2006 Africa: Zimbabwe - Victoria Falls and Lion Encounter

Welcome to my African travel journal!

Unlike the days of yore when I worked abroad and traveled the world like a playboy with more free time on my hands than I knew what to do with, these days I'm actually a workin' man which means that I haven't had the opportunity to sit down and compose lengthy stories for this collection of pages and pictures on Africa. In a parallel universe I'm sure I'm busy writing all sorts of exciting stories about my adventures in Southern Africa, but in this universe you shall have to be satisfied with brief descriptions under the pictures and also reprints of the emails I sent out to my mailing list while on the journey. Like always, please feel free to email me and let me know what you think of the pictures or if you'd like more information on any of them. I'm always available via email!

Daniel

PS: the above picture of me was taken at "The Lion Enounter" Lion Rehabilitation Programme located just outside Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe. Just after this picture was taken, the sweet yawning lion decided to roll over then grab onto my jacket, then continue downwards while playfully biting my leg! I just knelt and smiled, hoping that the lion handler would get his groove on and save me from that hungry cat! ;-}

Email: 2006 June 20 - Flying to Africa!

Hey Everyone!

Yep, the subject line of this email is correct: I have been bitten yet again by the insatiable travel bug and have very recently begun organizing a three week vacation to five southern African countries: Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Namibia and South Africa.

The decision to fly 12,000 miles / 19,000 km to Southern Africa was totally unplanned and was only made a couple weeks ago after emailing back and forth with a friend of mine currently living and doing linguistics research in Namibia. I somewhat jokingly asked my friend Johanna, “So, when are you going to invite me to come visit you in Namibia?” to which she responded, “Funny you should ask. A small group of my friends and I are planning a trip at the beginning of July and if you’d like to jump onboard, let me know within the next few days so we can confirm the car rental, hotel reservations, travel itinerary, national park entrance fees, etc.”

Honestly, I wasn’t planning on going anywhere this summer much less Southern Africa, but this seemed like an opportunity that I really shouldn’t pass up. I mean, how often do you have a friend that lives in Southern Africa who can take you all around the southern portion of the continent?!? At least for me: NOT OFTEN! So I called up all my credit card companies, begged them pretty please to increase my credit limit, and thus began the process of buying a plane ticket ($$$), choosing hotels and all the rest.

Since Southern African geography isn’t exactly the most well known subject to the outside world, I’ve included a map of the region with highlights of where I’ll be. Also, I’ve included an itinerary of events toward the bottom of this email.

One of the great things about this trip – from my perspective at least – is that my friend Johanna is taking the liberty (along with another friend of hers) to organize the vast majority of the travel itinerary and so all I basically have to do is show up with my ritzy new digital camera and a big smile on my face, and just go along for the ride. Johanna, I promise to be a good travel companion! ;-}

Here’s a list of the places we’ll be going and the things we’ll be doing:

South Africa: Overnight layover in Johannesburg on my way to Zambia.

Zambia: Dinner and booze cruise down the Zambezi River

Zambia: Mosi-oa-Tunya National Park (“The Smoke that Thunders” National Park)

Botswana: Chobe National Park – famous for its 10,000+ elephants, bushbuck and puku, crocodile, hippopotamus, water birds, swamps and grasslands.

Zimbabwe: Lion encounter – walking with lion cubs in Masuwe

Zimbabwe: Victoria Falls National Park – riverine jungle, ilala palms, ferns figs, liana vines, mahogany, 2000 year old baobab tree, and bungee jumping

Namibia: Rundu - “It is not advisable to swim in the river as it is infested with crocodiles, and bilharzia can be contracted even if paddling in the shallows from snails which carry the burrowing parasite.” Can’t wait!

Namibia: Etosha Region – 5000 square km of salt pan desert landscape, also includes one of Africa’s greatest wildlife parks.

Namibia: Okaukuejo – rest spot with thatched rondavel housing

Namibia: Swakopmund – sandboarding at the coastal region with the country’s 2nd largest population.

Namibia: Sossusvlei in the Namib Naukluft Park – 900ft/300m tall red sand dunes, 200 miles / 300 km from the nearest highway

Namibia: Windhoek – Capital city of Namibia

South Africa: Cape Town – southern most city in Africa, location of Nelson Mandela’s incarceration, scenic liberal urban metropolis of the continent

And you’ll just have to check out my emails and website over July to see what else I wind up doing and whether or not I manage to get myself into any trouble along the way. I’ve purchased a 9 megapixel 10X zoom SLR body digital camera with full motion video capability with an internal mini hard drive with 9.5 GIGABYTES of internal memory, so I’m pretty much guaranteed to get at least a couple decent pictures from the trip. As always, I’ll email them out or post them online as soon as I can. I’m not sure what Internet access is going to be like in rural Africa, but all the urban areas of southern Africa are pretty well wired these days so I’m sure you’ll hear from me at least sporadically in between dodging wild rhinos and fending off malaria infections.

