls due to the immense amount of water coming down at us.  When we got back to the car, we were soaking, laughing, and had to use a towel to dry off.  An incredible walk!  From there we went to the bridge linking Zambia and Zimbabwe and watched a few people bungee jump and gorge swing - and no, we were not tempted in the least.  We've jumped out of a plane, and that will do us.

We had a quick trip to the craft markets, visited the David Livingstone Museum, and then finished off with a drive around the local food and clothing markets to see how the locals live.  Very interesting.

On the way back to the lodge we stopped on the side of the road to watch a giraffe eating leaves on his side of the road. We thought that was fantastic, but just a km or two down the road we stopped at a white  rhino doing his impersonation of a 'victa'. The rhino was complete with his personal armed guard, (nice big Kalishnikov rifle). All rhinos in Zambia have armed guards with them 24 hrs a day. They are there, not to protect you from the rhino, but to protect the rhino from you.  You get the feeling they would shoot you long before they'd shoot the rhino!

We arrived back at the lodge where we had dinner, then found that a hippo had come to play in the garden!  He was near the dam area, munching on grass, and we had the torches out to spot him.  We were warned not to get between him and the river, as that is where most 'hippo-related deaths' occur - they're not actually trying to hurt people, it's just that they want to get back to their patch of water, and people get in the way.

On the next morning we had arranged to visit the local village and preschool with Levy,  who works at Chundukwa lodge.  We sailed up the river and got out at Natural Mystic Lodge, which was amazing, we walked through the property and into Levy's village.  He told us stories about his village and how they had got together to form a preschool which operated out of their local church (basically a large mud hut) during the week.  The govt school was too far away for most of the children to travel to each day.  The school was run mainly on donations and help from the local community, with no government funding.   We took a collection of pens, pencils, stickers, textas etc as a small contribution to their school.  When we arrived, all the children sang a 'welcome' song to us - it was very touching. 

From there we walked back to the river and onto the boat, where Levy took us to Tongabezi Lodge - here they'd established a school which started off as a small school for the children of staff who worked at the lodge.  Then it grew to cover primary to year 10, with currently around 180 children attending.  We were given a tour by Beth the admin person, who was so enthusiastic about the programs and opportunities they were giving these young people.  A lot of the students are orphans (many parents died of HIV/Aids  related illnesses) and they are well looked after by the school and the community.  It was a really interesting and humbling experience to see how much work is being done on very little money and the sponsorship of individuals.

On the trip to and from Chundukwa, Levy sailed us past a group of about 20 elephants frolicking on the banks of the river - they were bathing, playfighting and throwing dust over themselves to dry off.  He managed to get within 10 metres of the group and we just sat there quietly watching their interaction.  Magic!  What a great day.

Back at the lodge we had lunch then had a swim in the very cool pool, then relaxed for the afternoon.  In the evening, just before dinner, the lodge suffered a power outage, so it was out with the candles, torches, and we had dinner by candlelight with Chairmaine, the manager.

So, on our first 3 days in Zambia we've seen elephants, baboons, hippos, a white rhino, a giraffe, impala, waterbucks and assorted colourful birds.  Not a bad start.  Next we're off to Pondoro Private Game Reserve in Kruger National Park, South Africa for the next part of our adventure.