The Mzungu Effect: Big Man arrives, and you can't escape Disney

There is a good reason for the gap in my posts. My past two months have been spent in room 14 of the ZCARHD office preparing for the second round of data collection and cleaning up the last bits and pieces of data from Round 1. Not much to write home about, literally. My office is like any other office, except with unreliable internet. No gripping insights there. Everyone in world wants to go Office Space on the printer, and everyone in the world has office politics. We may all worship different Gods, but at least we can all agree as one human race on the main components of the office.

However, my time in Lusaka has enveloped me in the expat scene here, which has, in turn, been wildly fun, fulfilling, confusing, and frustrating. There is something addicting about hanging out with a motley crew of Danes, Dutch, Nigerians, Canadians, African Bushmen, and Zambians. It will require its own post, so I will leave it for later.

Needless to say, after two months of office days and Lusaka nights, I was very excited for my leave and very excited to see Mark. He arrived on Saturday April 2nd after a smooth flight, (sans luggage), and we spent a couple of days tootling around Lusaka. He was called Big Man by about every Zambian he saw, and our tour around Kamwala market ended with Big Man and I trying Shake Shake (previously described vile concoction of fermented mealie meal) with a group of charming and perhaps drunken Zambian men. It is amazing how fast a crowd gathers to watch mzungus try Shake Shake. If he was missing home at all, this was abated when we continued on to a bar with a live band covering Michael Jackson songs. Good old MJ, yet another globally unifying factor.

Then we hit the road to embark for a bush adventure. Thus begins part 1.

Simba, Rafiki, Zazu, and more…

Monday morning saw us heading down to Livingston, in Zambia, to depart on our journey into the bush and to see the falls. We saved the falls for after the safari, but we did embark to the Royal Livingston Hotel for a drink at sundown. If anyone ever wants to understand British Colonialism, visit the Royal Livingston. You drive through the typically African town of Livingston to get to a gated, royal palace. We entered the gate, and behold, there were zebras just hanging out on the lawn. We immediately started talking in hushed whispers, thinking we were blessed with a chance encounter with this beautiful wild creature. We whipped out our cameras and asked our taxi slow down. He indulged us for about five minutes before calmly explaining that they were pet zebras kept by the hotel. Right. Stupid mzungus.

Spray from Victoria Falls from the deck of the Royal Livingston

We then descended through a yard of scampering baboons to enjoy drinks on a deck that is literally in the Zambezi River. It is positioned right before the edge of the falls. You could see the spray coming up over the edge. It was absolutely beautiful, and decadent, and Caucasian. We enjoyed a completely overpriced drink, which was actually listed in US dollars instead of Kwacha, before deciding that we had had enough. We booked it back to Livingston and walked through the bustling streets and markets at night. It was an invigorating experience I have been previously unable to enjoy due to the lack of a tall, fit, and let’s all admit it, rather handsomely fearsome looking male bodyguard. We ate dried caterpillars, drank liquor out of a fun pop bag, and called it a night.

The next day we departed for Botswana, and entered the realm of the Lion King. When I say that, I mean it literally. Throughout the safari, when discussing animals that were graced with a lead role in the movie, our Botswana guide referred to them by that name. “There’s a zazu. There’s a rafiki.” (This drove our companion from Kenya insane, as he kept insisting that in Swahili Rafiki means friend, not monkey.) When describing the mass charges by buffalo, he would say “Like in that scene, in The Lion King.” Excuse the slight distortion of images. Resizing saves me hours, but not the best quality.

My favorite view of Chobe

We stayed on safari for two days and two nights. The park was Chobe National Park, which is known for its massive herds of elephants. It is a large park, and we only saw the very tip. The park itself consisted of the Chobe River, which was overflowed during rainy season, and the dry lands. There were thus two different landscapes to observe wildlife. The river was amazing. There were just strips of green grassland among sparkling blue waters, and elephants and hippos were just roaming next to each other. The grasslands, however, had the most wildlife. We explored that particular part as the animals were forced to the river for water.

