Never say never

Cast your mind way back to January, 2010.  There was I, your humble blogger, at the end of a long stint bouncing around Africa in the back of a big orange truck, sick to death of tents, sleeping bags, camp food and the continent in general.  During a short pause in Livingstone, Zambia, my last stop in Africa, I packed up a load of stuff – souvenirs, sleeping bag, a camping mattress, unwanted clothing, gifts and other assorted gack, and sealed it all up in a big cardboard box swathed in an entire roll of saran wrap and packing tape.  Then it was off to the post office in Livingstone where I was charged the usurious sum of 453,000 Zambian Kwacha (a bit better than $100 CAD) and trusted the good people of Zambia Post to see the whole bunch back to Winnipeg.  

 
Fellow overland traveller Terrence, and the package, 12-Jan-2010.

And then there was waiting.  Karen & Steve in Winnipeg, me in a series of other countries you’ve already heard about.  And we waited.  And we waited.  Three months. Six months. Ten months… nothing.  And I’m sorry to say that by about the 6 month mark my faith in Zambia Post was non-existent.  I was quite certain that someone somewhere had helped him or herself to the interesting bits of the package and the rest was tipped into the garbage, never to be seen again.  The most distressing thing was that Laurie had loaned me her much-thicker-more-comfortable therma-rest mattress before she departed in Dar Es Salaam, taking my thin-and-easier-to-pack one home with her.  So that was gone, which naturally made me feel like a bit of a heel.  Also gone was the sleeping bag I’d bought just for the African sojourn, and a black and white painting of zebras and a carved wooden giraffe I’d bought for myself, and some Zanzibar spices and other bits I’d bought for people.

 
The giraffe carving I bought at Kande Beach, Malawi, and the guy who sold it to me.

But I was philosophical about it all.  Spending a year travelling as I did, with only the contents of one carry-on sized bag, I gained a more relaxed, easy-come-easy-go attitude to physical possessions in general.  Especially ones I’d been parted from for months on end.  So I apologized profusely to Laurie (who refused to let me buy her a new therma-rest), and had a brief period of mourning for my wooden giraffe, and got on with my life.

And now for the bit you’ve already guessed was coming. 

I’d just got back to London from my Christmas break back in Canada, and I mean just.  I’d fetched up at the doorstep - after three flights, two layovers, two airline-sized bottles of Chardonnay, one Gravol, an interminable wait for luggage and an hour long tube-ride from Heathrow - at about 1:00pm on Tuesday, January 3rd.  At 6:15pm the same day, just as I was finishing a jet-lag defying 7km run, I got a text message from Karen: 

“Check your email… now.”

Hmmm… intriguing. 

The email said:

“You will never guess what Canada Post delivered today.”

Yep.  The prodigal package, looking distinctly worse for wear, had finally finished its epic journey.  And it managed to arrive just 30 hours too late for me to greet it myself, in person.  Good timing!

Weird Food Steve received the package, and reported that it had “been through the wars”.  He was also clever enough to takes some pictures!

 
The package, after 357 days in transit. It looks sort of like I felt in the same circumstances.  In fact, this poor box was on the road for seven days LONGER than I was.  No wonder it looks a bit rough around the edges… literally. (And I notice my return address mysteriously migrated from the top of the box to the side... neat trick.)

Most miraculous of all was the fact that everything that I’d put in the box a year ago in Zambia was still in the box when it arrived in Winnipeg. (Though I use the term “box” loosely, since it would best be described as a “bundle” or “lump” after 357 of RTW travel).  The painting, the giraffe, the therma-rest, the sleeping bag, the gifts… everything.  Even a mouldy baggie of vanilla beans purchased on the cheap at the market in Zanzibar. 

So to Zambia Post, Canada Post, and whatever other postal systems were involved (Albania? Faulkland Islands? Venus?): I apologize for doubting you.  And thanks.  Now how about that other package I sent on the same day… to Calgary?

The last day in Africa, Part Two

I’ve said it before, but a lot can happen in a day on a trip like this. Swimming at the edge of Victoria Falls, having an eggs Benedict breakfast on Livingstone Island, bluffing our way through a five star resort, and walking to Zimbabwe… all that was over by lunch time on my last day in Africa. The afternoon had very very different things in store. I mentioned that we met the guy who runs the bungee jump, right? Well that’s NOT what I did. I went to a different place where, for a mere 85 USD (instead of over a hundred for one lousy bungee jump) I got to do abseiling (rappelling for us North Americans) and a zip line thing called The Flying Fox, and something else called a Gorge Swing. Twice.

