Smoke and Thunder: 13-17 May

Smoke and Thunder: 13-17 May

As mentioned before, internet access is hard-to-come-by, and although there is spotty cell service, it isn’t quite strong or fast enough to facilitate making blog posts. We had to wait until we returned to Lusaka to make this post. But the short story is that we went to Livingstone, had a great time, and made it back to Lusaka. Sure, we had a couple minor scrapes, gastrontestinal foibles, and modestly-close encounters with wildlife, but spirits are high.

The drive from Lusaka was about 7 hours in the truck, and there was a lot of napping, despite the remarkable scenery. There are a few small towns along the way, but much of the countryside is peppered with rural villages and subsistence farms.

We pulled into our camping spot, Bushbuck River House, and got our tents and general kitchen area set up. While kindly allowing us to set up our mobile bushcamp in their front garden, the BRH is also a lovely full service B-N-B located right on the Zambezi River, just 13km upstream from Victoria Falls. The property is adjacent to Mosi-oa-Tunya National Park (unfenced), so animals like elephants, cape buffalo, and impala were seen at different times during our stay.

Being alongside the Zambezi means crocs and hippos are also near, and many students commented on how odd it was to be on a beautiful riverbank, but unable to swim or even dip your toes in it. Nobody gets close to the water - at least none of us did (or will!).

The general pattern for our nights include buffet style dinner out around the campfire. Although we sup in the dark, it isn’t that late - remember that it gets dark around 1745hrs (and gets light in the morning around 0615) since we are close to the equator. Our first night went well, with hippos singing us to sleep under an African night sky. Some of us even awoke to hear lions roaring across the river (probably 3km+ away).

The next day - our first - in the Livingstone area was a trip to the mighty Mosi-oa-Tunya, which is the Tonga name for Victoria Falls. It means “The Smoke that Thunders.” Here we are having lunch on the shores of the Zambezi, just upstream of the falls, and you can see how the “smoke” rises well above the top of the falls, which is a drop of over 100m.

The falls themselves are awe-inspiring.

There are several shortish but dramatic hikes, including one down to the base of the falls. The falls kick up so much spray that the canyon leading down to the river below shows a marked transition from a dry mopane upland wooded area, to a wet tropical rainforest habitat at the bottom.

The river immediately below the falls is called the “Boiling Pot.” This is a spot where all the water roils around after having dropped over the falls. The Zambezi river going over the falls is over 1.7km wide, but all that water rushes through this narrow gorge that is sometimes no more than 100m wide.

As expected on the hike down the to the Boiling Pot (and a couple of hikes up on the rim) we encountered Chacma baboons. These baboons are habituated to people, and they come quite close to people without much fear. This can be startling, to say the least.

Less startling were the rock hyrax we saw lazing in the sun. Later in the evening we had a healthy debate on whether they were bush (Heterohyrax brucei) or rock hyrax (Procavia capensis), but we eventually settled on rock hyrax. Even an ornithologist has to find dassies pretty adorable.

We also hiked across the “Knife Edge Bridge” to the rainbow island. The bridge is inundated with spray (sometimes heavy as rain) from the falls, which feels refreshing in the hot African sun.

We returned that night to decompress and make notes from our day.

The next day was active. It started with a morning river canoe trip down the upper Zambezi. Most everyone piloted two-person inflatable “crocodile canoes” down the river, led in a surprisingly organized single-file line by our lead guide, Dominic.

And a few people opted to ride in an inflatable raft.

From the vantage point of the river, we saw lots of wildlife, including Nile crocodile, monitor lizard, wattled lapwing, blacksmith plover, Egyptian goose…

And of course we saw hippos. Our guides were experienced on this stretch of river, and kept us clear of the common holding sites, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t exciting when a defensive male submerged on the opposite side of the river and started making his way toward us. Although it may have felt exciting, Dominic has been leading trips on the river for 21 years and never has there been any actual hippo incident. Still, as the hippo swam toward us, there was some pretty adrenaline-fueled paddling...

We stopped for a break along the way, and while beached on an island, we spotted a herd 20+ elephants over on the Zimbabwe shore. That was a thrill.

After the canoe trip, we had lunch and then started our first game drive. Lots of interesting animals - impala, wildebeest, waterbuck, bushbuck, zebra, warthog…

and lots of birds, including trumpeter hornbill, white-fronted bee-eater, hadada ibis, Meyer’s parrot, reed cormorant, and many others.

Our final full day in Livingstone started with a more relaxed morning around camp. Students updated their field notebooks, took time for some tracking/nature walks around the campsite, and maybe did a load of laundry or two..by hand. 

We then hit the curio market in town.

The day finished with another game drive, which again featured a lot of great game, but the highlight was certainly the short walking safari we took (with armed scouts) out to see one of the only two families of white rhino that are found in Zambia.

One of the Zambassadors, Lauren, celebrated her 22nd birthday with a wild rhino...and one of the armed guards. (We did also get her a cake.)

And with that, we got up early the next morning (17 May) at 5am, broke camp, had breakfast and then got on the road for Lusaka. We are in Lusaka now, and tomorrow we leave for Kafue National Park. While there we will be the deepest in the bush, without any communication ability at all, so don’t expect a blog post for another four days or so.