I’ll write more from Africa!

Daniel

Above: flying in toward Livingstone over the Zambezi River which separates Zambia from Zimbabwe.

Below: the falls and canyons of Victoria Falls from above as we circle into Livingstone.

Below: Victoria Falls and the surrounding area from the air

Above: a mini Grand Canyon snaking along the border of Zambia and Zimbabwe

Arrival at Livingstone International Airport, Zambia. Note the entire airport in the background and the only airplane around for miles. This is no O'Hare or Frankfurt. . . and that's exactly why I flew to southern Africa for vacation. I'm in love already!

Oh look, there I am at the Livingstone International Airport in Zambia!

Above and below: the restaurant, pub and reception area of the Waterfront lodge where we stayed along the Zambezi River in Zambia. Unseen here are the tents that we stayed in since this is a camping lodge area and not a luxury hotel, although there are plenty of luxury lodges springing up all around the area.

Ahhh. . . the Internet! Below the upstairs computer room is where breakfast was served every morning.

The tent I stayed in for five days. Zipped up tight and locked to prevent the mischievous hordes of local monkeys from looting and ransacking my belongings while out on daily excursions.

Email: 2006 July 2 - Flying to Africa this morning!

Good morning Everyone!

I’ve been running around like crazy this week shopping and getting things in order for this trip, and yesterday I bought a little blue faux velvet journal to document all my travels in. Whenever I have the opportunity to sit down at a computer and transcribe it all, I’ll try to shoot those stories out via email providing I happen to stumble across the Internet somewhere in rural Africa. From what I hear, that’s not too terribly uncommon these days actually so we shall just have to wait and see how often I can send out email.

Also, I am VERY VERY VERY happy that I decided to buy a brand new (and quite ritzy!) camera in June as soon as I found out I was going on this trip. As it turns out, my tried and true Fuji Finepix 4700 palm-held digital camera – the very camera I took with me all across the Middle East and Europe over the past five years – BROKE late last night just as I was packing my suitcase! Just imagine how utterly and completely freaked out I’d be right now if I had to get on my flight this morning without a camera! Basically, the knob that switches between audio-capture mode, picture mode and video mode broke so it just spins around like a top and flips between all the different functions willy nilly. I’m still going to bring the old camera with me in hopes that I can get it to stay on audio-capture mode long enough so I can take audio clips while in transit and either email those out directly to you whenever I come across the Internet, or transcribe them if I have time. Keep your eyes and ears open!

IN ANY CASE…

I’m all ready to go and just waiting for the hours to tick by for me to hop on my United Airlines flight in the morning and start this adventure. I’ll be stopping in Frankfurt for a couple hours on a layover where I’ll meet up with my German penpal Andrea for lunch, whom I met via correspondence for the first time in 1989 while she was studying English in high school and while I was studying German. It should be a fun, albeit short visit!

After that I’ll hop on a Lufthansa airplane and fly down to Johannesburg where it turns out I don’t have an overnight layover, but rather just a three-hour stop before I jump on my final flight from South Africa up to Livingston on the Zambian airline “Nationwide.” Not so sure how I feel about flying on an impoverished central African airline, but perhaps my concerns should be put at ease by the company’s website claim: “Awarded Best Domestic Airline 2005!” Hmm… I wonder how many other Zambian airlines there were in competition?!? Zambian Scare-lines and Air Crash?!? In any case, keep your eyes open on July 4^th to see if my plane misses the runway and lands directly into Victoria Falls – my final destination in Zambia anyways. Might as well just take the direct route there. Haha… ;-}

Falling from the African sky aside, I’m basically as ready for Africa as I can get. Last week I went through a barrage of physical exams and tests to make sure I was in tip top shape, was vaccinated up to my eyeballs against whatever disease might crawl or fly my way, and I even got my teeth cleaned. Gotta look good for all those upcoming pictures!

Here’s a quick rundown off all the vaccinations and pills I got for this trip:

Yellow Fever vaccine
Polio Type 1, 2 and 3 vaccine (I didn’t even know there were so many types!)
Typhoid vaccine
Meningitis vaccine
Hepatitis A and B vaccine
Malaria pills – start two days before departure, during my time in Africa, and then for four weeks after returning home, and last but not least…
a bottle of pills in the event of “loose stool.”

Lovely.

And all that at the rock bottom out-of-pocket cost of $400!!!

