Birdspotting Zambia style

January 27, 2010

Mosi-ao-Tunya National Park
Livingstone, Zambia

Today I did the one thing I really, really wanted to do in Zambia--I hired a guide and looked for birds. Zambia is world renowned for the amazing variety of birds you can spot. Clearly, my East Africa bird guide is insufficient, because Zambia has so many endemic species, but sadly, someone (J) would not let me bring my southern Africa bird book (too cumbersome). So I found a local guide, Chinga, who showed me lots of amazing birds in the national park. My favorites were the blue waxbill, tropical boubou, gray naped flycatcher, palm thrush and broad beaked roller. Chinga told me that a developer wanted to turn this section of land bordering the park into a golf course but Chinga and other conservationists campaigned against it. Imagine all of the homeless birds if the plan had gone through!

Living it up at the Royal Livingstone

Livingstone, Zambia
January 26, 2010

Edited to add pictures.

Today I made my way to the Royal Livingstone Hotel to go via a little motor boat to Livingstone Island, which sits right above the falls. My friend Martina (from the tour--she's wonderful!) joined me. The highlight of this tour is that you get to swim in a pool "Devil's Pool" right at the rim of the falls. Because the water is high, "Devil's Pool" is closed, but we were reassured that we could swim right above the falls in another spot. First, we were guided to a lookout spot right above the falls. I could not believe how close we were, and, of course, there were no guard rails. It's just you standing barefoot on a slippery rock with Victoria Falls just below you. One little slip and over the falls you would tumble! (In this shot, I have my camera under my poncho--that's what the funny lump is.)

Then, we hopped into a little natural pool just above the falls. A few more feet and the falls cascade over the edge. At first, I clung to the edge, then the guide gestured for me to swim to the center of the pool. As I did, I could feel the current pushing me towards the fall

s. The mighty Zambezi was right behind me and it would have been very easy for it to sweep me right over the edge! Later, I learned that people die every year doing this sort of thing. It was very cool but I would not do it again when the water is as high as it is. After our swim, Martina and I enjoyed Eggs Benedict and muffins served on fine china before we were escorted back to the Royal Livingstone Hotel.

Because I didn't have anything else planned, I lounged by the very nice pool (I love hotel pools!) all morning, and then, in the afternoon, I booked a helicopter ride over the falls. Sorry to tease, but I got the best pictures over the falls! It's not clear from below that the falls fall into a deep canyon, but they do, and you can see the spray for miles! It's also really cool to see how wide the falls are (1.7 km) too, and to see the Zim side of the falls in addition to the Zambia side.

In the afternoon there was High Tea with sparkling wine at the Royal, and I watched the sun set over the river. Then it was back to my backpackers! I decided that I'll return with J, and we'll stay at one of the swish riverside hotels.

Mosi-oa-Tunya: The Smoke That Thunders

January 25, 2010
Livingstone, Zambia

Victoria Falls is absolutely amazing! I wasn't initially thrilled to visit Livingstone, an "adventure capital" and I was a little annoyed that we are scheduled for 5 days here, but the Falls are definitely something to write home about! I visited the Falls today, took lots of pictures, looked at the birds in the rain forest across the Falls Bridge and hiked down to the Boiling Pot at the base of the Falls, where the water swirls around like it's in a boiling pot. There were lots of baboons on the pathway down and allegedly, some cobras! I would love to see some snakes, but for now I'll have to settle for the snakes that populate my Lariam (malaria medicine) induced nightmares. Again, I ran into my overland group, but they were only there for an hour and half (and I could stay as long as I wanted) so it was a mercifally brief sighting. I spent most of the day at the Falls, and when I left I spent some time shopping for curios. The sellers were very, very motivated and very skilled salesmen. They could have sold the Brooklyn Bridge! I bought a malachine cat, an ironwood lion, an ebony African queen / king set and a passal of teak carvings. I'm sure I paid way too much but I don't mind. If I paid too much it was only to the tune of 20 USD for everything (and I LOVED the malachite cat).