Our camp was six simple tents surrounding a fire. They were arranged in a semi-circle, with lanterns behind them. This was to orient them as a herd, to warn animals. The food was cooked by the safari team and was delicious. We were not permitted to walk too far outside the camp at night, and if we needed to use the drop toilet in the night, we were to call one of the guides for an escort. The camp was also equipped with a shower consisting water warmed in the sun and hung from a container with holes in it from a tree. Perhaps the most refreshing shower I have ever taken (can't post the pictures from that). We often had baboons, elephants, and impala simply stroll by in the mornings.

The bush camp. Our is the one closest to the camera.

Chobe has about 55,000 elephants within its border. I have never experienced elephants in such a way before. They were just everywhere. We saw them swimming, eating, washing, dusting themselves (which they do after swimming to dry off), playing with babies, and we even saw an elephant baby that was only two or three days old. We had one get angry at us, and truly understood how scary and dangerous they actually are. They also have incredibly human characteristics (or, should I say, we have incredibly elephant-like characteristics.) I don’t think I will ever be able to see an elephant in captivity again without my heart shedding a tear. They just belong in a place like Chobe.

Mama Ele, Pap Ele, and Baby Ele

Dusting after a swim

Two day old elephant nursing

Peekaboo

We were also lucky enough to see leopard, which is an extremely rare sighting. I actually couldn’t really see it with my bare eye. I needed the camera lens, and mentally thanked the salesmen in BestBuy who sold me on that digital zoom. It had apparently climbed the tree because it was scared of the nearby lions. Who could blame it? I also gained a new respect for giraffes. They are so incredibly graceful, and when they run it looks as if they are running in slow motion. That said, they can actually outrun many of the predators of the bush. They quickly rivaled the elephant as my favorite animal.

Lucky us!

Just another elephant

After day one, the group fell prey to the well-known symptoms of ‘been there, done that.’ We had so many elephant encounters that we soon got impatient when we had to wait for the elephants to cross the road in front of us. We saw so many impala and buffalo that we stopped even noticing them. By the end of day two, you could tell how fresh another ‘rival’ safari truck was by observing which animals they were looking at. If they were observing impala, crocodiles, buffalo, elephants, or baboons, they were total amateurs. Freshmeat. We, the more experienced and wiser safari team, were on to more important things: tracking lions.

The Lion King (or Queen)

Chobe is different than other national parks in Africa for a couple of different reasons. First, there are no walking safaris allowed. In many parks you can trek with an armed guide through the bush to observe the animals. Secondly, there are no night drives allowed, which is when the lions are most active. And last but certainly not least, you cannot off road in Chobe. This is the most significant difference. In most parks, you can slam your 4WD off the beaten path and go rumbling through the bush in search of wildlife. In Chobe, you must stay on a network of sand roads and view the visible areas.

At first, these all seem like negative differences. I can just hear the thousands of diehard travelers whining ‘but then you can’t truly experience the African bush.’ I, as well, was worried that we wouldn’t have as good of an experience for lack of these opportunities. However, once there, I realized that these rules are part of what make Chobe so special. Tourism is an important financial support for national parks, and as such, they strive to make visitors happy. Sometimes, you wonder who the park is actually for, the animals, or those that come seeking to see these exotic creatures in their natural habitat. In Chobe, however, the park is for the animals. You don’t get to off road into their habitat. You don’t get to track them by foot and put your scent everywhere, and you don’t get to disturb them at night when some of the most fearsome predators are hunting. In appearance, it looks as if the mark of humans is all over the park. The vast network of trails and the frequent encounters with other safaris reminds you constantly that you are neither the first nor the only visitor. However, you are stuck in a car on the road, and there are miles and miles of wilderness that you cannot touch. Thus, the wilderness of Chobe is preserved for the animals, and it is clear that the purpose of the park is for the wildlife. Perhaps we missed the experience of off-roading to find lions sleeping, but if everyone did that, would it really wilderness? Would it really be a ‘sanctuary’ if there is no reprieve from the rumbling of safari trucks?