My companion for the afternoon was Jon, a guy from a different overland truck that was on the same route we were on. We kept running into him and his truck mates at every campground and struck up a friendship with them. I’d kind of been thinking about a bungee jump but the 85 dollar “Adrenalin Package” seemed like good value for money with some variety thrown in too, so when I found out Jon was going to do the same package I was right in there.

We had a bumpy ride out to the gorge on benches in the open back of a pickup truck accompanied by nine young Spanish guys who piled in and proceeded to talk very loudly, drop things on the road that required we go back and look for them, and generally be a bit annoying. In any case, we made it to the gorge.

A picture of the gorge in question, the name of which I never knew

Nikki and Alex from my truck where there when we arrived – they’d booked the whole day package and had been there since 9am. They looked knackered by the time Jon and I rolled up and ended up packing it in just as we arrived (but before giving us a crucial bit of insider info). Then we got a bit of a briefing and Jon and I hopped to the front of the line while the Spaniards sorted themselves out. It was abseiling first, which I’ve done before, though that was ages ago. Somehow I ended up going first, and acquitted myself fairly decently. Jon started out well but lost the knack about half way down and ended up dangling awkwardly for a while before finding his rhythm again.

Jon getting kitted out for the abseil

And then it was time for the part that Alex and Nikki decided not to warn us about – the walk back up. We were told at our briefing that getting back up from the bottom of the abseil and the gorge swing would be about a 10-15 minutes walk, but that doesn’t really do it justice. It felt like much longer in the heat, especially the first time when we weren’t even sure we were going the right direction. Suddenly it was easy to understand why Alex and Nikki had given up after half a day. Four trips up from the floor of that gorge would be enough for anyone. (And of course I have no pictures of the walk back up because I did not bring my camera with me while I was abseiling.)

Once we made it back up, sweaty and exhausted and puffing, we got ready for the Flying Fox. This was simply a horizontal cable strung across the gorge with a pulley on it. You’d clip in to the pulley and then take a running start off the edge of the cliff and glide as far along the cable as momentum would carry you. The deal was that if you made it all the way to the other side, you’d get your money back. I suspect that’s never happened. However, you do get the chance to strike goofy poses during the leisurely dangling time while they reel you back in to the starting platform.

See?

It was disquieting taking a running leap off the edge of a cliff, but the second time around it was much better. It really was a lot of fun, largely because it didn’t involve the bloody hike up Kilimanjaro before you could try it again.

The main event, though, was definitely the Gorge Swing. They were very crafty about how they get you warmed up for that too. The abseil is quite tame, but it gives you a chance to get used to the harnesses and it does involve going over the edge, albeit in as slow and controlled a way as you want. The Flying Fox requires a bigger leap of faith but you’ve still got the reassuring tug of the clip on your harness telling you that you’re safe. The Gorge Swing is hard core. It’s basically a bungee jump, but instead of going head first and bouncing up and down at the bottom you go upright and swing back and forth at the bottom. But the essentials are the same: you step off a precipice and freefall for a while until a rope or cord gets tension and stops your downward motion (or so you hope).

And once again, somehow I ended up going first. Probably lots of you have done something like this, so you may be familiar with the feeling of standing on the edge. I was a bit surprised at how nervous I was. We had the option of going facing front or back, and though my original intention was to go front-first, when I got up there I changed my mind and decided to go backwards. So I turned around and Fred, the Jump Master (or Gorge Captain or Chief Masochist or whatever he’s called) started to wrap a short piece of webbing around my ankles. I said, “Whoa whoa whoa. What’s that for? I don’t like that!” He said that if I wanted to go backwards it was necessary to strap my legs together so the rope couldn’t get between them while I was falling. I don’t know why it felt so yucky, but it’s just possible that I was not thinking entirely rationally at that point. In any case, I decided to turn around and go forwards.

