The smoke definitely thunders

What a fantastic weekend in Livingstone! I am going to be raving about this trip for sometime to come. I was sceptical whether one and a half days in Livingstone was worth sitting on a bus for 14 hours, but this trip will inspire me to plan more weekend trips out of Lusaka.

We arrived late Friday evening, after out coach bus almost died three times. It is low season so we had an eight-bed dorm at the backpacker’s hostel to ourselves; thank goodness, I’m not sure I would have been able to handle the chalet being cramped with eight people. We spent Friday night spent cooling down in the pool, watching the mist of the falls puff over the treetops, and enjoying Mosi’s – the local beer named after Victoria Falls (Mosi-oa-Tunya, meaning the smoke that thunders). I actually hate Mosi (bad hangover), but I couldn’t bring myself to dismiss the beer named after the fall, at the falls.

Saturday morning, after a wicked French toast breakfast, off we went to the falls. I couldn’t believe how different it looks, three months later. The Zambezi River is going crazy. According to some residents, the level of the river is 6 weeks too early in the rainy season. The mist got me wet the first time, but now the mist is now a downpour. In fact, it is so heavy that you can’t actually see the falls itself at some points. Now, my next plan is to return in September/October to see the falls during dry season; the river reduces enough that you can walk to the edge of the falls.

After shopping/haggling for crafts and eating a nshima dinner (I will need to devote a separate post on my love hate relationship with nshima – a maize paste, think tasteless mashed potatoes), we went back to the falls to catch the lunar rainbow. The park charged an additional admission (10$US!), but as a “resident” it costs all of 5 000 kwacha, or a little over 1$US. It was a cloudy night, but we were determined to sit by the riverbank and wait for the rainbow. And, sure enough, when a cloud-free patch of sky blew across, the rainbow, a full arc appeared at the top of the falls. A friend has an SLR camera and a 15-second exposure resulted in this pic. You had to be there to feel the coolness of the rainbow. I thought once I saw the rainbow, that would be it. Although the clouds blew over and the rainbow would only last a few minutes at a time, we sat on rocks and waited patiently for more clear sky because when the rainbow appeared, it was magic.

The rest of the night consisted of a slew of random activities that included climbing a baobab tree, checking out what $700 a night at the Zambezi Sun/Royal Livingstone Resort looks like, and more Mosi’s.

Early Sunday morning, we went on a safari. There is a small national park, Mosi-oa-Tunya Park along the Zambezi River. Since safari drives are typical, we decided to try a walking safari. There are no lions or other predators in the parks, so not too much could happen to a human. I don’t have much of an opinion on animals, but when we spotted some giraffes, I felt like I saw something that doesn’t actually exist – like dinosaurs or unicorns. Damn, they were cool. The remainder of the walk included sightings of white rhinos (there are only two in Zambia; we saw them and their two armed guards), impalas, zebras, wildebeests, baboons, monkeys, cranes, birds, spiders, and lots of poo.

I’m back in Lusaka now and going to sleep with magical things to dream about.

Weekend sojourn

I’m off to Livingstone for the weekend… to see the lunar rainbow. I didn’t plan to go to Livingstone again so soon, given that I was there in January, but apparently a rainbow created in the mist of the falls by moonlight is something to see. It sounds cool, but I hope it is worth the 7 hour bus journey. Actually, any chance to get out of Lusaka is worthwhile. So far the weekend itinerary includes seeing Victoria Falls, a safari, craft shopping, and hopefully a cloud free night to see the lunar rainbow.

New Year's recap

Livingstone (Victoria Falls) was the place to be for New Year’s Eve. We stopped at a restaurant on the Zambezi River when we first arrived and it was full of white teenager that we assumed were tourists, specifically the Abercrombie and Finch dressed kind that were eager to get away from their parents. After completely putting them down for being the kind of travellers we would never be, we learned that the majority of them were the kids of white Zambian farmers. So technically, we were more the tourists.

The white Zambian community is tight social circle with the kids going to private schools, sports clubs, and Livingstone parties. The expat community is hard to avoid in Lusaka and little did we know, they too migrate to Livingstone for New Year’s Eve. It seems that development workers either strive to be part of the expat community or else try (and usually fail) to avoid expat functions. I would like to think I can contently be part of both. This will be the topic of a future post, but getting to know and being friends with local black Zambians will take time.

Some British volunteer organised a sunset cruise on the Zambezi River. I initially resisted joining them, but an open bar, sightings of hippos and crocodiles, was worthwhile. In short, when the boat docked, we spent the night dancing away to everything from Zambian pop to reggae to Euro techno. I was happy there was a nice mix of local people, travellers, and expats. The best compliment I’ve received to date was from a Livingstone woman who said, “you Lusaka dweller, you can dance and you will steal our men away.” Hah! Someone probably told her I stay in Lusaka and her judgement of my dancing I’m sure was clouded. Nonetheless, I’ll take the compliments.