Lion cub tracks in the road

I bring this up because it is entirely relevant to the tracking of lions. Lions are brilliant at hiding themselves. They almost perfectly match the grass on the savannah. Most of the places they can go in Chobe, you can’t see them. So lions are not a guaranteed sighting, and the tracking of lions is made much more difficult when you can’t rumble into the bush after them. Instead, you watch the sand road for tracks that may have crossed, and try to head to the other side of the flatland to see if they cross before you. Or, you listen to the baboons screaming and know that means that they have seen a lion, and you rush as fast as possible. Or, when an impala runs in front of you at full speed, you look to see what it is running from.

Camouflage

Tracking lions is invigorating. Lions stick to the road, so you can follow their tracks. You judge how fresh the tracks are, how big the lion is. And when you find a lion or two, as we did, it’s absolutely petrifying. We rolled around the corner to find a female standing on an outcrop above us. Being in an open truck doesn’t make you feel to secure when you are 15 feet away from a lion staring down at you. To add to this affect, they often keep their mouths open to cool themselves off, thus exposing their enormous teeth. However, by far the most chilling lion encounter was watching lions on the hunt.

We ran into two more females later that day, and they were hunting together. The walked, side by side, in perfect sync, through the long bushes. Then they saw us. They stopped, both of them at exactly the same time, to turn and look at us. So, here we are, staring straight into the eyes of two female lions on the hunt. There was a couple seconds of silence, and then, in perfect sync, without looking at each other at all, they turned their heads forward and kept walking. They even started with the same paw. It is impossible to recreate the absolute synchrony and focus of that one moment. I felt deep pity for every one of the thousands of impala we had just passed. On the way home, the buffalo herd nearby had just started running. We heard them roaring to announce their kill to the male from our camp about two hours later.

The hunters

Dignity embodied

The Plunge and the Plume

After saying our goodbyes to the African bush and our leaving our poor guide in the hands of some dubious Americans (we all know the type), we departed back to our hostel and made our way to the famous Victoria Falls, the Smoke that Thunders, the Mosi-au-Tunya, the jewel of Zambia, the UN world heritage site, and most importantly, the namesake for my favorite Zambian beer, the infamous Mosi.

I am made quite sure that the falls themselves are a spectacular sight. Unfortunately, we did not get to actually see the falls due to the booming sheet of spray that literally made them invisible, save for lucky breaks in the mist. It was absolutely awe-inspiring, invigorating, and wet. You could feel the absolute power that produced that spray, and stand at the edge of it.

Feeling the power

The real invigoration of the day, however, came from other sources. The Victoria Falls Bridge at the Zim/Zam border hosts the second highest bungee sight in the world. You plunge 111 meters down towards the Zambezi. The bridge is literally known to exist in Zim/Zam, as it is in the no man’s land between the two borders. No, I absolutely did not jump off that bridge in no man’s land in Africa. My tall handsome body guard did. That man is one crazy %#5) $*)@#. I think the pictures say enough, and yes we have it on video. I will add that I was too chicken to even stand on the bridge and look down at him as he fell. I had to watch from a distance.

The jump. In the video, I am saying 'holy shit, holy shit, holy shit....'

The rise after survival

WINNING!

Thus ended our adventures….kind of. Except that the next day all the buses to Lusaka were full. Going on trusted advice, we decided to hitch it. Great decision. Hitching has its own culture in Africa. Some people pick you up for free, and some people charge you, and everyone does it. There are literally pick-up points with 20 Zambians with cargo waiting for a ride. We were forced to keep going further and further out of town to escape the crowds of people waiting for a ride, but we finally got picked up in a minivan packed with people. Mzungu effect: we got the front seat, which was massively more spacious. We also got to sit next to the driver, who happened to be the owner of one of the larger fleets of coach buses in Zambia. It was actually his bus that had been sold out that morning. Only Africa do you get blocked by the bus, but picked up by the owner of the fleet! We were lucky, as we soon realized that it was the end of school and the roads were jam packed with people trying to make it to Lusaka. The issue with hitching, however, is that the police regulate it at checkpoints and fine the drivers. Luckily for us, one of our passengers happened to actually be a cop, so we learned the magic words to get through the checkpoints no problem. As we often say in these situations, TIA. This Is Africa.

And, we arrived home safely. Thus ends part one of our adventures. Here are some random pictures. LOVE TO ALL!