Later today I went on a sunset cruise on the Lady Livingstone, a three story tall ship which set sail with only four passengers! I enjoyed wine and tasty snacks, and our guide, Ernest, was a bird lover who spotted lots of birds along the Zambezi. We also saw a croc and a whole group of hippos! The sunset was spectacular. The sunset cruise was so civilized and was perhaps the best evening I've spent so far on this trip, or at least ranked at the top (there were some lovely evenings in Shela & Zanzibar). Along the way, we passed the booze cruise, an ugly barge full of drunk, noisy backpackers. Drunken fools! I thought. As you might expect, my overland group had booked the booze cruise the following night.

Birds spotted: Malachite kingfisher, Fish eagle (looks like a bald eagle), African pygmy beeeater

Books read: A Tale of Two Cities. I've always wanted to read this book but I couldn't get past the boring, confusing stagecoach bit at the beginning. Once I did, it read like a thriller set during the French Revolution. A great story, although I found myself rooting for the vengeful, evil Madam Defarge (well, she had some legitimate gripes against the aristocracy!).

Silly things done: My Teva sandals fell apart almost as soon as I set foot in Africa. I got a guy to fix them in Lamu, but they bit the dust again in the mud in Arusha. They've been muddy and in pieces ever since. Upon arrival in Livingstone, I washed them and set out to find a shoe repair shop. Instead, I ended up with five fools in the marketplace ineffectively applying Super Glue to my wet sandals and charging me a bundle for it. Then, they refused to give my my change. What about labor? they asked, and one pointed, melodramatically, to a tiny abrasion on his hand from the glue. The agreed price includes labor! I said, and threatened to go to the police. They handed over the change, after trying to cadge 1000 Kwatcha for cigarettes.

Raining cats and dogs in Lusaka

January 22, 2010
Lusaka, Zambia

I flew from Dar es Salaam to Lusaka on Friday via Zambezi Air. Who's ever heard of Zambezi Air? I haven't and I deliberately did not check the statistics, because sometimes you just don't want to know. As it turned out, it was totally fine, and even though the flight was only two hours long in the midafternoon, we were served a "real" hot meal. Africans love their hot, hearty meals!

Zambia seems more spacious and more laid back than Kenya or Tanzania. Lusaka is a little sleepy, with good roads, orderly traffic and, best of all, American style shopping centers with MOVIE THEATERS! Wonderful! I went to see Invictus, the movie with Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon about how the South African rugby team the Springboks, once reviled, became a symbol of the new, reunified South Africa and won the World Cup. It was so great to see a movie, and the Zambians in the theater were really into it! They were cheering for the team and singing along with the soundtrack!

On Saturday, I lounged around the backpackers. It was raining really hard, and I wasn't in a hurry to go anywhere. I knew I had to make my way to a campsite outside of town later that day to meet up with the group, and I was dreading the reunification. In the afternoon, I moseyed around the shopping center again, and, suddenly I saw a dude who looked kind of familiar. Wait, he was a dude from the overland tour! They're here! I thought, with real dread. And soon I saw more of them. They looked scruffier and more disheveled than they were when I said goodbye to them in Zanzibar a week ago and a little chubbier (due to all the bread / pasta they've been eating and the long days of sitting on the truck, doing nothing).

I've been trying to pinpoint why exactly I'm so filled with trepidation at the prospect of rejoining the group and I've decided that it has more to do with group dynamics than with individuals. As individuals, they are probably fine (with the exception of a few intrinsically annoying people) but as a group they are intolerant of difference, homogeneous, vulgar and obsesses with scatology. I was curious, when I saw them at the shopping center, how they would be a week later, after many, many long, uncomfortable days traveling through Tanzania, Malawi and Zambia (a distance that I flew in 2 hours).

Later that evening, I met them at the campsite. Apart from being scruffier and fatter and altogether more unhealthy seeming (with, perhaps, jaundiced livers from all of the drinking they have enjoyed at Lake Malawi), they also seemed weirder in the way of a group of people who have been together for too long. I remember my Peace Corps group become like that during the course of pre-service training; we had lots of silly inside jokes and a strange sort of groupthink. The humour of the overland group also seems a little meaner and more personal. I heard people disparage other people's ethnicity and nationality, and it was clear that some people's feelings had gotten hurt.

I'm happy that I'm only along for the ride from Lusaka to Livingstone on Sunday; I'm booked at a backpackers in Livingstone and I'm, again, breaking from the group for 5 days. I rejoin them to continue to Botswana, Namibia and Cape Town.