So there I was, strapped into two different harnesses, standing on the edge of a cliff getting ready to step off. It was incredibly hard. When you bungee jump often they’ll give you a little push to get you going, but that was not the policy here. If you don’t take the step, you don’t go. Finally Fred got me calmed down – they really were a calm and pleasant bunch of guys, which is precisely the kind of people you want around for this kind of thing, I think. So Fred calmed me down and I stood looking out into thin air, and there was a countdown, and I stepped.

It was a 53 metre freefall before the rope took tension and I started swinging and knew I was not going to die. About 174 feet. And this is the part where I’m supposed to say something like, “OH MY GAAAAAAWD, it was SOOOOOOOOO incredible! I LLLOOOOOOOVVVVEEEDDD it!” Yeah, well NOT. Taking that step and experiencing the freefall – it was one of the most unnatural things I’ve ever felt. I didn’t scream because my mind was frozen. It was like I could not process what was going on except that it was wrong wrong wrong. So naturally I hiked up out of the gorge with Jon and we did it again.

Well, the “Adrenalin Package” included two gorge swings after all, and I figured that the second time would be better. I knew what was coming, so I’d be able to enjoy it more. Ummm, no. As soon as I took the step on my second jump, it felt exactly the same. Wrong. Awful. Scary. Jon had gone ahead on our second round and as I was being lowered down he called up to ask how I was. I said, “I’ve decided I don’t like this.” And I really, really meant it. I certainly don’t regret doing it, and I’m glad I went back the second time because now I know, with perfect certainty, that freefall is not my thing. I really hope that the next time the temptation comes along I’ll be able to resist it.

Thankfully they had a cooler of soft drinks and beer, so after our last sweaty hike out of the valley there was a bit of relief. And the driver agreed to make the trip back to the hotel just for us instead of making us wait for all the Spaniards to get finished. The ride was much more pleasant with the addition of a cold beer, and the pool at the campground was cool and refreshing. I had a quiet dinner with a few people from the truck, sitting on the deck overlooking the Zambezi river. And later that evening Fred and Dominic from the Gorge Gang showed up and we had a nice time chatting with them about the afternoon. Fred confirmed about about 15% of people who attempt the swing back out without taking the big step. And he told me that I was traveling - well, falling - at fifteen metres per second. No wondering it felt a bit disquieting.

Sunset on the Zambezi

And, most importantly, no one asked me to step off any more cliffs for the whole rest of the day.

And now I'm in Jordan, getting ready to embark on another organized tour, this one through Jordan and Egypt. It's a real "greatest hits" of the region - Petra, Wadi Rum, Bedouins, camel riding, the pyramids, cruising the Nile, climbing Mount Sinai, the Valley of the Kings - I'm looking forward to it very much. And there will be no camping, except for one night with the Bedouins, and I bet we don't have to flap our dishes.

Africa already seems like a faraway memory, and there are loads of things I never got around to telling you about - like how Charles our cook once gathered up the leftovers from lunch when we were stopped by the road and gave them to a guy nearby who was cutting grass with a scythe, and called him brother. It was just a bag of cold spaghetti and a rinsed-out pickle jar of orange drink, but you could tell the guy really appreciated it.

Charles

And I never told you about sausage trees! We saw them on the Serengeti, and when one of the group referred to them as sausage trees, I knew what she meant right away. Then I asked our jeep driver what they're really called and he said, "Sausage trees". And you can see why, it looks like they are growing big salamis:

A Sausage Tree on the Serengeti

And the houses in Malawi and Zambia! We passed by lots of small settlements and most of them were made up of small round huts with wattle-and-daub kind of walls and shaggy thatched roofs that look like they need a haircut. They seemed like something out of another time, yet sometimes you'd see people outside them texting on a cell phone. Africa really is a land of contrasts.

Shaggy houses, in a random spot where we had to stop to change a flat tire. (have a look over at Flickr for shots of the chunk of metal we ran over. Impressive)

And finally let me just say that if I ever, ever, hear the Toto song "Africa" again in my life, I may scream. Honestly, anyone who's ever had to kneel in the mud to pack up a wet tent would never want to "...bless the rains down in Africa". And Paul Simon's "Diamonds on the Soles of her Shoes" is on serious probation, too. Ah, Africa.

