Viewing the animals and canoeing on the Zambezi

Included in the room rates is a choice of short walking safaris (dependent on seasons and the length of the grass), evening “booze cruises” on the river and canoeing safaris. We joined the evening cruises on Friday and Sunday evenings and went out in Ryan’s boat on the Thursday evening. The organized cruise goes in a circle around the island that is about 5km long, and there is always a variety of game to view, and how close you get is a matter of luck..

In spite of our better judgment four of us decided we would go on the canoeing trip that on the morning after the wedding

The guided canoeing trip left at 06.30 with a planned duration of about 2.5 hours.

The canoes are towed behind a boat up stream about 8km to an island and then we drifted/ paddled downstream, mostly through wetlands looking at birds, impala, crocs, elephants and hippo. Some were as close as about 10 meters. 

Everything went well in the beginning, but we had a late start and for the last 45 minutes or so we battled winds that kept pushing us sideways and into the reeds and grass. Al shared the boat with our very knowledgeable guide Stafford and Mary Anne and I was with her partner Costa, a friend of the groom’s parents.

It was a unique and thought provoking experience. You are essentially at nature’s pleasure. Crocs are not generally problem (when they are it is a BIG problem! but hippo are large, remarkably agile and can spoil your day in a big hurry. Certainly true in a canoe, and to mostly the same extent in a larger boat, as we discovered the following week at Hippo Lodge. In general animals in the wild only react when surprised, or when they are hungry. With sufficient notice of your presence they would rather get out of the way as we saw time after time. Having said all of that the adrenalin gets going as you drift within 10 meters of them as they control the stage.

After a couple of hours I saw Stafford on the radio coordinating our pick up and we were back in camp for a late breakfast and to observe the walking wounded from the previous evening’s revelries.

 Inside an anthill that had partially collapsed in the river. Highly structured including multi level "parking" below left!

Sunday evening we all took the last “booze cruise” in a couple of boats and enjoyed seeing more animals in their natural environment. 

Elephant are truly incredible animals and large but graceful. Why anyone would want to shoot one is beyond my imagination.

Kanyemba and the wedding

Kanyemba has about 12 chalets that sleep between 2 and 6 people and is full catering. All they are of traditional design with pole beams and thatched roofs. All the beds have mosquito nets and a nice bathroom with showers and hot and cold running water. All if this located about 10 meters off the Zambezi River. 

There is a bar and dining area where some meals are served inside (well under the shelter but not closed walls, and some outside under the stars. The food was generally a fixed menu (you cannot just run down to Whole Foods) but was excellent.

There is also a tented camp in an island immediately in front of Kanyemba and this was the location for the actual wedding ceremony. The main party stayed on the island and there were boats to shuttle people back and forth.

I think there were about 80 guests for the wedding with some staying in different camps a couple of kilometers away. People had traveled from the USA (us three) Australia, South Africa, and the UK as well as Zimbabwe and of course Zambia. There were also 4 generations represented with Tanya’s grandmother (92 I think, and baby Louise at about 3 months)

Most of the guests arrived during the day on Friday and everyone pitched in to help with the preparations. While the wedding ceremony was on the island the reception was back at the main camp and dining area.

The island has many permanent inhabitants but no permanent people. The main inhabitants are some elephants and they have their views about the invasion of people. While we were carrying over some of the flowers etc for the ceremony one older gray gentleman announced his displeasure and was a little agitated for a few minutes. I think they figured out that the invasion was temporary but the day after the wedding they had pushed over some trees where photos were take and generally announced their displeasure.

The wedding venue is spectacular with views out over the Zambezi and some wetlands in the foreground. 

All the decorations were ferried over in small boats during the day and the wedding was at 4pm. 

 Herman, The bride's dad with his tux hanging from his shirt.

 

All went according to plan and then the guests were ferried back to the main camp for drinks appetizers and soon a delicious dinner that included roast lamb, and some delicious rare roast beef all from Tanya’s family farm. 

Ryan’s Mom had made the cake and decorated it beautifully with flowers made of icing sugar and hand decorated. I know that took a huge amount of time and skill.

The celebrations went on until about 3.30am. There were certainly some walking wounded in the morning but all had a fantastic time.

The Lower Zambezi and the road to Kanyemba

Kanyemba  http://www.kanyemba.com/   is a privately run resort located on the Zambezi river just below the confluence of the Kafue river and east of the major border crossing to Zimbabwe and South Africa. 