In other news: I started a minor taxi war when I got one driver to take me to the campsite, 10km outside of Lusaka, for 60,000 Kwatcha rather than 100,000 (16 USD vs 20 USD). The other taxi drivers found out and berated him loudly for undercutting their rates. Hey, it's a free market, baby.

Goodbye to the Spice Island

Kendwa Rocks Zanzibar, Tanzania
January 21, 2010

I spent an amazing week here in Zanzibar. I stayed at the same spot, White Sands Beach Resort, where I landed after the neighboring resort was filled to capacity (and my tour leader booked me into a room with some dude). I have my own hut, pictured here, with a fan (which shuts off at 3:00a with the generator), a mozzie net and a cold water shower, which I have actually started to prefer to hot showers. So much better than a muddy tent!

I finished the first bit of my diving course--now I'm a certified scuba diver!--and I can upgrade to "open water" in South Africa if I want to. I'm not sure if I want continue with diving (sorry, Meghan)--it's terrifying! You're under the water moving clumsily, with cumbersome equipment strapped to you, it's all blue and green, visibility can be poor and there are scary animals (like manta rays and sea snakes). And I kept skinning my knees and ankles on sharp coral. But maybe I'll come around to it. I have the new few weeks as I travel down to Cape Town to consider whether I want to take the next step or not.

Freddy and I had candlelit dinners on the beach every night, including a lobster dinner to celebrate the end of my diving course. Lobster for 20,000 Tzn shillings (15 USD)--not a bad deal!
In retrospect, it was absolutely the right decision to break with the group and stay in Zanzibar. It's been such a lovely week, like a real vacation, not a muddy, mandatory school trip like the overland trip had become. I'm very, very interested to hear how the rest of the group found Malawi and how their spirits & morale are a week later.

So Long, Suckers!

So I did it. I booked a flight from Dar es Salaam to Lusaka and I ditched my overland group! I was tired of the mud, putting up the tents in the dark & in the mud, the long drives, the grime and, quite frankly, being part of a large, albeit friendly & well organized group. The group is driving into Malawi and northern Zambia over the course of a week, and I'm going to fly the distance in an hour and fifteen minutes! Ha ha ha ha! Granted, they are stopping at Kande Beach on the shore of Lake Malawi for two days, but Malawi, I hear, is rainy this time of year. Rain + dirt = mud + misery!

I will rejoin them in Lusaka, drive down with them to Livingstone, and continue on with the group to Cape Town. The end of the trip, from Livingstone to Cape Town, sounds spectacular: the Okavango Delta, Chobe, Etosha and the deserts of Namibia. I also anticipate that southern Africa will be hotter and drier (and less muddy) than East Africa.

So here I am at Kendwa, Zanzibar for another week! The weather is perfect, I've negotiated a continued room rate at only 25 USD per night, and the seafood is delicious. Another girl from my overland group, Freddy, is here, and we've been enjoying candlelit dinners on the beach every night. I'm almost done with the PADI Open Water Diver course, which is quite frankly terrifying. I think some people are divers and others are snorkelers, and I may be in the latter group!

Books read: I re-read Paul Theroux's Dark Star Safari: Overland from Cairo to Cape Town and liked it even better the second time around. I'm also working on A Tale of Two Cities. One of my goals this trip is to finish it.

Silly things done: Underwater at 12 meters yesterday I had to perform the "out of air" drill, where I signal to my instructor that I'm out of air and I want to share his air. I signaled, let go of my regulator, grabbed his extra regulator upside down, and inhaled a lungful of sea water. Terrible! I thought I was going to drown. It's totally scary being so deep underwater and reliant on equipment that might or might not malfunction (or you may screw it up, as I did). And it's not like you can ascend quickly--you have to ascend very slowly to reduce the risk of decompression sickness. Tomorrow we are going down deeper and I have a whole array of terrifying "skills" that I have to perform underwater.

Zanzibar!

January 14, 2009

Zanzibar, Tanzania

And here I am in lovely Zanzibar! About ten members of our group decided to take the afternoon ferry from Dar es Salaam a day early to the island of Zanzibar, and in so doing, we snagged an extra day at the beach for ourselves!