Saving the best for last

My last day in Africa was the best day I’ve had in a long, long time, and that includes lion walking and helicopter riding. I went on a trip to Livingstone Island – a tiny spot of land that perches right on the edge of Victoria Falls. Terrence booked too; he and I ended up doing a lot of the same activities in Livingstone. This was partly because we had similar interests and partly because most of our group decided to go to the Zimbabwe side of the falls on Tuesday, but the Zimbabwe visa cost 65 USD for Canadians, and the entrance to the Falls park cost another 20 USD. Terrence and I (the only Canadians) decided to skip that $85 hit in favour of the package-mailing, fried-worm-restaurant-finding expedition to Livingstone Town instead. That meant that we missed seeing the falls on the day everyone else did, so we were keen to go the next day.


That start point for the 9:00 am trip was the Royal Livingstone Hotel, the only five star establishment in the area and the nicest hotel in Zambia (I think I heard that anyways). Whatever its rating, it was trés posh. It has that grand British colonial atmosphere with ranks of lazy ceiling fans and acres of white draperies and the nicest bathrooms I’ve seen since… well since a very very long time. I almost wanted to skip the island and just hang out in the lobby of the hotel except that I’m pretty sure they would have ejected us (politely, of course) after our grubby clothing stained their white upholstery.

The Royal Livingstone, estimated cost for a room was around $400-500 USD per night

I turned out there would only be three of us on the trip, and the third member of the party was a guy that Terrence and I had already met on our lion walk on Monday morning and on the helicopter ride on Monday afternoon. We were practically best buddies. And our guide was David, who was the brother of Lacken, the lion walking guide. Africa is big, but I guess Livingstone is very small.

The ride out to the island was very short but the water looked tricky, with lots of strange eddies and currents. We were in a small motorboat and made the trip in just a few minutes. David Livingstone made his first trip in a dugout canoe in 1855, which seems mildly insane given that there’s a 110 metre drop if you get a bit off course and run out of arm power to paddle against the current to get back on track. Not to mention the crocodiles.

David our guide told us we’d come at a really good time – the water level was high, but not so high that the island was washed out. There are times when they have to take much smaller boats because the pathways on the island get flooded and the smaller boats are narrow enough to navigate those paths during high water. And at other times of the year big chunks of the 1.7km length of the falls dry up completely. We had a short walk across the island, past the “Loo with a View” and the area where they’d be serving us breakfast after our tour of the island.

Are you kidding me?

The views of the falls were, of course, spectacular. We saw the Zambian side on the right, and then walked a bit and had a look at the more impressive Zimbabwe side. I also had a bit of a mission on the island. The day before - January 12th - I’d woken early and spent a bit of time wandering quietly in the campground. Sometimes I like to look at my calendar and see what I was doing exactly one year ago, and that morning something made me do just that. When I saw the appointment in my calendar for January 12th, 2009, my heart just froze. All it said was “3:00pm - Henry”. It was the day I took my poor sick hound to the vet and the day he didn’t come home. It almost made me cry again remembering, and I felt awful that I would have forgotten completely if I hadn’t had the notion to look at my calendar. So as I wandered and remembered, I decided something.

When I got Henry’s ashes back from the vet I scattered some of them at the dog park at the end of the street, and some of them at the kennel where he was born. But I did keep a tiny container along with his collar and a few other Henry things, and that all went into storage in Winnipeg. And I kept an even tinier container that I brought with me on my travels, attached to the zipper pull of one of my little gadget bags. The thought was that I’d wait until I found the most beautiful spot in the world, and leave that tiny bit of Henry there. I’m not sure if Victoria Falls is the most beautiful place on earth, but the coincidence of the dates and the location and the unexpected whim to check the calendar made it seem like it was the right time and place.

So I stood on Livingstone Island and took my photos and clutched that tiny half-a-cubic centimetre of my buddy in my hand. The trouble is that Victoria Falls is a National Park, so it’s technically illegal to take anything away or leave anything behind. (Dear Falls Park Ranger Patrol: Please don’t arrest me. It really was a very very tiny container. And he really was a very very good hound.) So I sneakily waited until the guide was turned away taking a picture for Terrence and I sent Mr. Henry over the Victoria Falls container and all, with a quick left-handed underarm.

The Zimbabwe side, and the vantage point from whence Mr. Henry was launched.