Oh well, it’s just money, as I keep telling myself. In fact, “It’s just money!” is something I’ve been telling myself so often over the past few weeks that I think I’m going to be voted best customer of the month by the credit divisions of Bank of America, United Airlines, Discover, Chase Manhattan Bank, Circuit City Electronics, and a several local retail stores. Honestly though, I’d really rather not think about how much this trip is costing me. All I know is that the final months of 2006 are going to be TIGHT, but I look at it like this: how often do I have the opportunity to fly to Southern Africa and travel the region with people who live there? Not very often, so I don’t mind opening up my bank account to the airlines and travel agencies of the world to make this trip happen. And just like every other American with everything else in life, I’ll just pay for it all later. ;-}

Lemme tell ya, my credit cards have been receiving a SERIOUS work out the last couple weeks tho. More mileage points for my credit card, so it’s all good. This trip will actually earn me about 24,000 frequent flier miles, so combined with the 40,000 miles I already have, that should qualify me for a free trip to Europe. So that’s a little hint for where I just might head off to next.

Alright, it’s getting late and I should get some sleep here. Thanks for reading, and I shall hopefully write more from Southern Africa!

Take care,

Daniel

The Zimbabwe side of Victoria Falls with Zambia on the other side

Huge plumes of waterfall mist that rush up out from the depths of the water filled canyon then turn right around and fall as torrents of rain within several hundred feet of the rim of the falls area. This creates an extremely lush microclimate along side the canyon where just on the other side of the reach of the misty rain lies an arid landscape of dry scrub brush and hearty, dry weather trees.

The saturated, near tropical environment lining the edge of the water fall's canyon walls. Although you can't see it, the entire area is being soaked by a drenching rain. Fortunately, I make a little contraption out of ziplock plastic bags to keep the camera from getting wet.

A gush of water flailing off the lip of the waterfall's edge into the canyon below, in the background, and lush grasses in the foreground.

Me walking through the lush area lining the falls, which looks absolutely nothing like the rest of this region of Zambia and Zimbabwe.

Huge torrents of water racing over the edge of the waterfall obscured by sheets of white mist shooting up into the sky just behind me.

Could be the tropics!

Johanna in front of Victoria Falls

Bonnie, Josh, Johanna and Eric being soaked by the invisible sheets of rain falling all around us

A bridge crossing the river gorge that you can bungee jump from. . . if you ever such an urge!

Victoria Falls from Zimbabwe.

Sheets of water falling off the edge of the canyon where Zambezi River takes a sudden dive.

Above and below: Victoria Falls from the Zimbabwe side

The Zambezi River as it races off the rocky waterfall ledge into the gorge below.

The falls are approximately one mile in length but you'd never know it with all the mist obscuring the view.

I find it fascinating how water can just cut stone in half like that if you just give it enough time. Spectacular!

Above and below: a group of music performers dancing and singing near the tourist gift market on the Zimbabwe side of Victoria Falls.

What a great performance. And such energy!

One of the millions of gift shops that I was soon to see across southern Africa selling more or less the same stuff. Apparently it's all hand crafted so that's cool. The first time I walked by, Mr. Discount tried luring me in to buy something so I informed him, "I'm looking for a friend right now but I'll be back." Well, Mr. Discount did NOT forget what I said and the second I came back into the market he raced out to grab me and bring me back to his shop. So, in exchange for purchasing a little souvenir, I got him to pose for a picture in front of his wares.

If I had had the space and the money, I think I would have bought out half of Africa. Such great little souvenirs everywhere!

The tourist market at Victoria Falls.

What gorgeous wooden bowls! Just make sure you don't get them wet because the finish will run, as Johanna had the misfortune of finding out after purchasing one. Despite that, they're quite attractive!

Um. . . I really liked all the giant souvenirs for sale, but how am I supposed to stuff those into my suitcase and send them back to America?!?

A lizard scurrying through the cracks of of the sidewalk at the entrance to the Zimbabwe side of Victoria Falls.

Me standing in front of a statue of David Livingstone, after whom the city Livingstone in named.

The tourist gift card shops at Victoria Falls. And if you're into Coca Cola, you're in luck!

Above: President of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe. . . the man who is currently driving the Zimbabwean right into the ground by forcibly expelling European-African farmers from lands they had tended for generations and placing the country's bread basket into the hands of people who, while well intentioned, know nothing about modern farming techniques. Sadly, the country's farming industry is rapidly collapsing and accompanying this disaster has been massive inflation, economic collapse and social instability.

There certainly are better, more effective long-term approaches to dealing with the legacy of colonialism than what the Mugabe government is currently undertaking.

A small body of water out in the brush of Zimbabwe

The Lion Encounter in Zimbabwe, in association with African Impact and African Encounter.

The lion handlers and their lion cubs.

Me and a lion cub!

Some background info:

According to our tour guide, in the past there were some 250,000 lions across the central region of Africa but now there are no more than 20,000 and the number is declining due to the increase of human habitation of their territories. As such, these lions are designated as a vulnerable species. The existence of many lions is now relegated to national parks and other maintained environments. Numbers are also threatened by poaching and hunting. Additionally, nearly 1/3rd of the Serengeti's lion population was destroyed by anthrax/bovine tuberculosis.