We spent the first night in Stone Town, where I negotiated a single room for myself. We had dinner of Zanzibar pizzas at the Night Market and set out on an ill-conceived attempt to find a "discoteque," very silly. When we returned to our hotel at 1:00a, I remembered what someone told me about checking mattresses for bedbugs. I pulled the sheets back to find exactly what I was hoping not to find: a small, round, grayish bedbug on the mattress! At this time, there was nothing to do for it but place the sheet carefully back in place and go to sleep. Maybe this bedbug had eaten her fill on another traveler the night before because I was not bitten, thank goodness.

The next day I joined a spice tour to see cardemom, curry, pepper, coffee, nutmeg, cinnamon and all of the other spices the island is renowned for and enjoyed afterwards a spicy lunch. After the spice tour, I h0pped into a taxi to transfer to the beach with 9 other members of our breakaway group. When we arrived at the hotel, I was surprised to see that our tour leader, Allison, had booked me into a room with some dude. When is that ever okay, to put a married woman in a room with some single punk? Clearly, that was not cool. The hotel was fully booked. In the end, I booked a single in the hotel next door, which is lovely. When I confronted to tour leader about it, she said "That's backpacking" and "You have to take what's available." She was clearly annoyed by my objection. She argued that if we had stuck to the original plan, there would not have been a lack of room. To me, her response shows a lack of sensitivity and discretion. What do the rest of you think? Was her response appropriate?

I'm clearly annoyed by this, and quite frankly, I considering ditching the next week and a half of the trip through Malawi and Zambia. If I can book a flight, I'll spend another week and a half cooling my heels in Zanzibar and then fly to meet everyone in Livingstone to continue through Botswana and Namibia. I'll miss several 12 hour days of driving, cooking duty and setting up my tent in the muddy banks of Lake Malawi. What do you guys think? Is it too early to ditch the group tour?

Simbas in the Camp

January 7, 2010 - January 9, 2010

Serengeti and Ngorongoro Crater, Tanzania

After Masai Mara, we headed back to Nairobi for a night. This would be the first night that we would set up our tents. I opted to stay in the dormatories, which turned out to be terrible: there were four other people, mozzies, no mozzie nets and the room was small and stiflingly hot. The tents, as it would turn out, were lovely. They are standard dome tents, very sturdy, with mosquito flaps that allow cool breezes to waft through.

After a terrible night, it was on to Arusha on our big custom-built truck, nicknamed Rufansa. When we crossed the border into Tanzania, it was only myself (the lone American) and the Irish passengers who had to pay a visa fee of 100 USD; everyone else only paid 50 USD. There's gotta be a reason for it--I wonder why? What did we do the good citizens of Tanzania?

The trip itself, which should have taken 6 hours or so, in fact took 12. Passengers were sick, the start, it would turn out of a terrible stomach bug that would take out most of the group. It was raining and the roads were flooding, an inauspacious start to a journey. We arrived at a muddy campsite to set up our tents in the dark and those on cooking duty had to pull together a meal.

The next day, we loaded into Land Rovers with pop tops for a drive into the Serengeti. There are lots of traces of early humans in this area, which is pretty cool and the landscape is amazing.

On the way, we stopped to view Lake Manyara, where there are lots of birds and hippos. I only wish we could have stopped longer for more bird peeping.

Our campsite in the Serengeti was terrible: no water and flush toilets that didn't flush, leading to unsanitary conditions. It was real bush camping. We had dinner in a structure that was a dining room with chickenwire walls--the "Cage." Before dinner was served, one of our tour leaders ran in the the news that "There are lions in the camp!" I shone my headlamp outside of the cage and saw, not 10 feet away were two huge lionnesses. Camp staff drove a truck towards them, and they slunk off, only to return. Turns out there was an entire pride of 8 - 9 lions in our camp that night, and they were unperturbed by the clamour we made to get rid of them. Needless to say, bathroom visits that evening included escorts by armed guards and all night I could hear the male lion roaring.

The next day, we bush camped on the rim of the Ngorongoro Crater (actually a caldera, because it has water inside), where it was very cold and absolutely lovely. Inside the crater, there was an amazing concentration of game life, and we saw, again, lots of lions, including these lions hanging out in the middle of road. It was a wet morning, and like cats, they wanted to dry off!