With that taken care of, it was back to the fun stuff. David asked if anyone wanted to go in the water. Terrence had really been hoping for this chance, but we weren’t at all sure it would come. The most famous swimming spot on the island is called The Devil’s Pool, and is out on the Zimbabwe side. You have to follow a rope strung out in to the water to get to it, but once there you’re in a deep natural pool right on the edge of the falls, with a wall that stops you from going over. We’d been told that the Devil’s Pool was closed due to the high water, but also heard there was another spot where you could go in. This was the spot David proposed, so we decided to go for it.

Well it was simply fantastic. There was a local guy there in the water to show you how to get in, and the other guides took our cameras and shot picture after picture of the whole thing. The pool was about six or eight feet from the edge and about four to five feet deep. The water fell into it from above, filled the pool and then spilled over and went on to the edge. It was great.

Terrence was excited.

We bobbed around in that pool for a while smiling stupidly and shaking our heads in disbelief at the whole thing. And then the local guy who was in the water with us tapped me on the shoulder and crooked his finger for me to follow him, so of course I did. It turns out he was leading me to another pool that was right on the very edge. He carefully told me how to get there, “Put your foot here. Sit here. Slide in. Stand here.” And then I was on the edge of Victoria Falls with water streaming past all around me. I could look over from behind a natural wall and see the bottom, and my fingertips rested on the corner of oblivion. I was only there for a few minutes, but there were some of the most amazing minutes of my life.

David was even clever enough to take some video. It’s grainy, but it gives you the idea. There really are no words for what this felt like.

Terrence got his turn on the edge too, and then we reluctantly hoisted ourselves out of the water and dried off with the towels provided, and sat down for our “light” breakfast: fresh coffee, muffins and scones, and eggs Benedict.

Are you kidding me? Swimming on the edge of Victoria Falls, and then this?

And all this was before 10:30 in the morning and cost just 60 USD. It might have been the best money I’ve spent on the trip so far. In fact at one point during the morning I said to Terrence that it felt we’d won some kind of reward challenge on “Survivor”. I could just hear Jeff Probst saying something like, “The tribe that eats the most mopane worms in the shortest time will win a trip to Livingstone Island where you’ll swim right up to the edge of Victoria Falls and then enjoy a delicious breakfast in view of the natural wonder of the falls.”

In fact the morning just kept being sort of charmed. We went back the the Royal Livingstone and I had a second visit to the nicest bathrooms in Zambia, and then went to sit outside to wait for a taxi and reapply my sunscreen. As soon as I stepped out of the front of the hotel and sat down on the bench provided a choir of four men and four women who were waiting at the entrance broke into an a capella song and dance. It was just bizarre and charming, and if that’s what it’s like to stay in a five star hotel then that’s something I should really do more often. In fact I think I need to go stay at that very hotel some time before I die.

The choir (more video!!)

We ended up getting a free Royal Livingstone shuttle to the slightly-less-fancy hotel next door, where there was a private path to the falls. (There were also giraffes and zebras wandering on the grounds, including a knot of three zebras standing on a median in the parking lot.) We thought the jig might be up when we found out access to the path was restricted to hotel residents, but then Terrence befriended Ceasar the security guard who decided he’d personally escort us through the grounds to the correct gate. I strongly suspect that the $10 USD park entrance fee we paid to a miscellaneous uniformed guard at this gate will never make it into the coffers of the national parks system, but since we would have had to pay it if we’d gone to the proper public gate, I bear no grudge.

We had a nice wander along the paths and took many many photos of the falls, and Terrence took many many photos of the bridge that links Zambia and Zimbabwe because he’s a Bridge Geek of the highest order. And then we walked out along the bridge, all the way to the middle where you can hop back and forth across the line that separates the two countries. I suppose technically I could declare Zimbabwe country number 19, but since I didn’t actually pass through customs and was really only there for about fifteen seconds, I think I’ll let it lie.

Another money shot of the falls

The bridge is also where they do bungee jumping, and the guy who runs the bungee outfit - a British ex-pat - ended up chatting with Terrence about the bridge, and about his big plans for the business, and about how incredibly safe bungee jumping is and on and on. At least he was enthusiastic. When we walked back to the Zambia side to find a cab, Mr. Bungee was there too and offered to give us a ride back to the hotel, saving us 50,000 Kwacha. Like I said, it was a charmed morning.

In fact it was such a full morning that I think I’ll save the story of the afternoon for another post. And trust me, you won’t want to miss that one.