The drive down is about 160 km (100 miles) with the majority on a 2-lane tar road that is heavily traveled by truck traffic and it also winds down the escarpment to the Zambezi from the plateau where Lusaka is located. 

The descent is probably 1500 ft and there are sections of the road that are now 3 lane to allow passing of the slow heavy trucks. It is also the site of some spectacular accidents or breakdowns. On our return there was a tractor-trailer with a trailer that was jack knifed in the middle of the road when the main drive shaft to the axles snapped. It had happened the day before. On the way down we saw a tractor-trailer where the whole of the front right wheel and axle had come off and the truck stuck on the road.

Many of the trucks will not drive the road at night particularly up the escarpment where they are loaded and slow. It is a dangerous curvy road, but the added problem is that thieves will climb on the slow truck and steal some of the load. Maybe a couple of bags of maize or a couple of packing cases of canned goods or whatever. The driver is held responsible for the safe delivery of the load. You will also see small cans or plastic containers of diesel fuel for sale. Apparently the truck drivers siphon small quantities of fuel and sell it for pocket money. Buyers are generally smaller operators. Diesel is about US$ 5.75 a US gallon.

There are plenty of other vendors on the roadside selling vegetables and fruit and plenty of people selling sacks of charcoal. This is the favorite local fuel as it is cheap and fairly easy to transport. It is also a problem as the wood is cut and land cleared indiscriminately and soil erosion is a large problem.

To get to the lodge we turned off the paved road and on to a bumpy dirt road. It is only about 22km to the lodge and after about 5 km the road improves some, and after about 10km we came to an African classic. The pontoon. I will do a separate post on pontoons.

The river pontoon.

There are lots of them throughout Africa as a cheap and fairly efficient alternative to a permanent bridge. River widths vary significantly with the seasons (the rains come between November and March). Most are operated with a cable across the river that guides the pontoon and various methods of moving the pontoon across the river. The simplest of these is a second cable and 2-3 guys with a piece of wood about a meter long that hooks over the cable and they pull the pontoon across the river. I was told that there are still a few in operation today in the more remote locations. The “B Series” has a looped cable and a winding device on one shore I assume still operated by the same guys!

The prevalent system today is the single cable and two small diesel motors (often Chinese made). The challenge here is that they rely on fuel and some maintenance and often the pontoons are in very remote locations with no electricity or reliable communication. 

Camp for pontoon staff on Lubungu

 The pontoon at Chirundu is larger than most and does not have a cable but a couple of larger diesels with steerable thrusters.

At Chirundu there were about 5 vehicles waiting in total and Rian (the bridegroom) was also towing a boat. We all boarded for the 5 minute crossing. My son Al had driven one of the Land Cruisers down from Lusaka (first time on the other side of the road) and he had fun driving the Cruiser on to the pontoon.

Once on the other side it was about 20 minutes to Kanyemba Lodge and River Camp where we were staying and the venue for the wedding.

Here are two guys doing it the old fashioned way

Zambia post at last

My apologies for the delay in posting, but a combination of dial up access and lots of planned activity I am way behind on my blog posts. There will be several over the next few days I hope.

After a week in the UK and an eleven-hour flight I arrived back in Lusaka (May 10th)  after a 17 year gap.

The whole place is substantially different in many ways and just the same in many others.

We have a family wedding next Saturday and my son Al, and his Mom have made the trip for the big event.

The wedding is to be held on an island in the Lower Zambezi Game Preserve (just east of Chirundu for you Google Earth fans) and we will all be staying at one of the lodges right on the river.

The following week a much smaller group of us are going to a much smaller self-catering camp in the Kafue National Park called Hippo Lodge.

Zambia has grown from about 5 million people in the mid 70s to around 11 million today. The initial government after independence in 1964 was essentially socialist and a centrally planned economy. There were lots of state owned enterprises with the consequent inefficiencies and monopolistic attitudes.

Around 1992 a new president was elected and the currency opened up and commercial farmers and businesses were encouraged to return, or come to Zambia and start businesses. Many of the commercial farmers (principally white) had left at various stages after independence and gradually the country had got to the point of having to import even basic food items like maize (corn)

From that point of view and the general availability of goods Zambia is a better place to live. Has that positively affected the average Zambian family living in a rural village? I doubt it has had much impact, but the urban Zambians now have a much greater choice, and there is enough competition to help keep prices reasonable.