As such, a project to reintroduce captive lions into the wild was established in 1972 in Zimbabwe. There are several stages to this reintroduction program, including: 1) when the cubs are 2 to 16 months old, they spend daylight hours in the wild and are observed. 2) After 16 months they are transferred into breeding groups where there are no other lions or humans around. 3) The lions reproduce and the cubs are then raised in an environment without human contact (unlike their parents), and 4) future lions are reintroduced to other areas throughout Africa. Simultaneously, this program also generates income for local communities.

A lion cub yawning. Awe. . . sweet kitty!

The same lion cub deciding to eat my shirt. Awe. . . nice kitty!

(Um. . . anyone gonna do something about this?!)

Sweet hungry lion cub chomping on my jacket. Fortunately one of the handlers came to intervene. I just knelt there nice and calm and waited for this trickster pussy to have its way with me and leave my body UNSHREDDED. I figured that freaking out at this point might not be the wisest thing to do.

Oh look! The sweet pussy cat is EATING MY LEG!!!

Me kneeling with another cub who is approaching maturity.

Despite being informed that it'd be perfectly safe to kiss the kitties on the head and be all cutesy with them, I decided to respect mother nature and not get my face too close to her mouth. Besides, I don't even kiss domesticated animals back in America, much less felines that would rip me to pieces at the drop of a pin!

Awe. . . sweepy weepy kitty cat! (JUST DON'T EAT ME!)

Um. . . is this close enough?!

How about this?!

Alright, catch up with ya later!

Walking down a path with one of their trainers.

How cool, eh!

And yes, lions go potty, too.

Johanna being much more comfortable having a lion's head in her lap than myself.

One of the handlers and his lion

Adorable, eh!

The lion shall get up and go when it is ready to do so, and not a moment sooner.

Our tour guide leading the group

Two very nice people, John and Sue from Australia, with us on the excursion.

Just chillin' with a couple lions. . .

Lion cub in the morning sun of Zimbabwe

Water out in the middle of nowhere. Very serene. . .

The meeting point lodge where we gathered upon arrival at the Lion Encounter where we were briefed on the events of the day and where we signed away our lives and released the company of any liability in the event that the lions decided to eat us.

Later that afternoon, we returned to the same area where the lion cubs are being rehabilitated and went on a nice elephant ride through the surrounding countryside which reminded me, surprisingly, of northern California. . . i.e. a flatter, mountain-less version of the Sierra Nevada foothills. What you see above is the lodge where we ate brunch in between our lion and elephant encounters.

The nice open air lodge where we ate brunch.

Above: the elephants mark their territories by smearing mud on the trunks of trees.

The you-know-what of an elephant. Look at all those wrinkles!

Me sitting with an elephant. Hopefully he won't want to gorge me with his nice fat tusks!

Oh look, an elephant chair for me to sit on out in the middle of the African bush. How convenient!

The elephants in a line. And my oh my, look at all that fertilizer.

You better not be afraid of heights if you're going to ride an elephant. I definitely got the feeling that it would be most uncomfortable to fall off from up so high.

Johanna and I sitting atop our elephant named Penny with her handler, Gladys. The other elephants' names are: Clem, Emma and Ms. Ellie.

Once back in Zambia. . . we took a nice little booze cruise down the Zambezi River.

While waiting to get onboard the boat I kept hearing all these noises in the trees. When I looked, I noticed a bunch of monkeys swinging from the branches and chasing each other around. I whipped out my camera to get an action shot of them, but by the time they jumped, it was too late. Looks like I need to be a little speedier!

Apparently two of the monkeys decided to take a short break along the boat dock where I was able to snap a shot of them. They must be careful playing around so close to the water though because the Zambezi river is filled with crocodiles who just so happen to have a hankering for monkey meat.

Me on the booze cruise

A group of hippopotamuses (hippopotami?) swimming beside our boat

Yaaaaawwwwwnnnnn!!!

Above and below: the hippos just hanging out watching us boat by

Me on the Zambezi

Bonnie, Eric and Johanna chatting it up on the booze cruise. It was a lot of fun and I had a great time. My only thought negative thought while on the cruise was, "It would be most unfortunate if our boat capsized into these crocodile infested waters."

Fortunately, we made it out safe and sound! Albeit it just a tad bit tipsy by the end of the cruise. . . ;-}

Sunset over the Zambezi River with Zambia to the right and Zimbabwe to the left.

The Zambezi River

The smooth waters of the evening Zambezi pierced by the occasional boat

What a magnificent way to end my first day in Africa: twilight over the Zambezi.

Gorgeous!