Note: I'm writing and posting this from Amman, Jordan, having made my escape from Africa on January 14th. The first hotel I booked in Amman turned out to be a little sad, and really not what I wanted for a couple of days of R&R. So after a few minutes of dithering in my dingy room, I repacked my bag, hopped in a cab, and upgraded to a place that's three times more expensive but makes me one thousand times happier. I've got highspeed wifi and satellite tv in the room, and there's a complimentary breakfast buffet, and a Fitness Centre with treadmills where I plan to have my first run in 27 days this afternoon. There's even a Qu'uran in the wardrobe and a sticker on the ceiling pointing the direction to pray in. Oh, and they brought me a complimentary plate of fruit and a bottle of water after I checked in. And I had a room service supper last night. I've also managed to get all my Africa photos uploaded to Flickr, and even organized into sets, which is how I'd recommend looking at them. I haven't had a chacne to label them yet, but may get to that as well.

So things are good. I'm clean and relaxed and starting to feel caught up. My "Jordan and Egypt Adventure" tour with Imaginative Traveler starts on the 17th, but until then I'm just enjoying the good life.

Steve's Weird Food for Zambia, The "Survivor: Africa" Edition

It had to happen. I was in Africa after all, so eventually something creepy-crawly had to show up on a menu. See if you can pick it out from this picture:

You might have to click over to Flickr to get a better look, but yes, it’s that starter called IHNKUBALA. Mopane Worms (pron0unced moe- PAH-nay). Yup. Worms.

It was going to be our last supper together as a group, and Terrence and I were assigned to scout out a location since we were going in to Livingstone town that day to do a few errands. I had to mail home a big package containing my no-longer-necessary camping gear (halleluljah!), a few small souvenirs and gifts, and some assorted stuff that was being abandoned but not discarded. (This is distinct from the t-shirt I planned to abandon but instead traded at a carving market just outside the gates of our campground in Chitimba, Malawi. My old blue t-shirt + 300 Malawi Kwacha got me a nice carved giraffe from a guy who said his name was “Happy Pineapple”).

Here is Mr. Pineapple, showing off my giraffe, and holding the t-shirt that is no longer mine.

But back to the worms. As I said, Terrence and I were in charge of finding the dinner spot, and when we checked out Ngoma Zanga and I saw they actually had worms on the menu I knew with queasy certainty that I’d found my weird food for Zambia. Everyone else seemed fine with the choice of restaurant, but they were mostly interested in the “chicken in peanut sauce pounded by village wives”. In any case the reservation was made and by about 8:00pm the order was placed. Surprisingly, I was the only one who ordered a starter and too soon, it arrived:

With onions. Yeah, I'm sure the onions will make ALL the difference.

They were… not awful. Pan-fried and a bit chewy, the flavour was something in between liver and dirt. In fact it was the gritty texture that was the most off-putting part. I found myself thinking something along the lines of, “If worms eat dirt… and I’m eating worms… then…”. It was a bit like mussels that haven’t been properly prepared and are still sandy. I suppose the trick of soaking mussels in a bowl of water and flour to get them to expel the sand in their systems has no equivalent procedure in the world of mopane worm cookery. Still, I did manage to pawn off a few worms on other adventurous souls at the table, and I consumed more than one worm myself.

Yum!

However, I did not clean my plate. On the Steve’s Weird Food scorecard, I’d have to say that mopane worms rank very very close to pig ears as the nastiest bit of “food” I’ve consumed. Even chili sauce did not help the effort much, though the onions actually did. Like the pig ears, it wasn’t the flavour that was the problem, it was the texture.

Nevertheless, we did have a reasonable meal at Ngoma Zanga, which means “my drums” (and there were drums, played for the entire meal by guys in big African masks, because the drums must never stop*). The staff were earnest with their service but remarkably incompetent. They started strong by assigning us each a number and carefully writing each order down with our numbers, but when the food arrived it was chaos. There was a lot of wandering around with plates trying to determine who ordered which particular combination of veggies and meat. And don’t get me started about when the bills arrived. Ah, too late. I think every cheque was totted up incorrectly, always in favour of the restaurant. Simple things like adding 10,000 to 69,300 would result in a total of 80,300. Sorting it all our took a comically (and tragically) long amount of time and effort.