Snatched at Masai Mara

January 3, 2010 to January 5, 2010
Masai Mara, Kenya

After meeting the other members of my overland group in Nairobi, we loaded into pop top minivans and headed to the Masai Mara Conservation area. Those of us starting in Nairobi are joining about ten people who have been trekking with gorillas in Uganda. We consist of 1 German, 1 Austrian, 2 Kiwis, 4 Australians, one token American--me--and the rest are Brits, totaling 19 travelers. Mostly of the group is in their mid 20s to early 30s.

Acacia, the overland company, uses local operators for parts of the tour. We drove to a permanent tented camp with cots and hot water bordering Masai Mara and went on a game drive, where we saw this lion cub, which was only a few days old, and mother.

The next day, we saw the same lion cub and mother. The mother was clearly having trouble picking up the lion cub; it's possible that she was a new, inexperienced mother. She was trying to pick it up at the back rather than at the nape of the neck. Sadly, an hour after I took these pictures, an eagle carried the lion cub off. I still can't believe it: it was the cutest cub I had ever seen (and, truth be told, the only lion cub I have ever seen)! It's true that lions eat cheetah cubs, and after all, the eagle had to eat too, but I was really sad to hear that it was snatched.

The following day, we again saw the lioness. Not to be too anthropogenic about it, but it seemed like she was being consoled by a member of her pride. Better luck next time.

In other news, I tried to sneak out of our campsite this morning for a run. I knew it was prohibited--there are buffalo around, which can be dangerous--but, on the other hand, local Masai live and work nearby. In fact, I had just seen a herder pass with a group of cows. Needless to say, although I left before the sun rose, I was herded back by an irate staff member. It quickly became a running joke in the group; "So, Maria, are you going for a run?" someone would ask, to much hilarity, every time we were in a game reserve / area.

Books read: When Everything Changed: The Amazing Journey of American Women from 1960 to the Present by Gail Collins

Birds spotted: Lilac breasted roller, Grey-crowned crane

Misadventures with ATMs

1/2/2010

Today I very, very sadly left Lamu. To settle my bill, Gillies, the owner of Fatumas Tower, asked me to pay in Kenyan shillings because the phone lines were down (someone cut them to get the copper) and as a result he could not process credit cards. I took a detour to Lamu Town on the boat that would take me to the airstrip on Manda Island. When I put my card in the ATM, it promptly ate it, due, it said, to "lack of customer response" (except that I was pounding on the blasted buttons). Because it was a bank holiday, the bank was closed. A security guard nearby gave me the number of the bank manager, who told me "You can retrieve your card on Monday." I said, "You have to be kidding me; I fly to Nairobi in an hour!" But there was nothing to be done. I raced to the airstrip and made my flight.

Luckily, I have two other debit cards, but unfortunately, the card that the ATM snacked on was my only Visa debit card, which will likely make things difficult in Malawi and Zambia, where Mastercard is not accepted. I will cancel the card tonight, and we'll see how it goes in the next few weeks. As for my bill, I'm going to settle it from afar, which is a little unorthodox in the US, but not unhead of in Kenya, it seems. Well, if that is my only misadventure with financial institutions in Africa, I will be pleased!

In other news, I met my overland team tonight, and they seem inscrutable. I'm not quite sure what to think, but I think I have identified the annoying members of my group--always an important thing to assess. We leave for Masai Mara tomorrow.

Bird Spotting and Dhow Racing in Lamu

1/1/2010

On New Years Day there is a dhow race in Lamu, and they sink the winning dhow! It's quite an event!



Today, I hired a guide, Juma, who is a gangly 23-year old, to take me bird watching. I saw amazing birds just outside of Lamu Town, and Juma even climbed a tree to get some wild honey, which was delicious. He got stung by some angry bees in the process, but Juma is a tough cookie and he didn't let on that he was injured.

Birds spotted: Sacred ibis, pied kingfisher, amethyst sunbird, black headeded weaver, beeeater.

Books read:
The Beautiful and the Damned by F. Scott Fitzgerald
Into Thin Air: a Personal Account of the Mount Everest Disaster by Jon Krakauer

Silly Things Done: I paid some kids a few shillings to ride their donkey from Lamu to Shela (a distance of about 5 km). It was slow, bumpy, hot, and totally ridiculous. Clearly, I should have walked.

Shela at Night

12/31/2009
Isn't this a great picture of the full moon over the water at Shela on New Year's Eve? It was a totally beautiful night, once in a blue moon, right?