September

We returned from our Tazara trip with an appreciation of the finer things in life – mostly a hot shower and a clean bathroom – enough said – a description of the train ablutions is probably best omitted from here, I would hate to put anyone off train travel ...

Choma Life

In early September Paul and his team finished House One, and Jane prepared for the upcoming visit from Lizzie, Tori and Joe – making marmalade from home grown oranges and stocking up the freezer – as well as a first foray into cheese making.  If you want it, you have to make it, that’s the way.

Holiday

Well the day arrived to go to the airport to collect our charges.  We we set off in the Toyota we had hired from our good friend Kissinger – it wasn’t until a few days before we needed it that we finally had a deal in place, phew. We collected the girls and Joe from the airport and headed for a good breakfast at Mugg and Bean, Levy Mall in Lusaka, before we set off on the 4 hour trip to Choma.  A welcome braii was mandatory, then we spent a few days around Choma with some visits around Chodort, the new site, the market, the reading room and of course the museum.

Victoria Falls, Afternoon Tea and a Royal Chat 

  

Victoria Falls without a lot of falls

We all set off for Livingstone to see the sights there – starting with, of course, Victoria Falls, including the very steep walk down to The Boiling Pot where the water looks like just that.  Several vervet monkeys accompanied us and we had been warned of their light fingers – they helped themselves to somebody’s Tango – little monkeys. 

September is when the falls are at their driest and the photo shows the difference with the full flow that we found there in March on our first visit.

Admiring the sunset over the Zambezi
 with a cocktail or two

Next stop was tea – at The Royal Livingstone Hotel -  a touch of luxury in the midst of it all, serving a delicious, full on afternoon tea, with row upon row of cakes and tiny puddings to choose from.  The others elected to stay there the next day too and make the most of the swimming pool overlooking the Zambezi – while we had our VSO reception with Princess Anne no less, at Livingstone Museum.  She was very well informed on what the nine of us were up to and had a work with everyone personally.  Very impressive.

Off on Safari

Good shot Tori

No luxury for long though – we were staying in a five bed room in a backpackers hostel – a good base to explore from, and that’s where we set off on an early  morning start to go on safari to neighbouring Botswana – to Chobe National Park.  After a bit of a commotion at the border we were ushered onto a tiny boat to cross the Zambezi into Botswana, then later we started our morning river cruise.  We had our own guide on the top deck, and he was so proud to point out the wildlife – we saw so much our eyes were out on stalks.

Down to the river to drink

It's a long way down

A lovely lunch was laid on and then we were shown to our safari vehicle – a big open sided truck – we were with some Americans and two English girls who live in the Cayman Islands.  Talk about abundant wildlife – we could hardly turn another corner without seeing animals everywhere -   we counted 22 different species all in all and our cameras hardly stopped clicking.  No way could the batteries last with the hammering they were getting.  We’d been told we would see enough elephants to last a lifetime, (if that’s possible then it’s true) and there were tall gangly giraffes with a sort of folding tripod/deckchair method of reaching down to the water to drink.  We saw hippos and  crocodiles, zebra, sable and warthogs, and we quickly learnt the difference between kudu, impala and lechwe.  It’s all in the stripes.

S -t - r - e - t - c - h

We arrived at our camp in the late afternoon – to find a crescent of 2 man tents around an open fire, reassuringly a trestle table that was later laden with a delicious meal as well as boxes of wine – yes really! We were warned not to wander off into the bush (would you really need to be told) and our guides also told us that the sound we could hear was the lions calling to each other – there was an elephant carcass 50 metres from our camp so they were sharing the news.  We all slept well and after breakfast we set off again – we immediately saw two lions feeding on the carcass – wonderful to see so close up – one patrolling and scaring away the hovering vultures while the other one fed. We spent the day on safari, and amongst everything else we saw lions again, sleeping and then waking and stretching – such a sight.

Sunset over the Kalahari

Lake Kariba

Chilling out on one of our sunset cruises

We made our way back to Choma and our second trip was to Lake Kariba – irresistible as we had loved it there before – lots of lovely meals, relaxing by the pool and game viewing trips out on the old capenta rig – more elephants and hippos to be seen living here.  

One prize fisherman - one Tiger Fish

Our trips were soon all over and back to our base, and we had just enough time to visit Rosemary the UCZ caregiver and her children in her village.  We visited them bearing a few gifts such as a football and some notebooks and pens, which all went down very well.  

Spot the football in action

Soon time for the airport again though for the flights home, and Paul and Jane returned to Choma, ready to move house two days later.  No pressure there then!