The gang, at supper

And getting a cab back to the campsite was a whole other adventure. There were ten of us so we needed two empty cabs, end even then we were crammed in with four across the back seat. When we wandered out and flagged down a couple of cabs two stopped. This was perfect, except the first one that stopped already had two passengers, and the second had one. This turned out to be no problem because after all, it was Africa. The first driver simply ejected his two passengers and sped off with five people from our group. The poor locals who’d been kicked out then crossed the street and got in the second cab, along with the passenger who was already there.

My group of five had to wait a bit for another cab which arrived reasonably quickly and refreshingly empty. However with four of us crammed in the back seat the suspension (or something mechanical in the vicinity of the left rear tire) made alarming grinding moaning noises for the whole ride. This didn’t slow down our driver, who managed to get up to about 90 km/h by the time he hit the speed bump he forgot was there. Keep in mind that speed bumps in Africa are serious business – much higher and longer than the domestic variety. And keep in mind this was a car with questionable shock-absorption capabilities. At least our driver had a sense of humour, and we ended up laughing and joking with him after we peeled ourselves off the roof of the car.

In the end we all made it back to camp safely, and we laughed about the ride. I was just happy to have chalked up another weird food, and relieved that it looks like I might escape Africa without having to eat anything with six legs.

* That’s from a bad joke, which I will retell here only on request.

Another day at the office

From the Twitter feed:

Day 211: Another day at the office: walk with lions, pet them, hold their tails, full English brekky, helicopter ride over Vic Falls. Ho-hum.

I think I deserved it. After my two and a half days off at Kande Beach we had three long driving days to get to Livingstone, Zambia. That’s three more days of very early morning starts (sometimes as early as 5:30am). And three more days of bouncing around on the dusty truck, trying to kill time. And three more days of dirt and mud and tents and cold showers. I’m not ashamed to admit that I’m fed up with the whole routine.

Now, though, we’re finally in Livingstone and I’ve bounced down my last kilometre of African road in the big orange truck and flapped my last plate. We’re at a campground / resort on the banks of the Zambezi river, and if you peer to the left from the bar you can see the mists of Victoria Falls in the distance. So even though the upgrades are really expensive, and the beer is somewhat expensive, and the food is not included, it’s nice to have landed. (The other drag is that the place is a $10 cab ride outside of the city, and we are strongly discouraged from walking in to town because we’re almost certain to be mugged on the road. It’s a real hotspot…. charming.)

But all that doesn’t matter, because this morning I got to walk with lions! Real African lions, that I walked with, even holding onto the lion’s tail like a leash, and actually got to touch and pet. This is all because I paid a whack of money to participate in one of the 9 zillion tourist activities that are offered all over Livingstone, including: elephant rides, quad biking, river cruises, helicopter rides over the falls, microlight rides over the falls, rhino walks, crocodile farm visits, bungee jumping, gorge swinging, zip lining, whitewater rafting, jet boating, canoeing, horseback riding, paintball, village volunteering, safari walks, golf and, of course, clay pigeon shooting. (Actually, the clay pigeon shooting is not available right now because clay pigeons are out of season. They’re really making an effort to preserve Africa’s native clay pigeon population by carefully regulating the recreational clay pigeon hunt.)

I picked the lions/helicopter combo package, though I was really torn between lions and elephants. In the end I decided it was likely that I might encounter elephants again in Asia, but the chance to get up close with a lion would probably not be repeated.

The day started with a 6:15am pickup from the campsite – I was going with Terrence (the truck surfer) from my Dragoman group. (It’s a bit strange that we’re not doing things as a whole group anymore – everyone is off to do their own things, though we are having dinner together tonight). We got to the Lion Encounter centre and had a brief safety talk – don’t wear anything dangly, don’t crouch down, don’t touch their face or ears, don’t panic, don’t run, stand your ground (yeah, right!). Then we were off to meet the lions. Our group of ten was divided in two, and each fivesome had a guide. We walked for a bit, and our guide pointed out hippo tracks and elephant dung and stuff, and then we caught up to where our lions were waiting with the handlers.

Our lions, Rusha and Rundi, both females about 14 months old. And yes, we were that close.

Our guide, Lacken, showed us how to approach the lions and then invited us over, one by one, to pet them.

Me, petting a lion. Seriously. You all need to quit your jobs and come do this.