There are many more shops with a wide variety of goods and much more traffic with more modern vehicles on the road.

There is a fairly new shopping mall, which is in the process of doubling in size with the attendant traffic chaos. I like it as much as any other mall, in other words not at all!!

So on the surface all looks booming and well, but crime is rampant, although not on the level of South Africa from a frequency or violence viewpoint. HIV/AIDS continues to be a huge problem throughout Southern Africa and leaves many orphaned kids, often to be raised by older siblings, grandmothers, or in some cases abandoned to the streets. This is not a problem exclusive to Zambia by any means.

Zambia has diversified its export income, which was almost exclusively copper in the 60s and 70s, but now includes fresh fruit and flowers for Europe and wheat and maize to Zimbabwe and other local place.

Sub Saharan African countries have faired poorly on the world economic scale, and Zambia is right there with them. The “stars” in this respect are Botswana and strangely enough Rwanda. There is some good reading on the subject for those who are interested.

Bletchley Park Secret home of the Codebreakers

Monday was a public holiday in the UK and my niece, who is a Captain in the British Army was back in the UK for a long weekend. I have not seen her in a couple of years and we decided to meet up in Bletchley (where my friend Barbara lives) and visit Bletchley Park.

This was the location of one of the biggest secrets of WW2 and the home of the Enigma machine and the fantastic device that was built to decipher the Nazi coded messages and provide vital intelligence to the Allied forces.

It is a veritable mecca for math nerds and others of that persuasion, and also computer enthusiasts as some of the original computer designs emanated from the activities here.

The whole place was a closely guarded secret for many years after the war and has only recently opened to the public.

It was a truly fascinating day even though I had no clue as to how the device worked or the mathematical theories behind it. My niece Amy sat there as they talked about it nodding knowledgeably and trying to explain the theories. Needless to say she was a Math and Computer major in college prior to joining the army!

British Canals: A day out and some background

I spent Sunday with my friend of 46 years Barbara. We met in Junior College, and I have been friends with her, and another Andy (Corner) for that time. We see each other occasionally but the friendship lasts well I am pleased to say.

About 12 years ago I went with the kids for a day out on a canal "Narrow Boat" with my Mom and other family members and Barbara came along. She decided it was a good family tradition to start (at what point does it become a tradition?) and this was their 5th year.

It rained overnight and did not show any signs of abating so we had a wet and windy start. Not atypical of a British vacation day and we were well equipped with tea and bacon and sausage rolls that we made on the boat. Overall we probably traveled 4-5 miles but went through 12 locks. It brightened up later in the day and a good time was had by all.

We enjoyed a pub lunch and there ate lots of pubs located on the canals.

Not so sure about Doug and Mark!

There is an extensive canal system in the UK that was dug (mostly by hand) and was the primary transport system for bulk materials early in the Industrial Revolution. It was eventually surpassed by the railways. The majority of the canals were built in the mid 1800s and there are about 2000 miles of canal still today.
To account for changes in grades the water is sectioned off and contained by locks and these can be a single lock that may cause the water level to change by about 10 ft (3.1m) and there are flights of locks (like Foxton Locks in Leicestershire) where there are a series of 10 locks that change the water level by approx 90ft (23m).

There were various other innovative solutions to get boats up and down the hills like inclined planes.


More information at the following website

How locks work and more canal info



All of these were hand operated and each set of locks had a Lock Keeper and his cottage can be seen at most locks although they have been sold off and the jobs were outsourced! 

Over the past few years there has been a resurgence in interest in canals and narrow boats for recreation: People live on them and you can rent them for a day or a week and cruise the waterways and see a very different side of the UK. As I mentioned there are lots of pubs alongside the canals and loads of people out walking the dog on the towpaths. They seem willing to help with opening lock gates and enjoying the fun. Originally the barges were moved by horses pulling the barge along hence the name Towpath.
The narrow boats seem to be in two widths with most being 7 ft wide (2.15m) and up to 70ft long (21.5m). The width allowed either one or two boats to pass or occupy the lock at the same time. The other is a "double wide" at 14 ft (4.2m) and navigates the locks solo.

Barbara's children, their partners and grandchildren (3 of them) navigated, cooked., and operated the locks. 

We had great fun and as the weather improved more of us were seen outside the cabin and enjoying the scenery.