There has been so much
happening in the last month! I finished
my time at Habitat for Humanity Zambia on December 14th, which was
the same day as the end of the year staff party. I will miss everyone so
much. Haven’t had to say a final goodbye
yet as I will take Spencer and Isabel in to meet everyone before we leave. The office closed from 12/21/12 until 1/2/13
so will do that when we return from Victoria Falls and Botswana. Nigel finished his commitment at Save the
Children at the same time and we had a week off to relax and prepare for the
kids arrival.
Spencer and Isabel arrived on
12/22/12 - Nigel had not seen them since June and it was a very joyful
reunion. We all had a wonderful
Christmas lunch at the Southern Sun Hotel, complete with turkey, trifle and
Christmas crackers!
On December 28th
we flew from Lusaka to Mfwue Airport, where we were met by Brian Zulu, our
safari guide, in an open aired Land Rover. He then drove us to Mushroom Lodge,
45 minutes away in the South Luangwa National Park. We spent five night at Mushroom Lodge, which
was a former Presidential retreat used by the first democratically elected
president of Zambia, Kenneth Kaunda and more recent presidents as well. The entire lodge, including our thatched roof
chalet, looked out over a grass covered plain filled with elephants, impala,
puku, baboons and velvet monkeys. During
the rainy season this plain is covered by water and becomes a lagoon, but it
has been a very dry year so far. Lots of pictures are below!
Each day, we were woken at
530 a.m. by a staff member gently knocking on our front door.
A continental breakfast was
served at 545 a.m. and at 600 a.m. we clambered into the open aired Land Rover
with Brian to start our four hour morning game drive. After about three hours, he would park up
under a large, shady tree and set out a folding table complete with table cloth
and produce tea, coffee, cold drinks and snacks. We would get back to the lodge around 10
a.m., have brunch at 1130 a.m., and then take a nap! At 330 p.m. tea and biscuits were served and
then we were off again at 400 p.m. Again, after 2 ½ to 3 hours Brian would set
up the table with snacks and cold drinks, and then we would be back at the
lodge around 800 p.m. for dinner at 830 p.m.
Brian was an amazing guide who was not only knowledgeable about the
large variety of four legged animals, but was a fountain of information about
birds and flora as well. We were very
lucky that it has been very dry so far because we were able to drive to places
not normally accessible this time of year.
And that, of course, made the game viewing even better. At last count, we viewed over 50 species of
animals and birds. Spencer is going
crazy with his camera!
We have seen: towers of
giraffes, dazzles of zebras, sounders of warthogs, laughters of hippos, prides
of lions, troops of baboons and velvet monkeys, herds of elephants, impala, and
puku. We saw leopards, hyenas, civets,
large spotted jennets, Cape buffalo, crocodiles, water bucks, bush bucks,
Cookson’s wildebeest, bushy tailed mongoose, banded mongoose, slender mongoose,
and monitor lizards. We saw various
kinds of vultures, ibis, eagles, ducks, starlings, storks, rollers, weavers,
kingfishers, Egyptian geese, cuckoos, and well – you get the picture!
One day we saw the females
from a pride of lions eating a Cape buffalo they had killed. We found leopard
cubs in trees and on the ground. We
watched little baby warthogs run after their moms, tails pointing straight up
in the air. Brian was able to get the
Land Rover incredibly close to all the animals. We were very often only 5-10
feet away.
We got home to the rain in
Lusaka on Wednesday, January 2nd and a huge host of hassles! Zambia rebased its currency as of 1/1/13 and
the glitches haven’t stopped yet. (Did I
ever mention the phrase “welcome to Africa”?)
They took three zeros off the currency and issued new bills. The old ones can be used for 6 months, so no
problems there. However, since our
return we have not been able to get any money from the ATM’s or use our card at
the stores. They do not accept credit
cards here, except for maybe some of the large hotels. It’s a cash based economy so you have to use
cash or your ATM card – that’s it.
Apparently there is an IT problem affecting any transaction attempted
with an international bank. So, we are
waiting for it to get fixed and in the meantime have come up with some creative
solutions, most of which haven’t worked!
We called friends and asked them to send us some money via Western
Union. Can be done, but since the
re-basing, the amount that can be wired is limited to K1000, which is about
$187. Not worth the time, trouble and
fees. We have called B of A who has no
record of us even attempting to use the card – they have not declined anything
because they never received the requests.
Finally, our wonderful friend Simon (an ex-pat Brit) gave us his bank
account information and I was able to go online to B of A and wire transfer
money to his account, which he then withdrew and gave to us. We can now eat, pay the electricity bill and
go on our next planned trip to Victoria Falls and Botswana. Thank you
Simon!
Sunday, January 6th
we will take a 6 hour bus ride from Lusaka to Livingstone, spend one night, and
then take the ferry across to Chobe National Park in Botswana. We will spend two nights there and take “game
drives” in a boat on the Zambezi River.
They are famous for their elephant herds crossing the river. Then back to Livingstone for two more nights
to visit Victoria Falls where Spencer can take pictures of his favorite thing
to photograph – waterfalls – and this will be the granddaddy of them all! Hopefully Livingstone will have had more rain
than South Luangwa.
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| View from our front porch |
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| Our chalet at Mushroom Lodge, South Luangwa National Park, Zambia |
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