The “walk with lions” encounter is run by a group call ALERT the African Lion & Environmental Research Trust. It’s a very new program – only started a year ago. Their aim is to produce completely wild lions, even whole prides, to introduce all over Africa. They plan to do this in four stages, only the first of which is operational so far.

1. In Stage One, lions as young as six weeks are taken on walks to allow them to build their confidence in the African bush and allow their natural hunting instincts to develop; a necessary part of their pre-release training.
2. In Stage Two the lions are given the opportunity to develop a natural pride social system in a minimum 500 acre enclosure. They will have plenty of game to hunt and will remain in stage two until they are socially stable and self-sustaining.
3. The pride in stage two are released into a larger managed eco-system where they will have to deal with competitive species such as hyena. The pride will give birth to cubs that will be raised in a wild environment, within a natural pride social system and with no human contact; making them effectively wild lions.
   
4. When old enough, the cubs born in stage three can be released into the great wilderness of Africa with all the skills and human avoidance behaviors of any wild-borne cub.

So we were walking with Stage One lions (Stage Two’s fence is still under construction). And walk we did. Strolling along with out guide, two lion handlers, and two volunteers with the ALERT program (there was also a man with a gun who went on ahead to prevent us from running into anything unexpected, like a wild elephant or a hippo or mugger). The guide had us all walk behind Rundi and hold her tail, which seemed a bit weird, but here’s the picture anyways:

Goofy expression, but what do you expect, I’m walking holding on to a freakin’ lion’s tail! (Photo by Terrence)

The walk went on for about an hour. We had lots of chances to take photos, and touch the lions, and I had to keep reminding myself to stay alert and on guard because they really were docile. The guide explained lots about them, and showed us their teeth and their claws.

Terrence’s shot of the lion’s dewclaw and paw and the guide’s hand. Apparently the paws continue growing for their whole lives. The largest ones ever found were on a monstrous male lion and were about the size of a dinner plate.

After the walk we went back to the Centre and had a nice full English breakfast, and they tried to sell us the DVD they’d made of our walk. Terrence and I both decided not to pay the $35 USD for that, on the grounds that is made us look fat. Also it was pretty cheesy, though it’s impressive they could turn them around in the time it took us to eat our beans and toast.

Gratuitous lion photo, this one is also by Terrence, who has a much nicer camera than me and even knows what lots of the buttons do.

And that was the morning. Blah blah blah. After a break at the hotel, Terrence and I were off again at 2pm for our afternoon adventure – a 15 minute helicopter flight over Victoria Falls. (Hell, in for a penny, right?). It will likely be the most expensive 15 minutes of my trip (about $120 US, bundled with the lions the package was $210), but it was an amazing perspective, and I’d never been in a helicopter before, and it seemed like another one of those can’t-do-it-anywhere-else things, so I went for it.

Our heliocopter – it was a tiny 4-seater, which was perfect, because it meant all three passengers got a window seat.

I liked flying in the helicopter – it was really smooth. I almost couldn’t tell when we’d lifted off – it was almost more like being in the hot air balloon than being in a fixed-wing aircraft. And the view was pretty great. I had no real idea that Victoria Falls looked like that – it’s nothing like Niagara or those kinds of falls – it doesn’t just fall over an edge and then continue on straight from there. The river falls over a cliff into a deep gorge that runs at right angles to it, making a sharp left turn. And the whole area upriver of the falls is dotted with islands, including the famous Livingstone Island, named after David Livingstone, who “discovered” the falls. (That is to say that he was the first white guy to see them, though they’d really been there all along. The natives in the area called the falls “the smoke that thunders”.)

You really can’t get THAT view from anywhere else.

Was it a $120 view? I’m not sure, but I also don’t regret going. The microlight might have been able to get closer, but you can’t take a camera with you on those flights, which really made up my mind.

And that was my day. Now I’m off to try and get this blog posted, and then to have a shower and head into town for a last dinner with the gang. I leave for Jordan on Thursday, so I’ve still got two more full days here; stay tuned from more expensive and fun activities. I’m planning on doing some of the fling-yourself-over-a-precipice kind of things, and I may try to get out to Livingstone Island because it really does perch right on the edge of the falls, which would be another can’t-do-it-anywhere-else thing.

It’s just really too bad about the clay pigeons.