Botswana - 21

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April 13th, 2004 -

I just got back from a long weekend (Easter – we had Friday and Monday off from work) and a trip back to Victoria Falls and the Chobe game reserve in Northern Botswana. It was great fun, and I took over 100 pictures (only 17 of which I have uploaded) so I’m going to split the story into two separate pages so the pics are on two separate pages and don’t take quite so long to load.

So here goes: We started planning this trip only a week in advance, which is problematic on a holiday weekend. Why? Because everything is booked. We managed to find cheap plane tickets for myself and Monika (my UPenn roommate) to Kasane in northern Botswana, but had to also deal with the potential for up to five other people coming with us. What five? Three are Penn med students who know Monika but are here through a separate program, working for six week chunks at the medical ward in Princess Marina. One was a resident from Penn working with the same program who was scheduled to arrive on Wednesday evening (keep in mind that we were planning to leave on Thursday). The last was the Penn doctor who runs that program with the help of the med students/residents. He was, unfortunately, feeling very sick. And had a busy clinic schedule. And Thursday was his birthday. All of these things made it hard for the med students to ask for time off, so they kept coming back to us and saying “yes, we’re coming.” “No, we can’t.” “Yes, we want to.” “No we haven’t asked yet.” “Yes, we will ask.”

Just imagine my frustration, especially as OCD as I have a tendency to be – I like having everything planned WAY in advance. But I sent e-mails off to Fawlty Towers in Zambia (yes, the same place I stayed last time) and asked them for six beds.. then another saying “no, two beds.” And back and forth all week. They had one dorm available the first I heard, then disappeared for a while. Finally Monika and I sent in our passport information so we could get visa waivers (saves us $30) to cross the Zambian border. On Wednesday afternoon, the med students confirmed that they were coming and the doctor wasn’t (although we still didn’t know about the resident, because he was arriving Wednesday night and had not been consulted). They even got their own plane tickets. But I had already sent an e-mail trying to get the visa waivers, and couldn’t attach their info. So at 2am or so on Wednesday (well, Thursday morning to be more accurate) they sent in their info. Thursday I come into work, and there’s a fax there… Only it has our names and passport info (even the Penn students) but no signature/stamp, which is necessary to get over the border without paying.

So I sent off a quick e-mail cajoling/threatening/begging, still unsure of whether we had beds for everyone, because they hadn’t e-mailed me back since Monday! Went out to run errands (oh, and I’m planning on finding the woman from the local AmEx office and killing her slowly).

Sorry – let me go off on this tangent. I have to go to the AmEx office to change my traveler’s checks into Pula (cash good!). I usually change about $100 at a time and the woman always hassles me about it. I have gone in in the past at around 4:00 to find the office closed for the day (no, there are no hours posted and when I had asked, they said they were open until 5:00). I’ve gone in at 3:00, and been told by the evil woman (here on out to be known as EW) that their computers are slow and she won’t change my money. I have to come before 2:00 before the computers slow down. I’ve been at 12:00, only to find that EW is on her lunch break. And waited. And waited. And finally gotten in at around 2:00. So on Thursday, I went at about 9:30 so I could change money before our plane left, because I had about P90 left for the weekend.

Guess what. She couldn’t give me cash until noon. Why? I’m not really sure. She said something about not wanting to call the office for confirmation too early. When I complained she told me to “just go to Standard Bank.” They don’t change AmEx. I’ve tried. Grrrrr.

Okay, getting away from the tangent. Went to do my errands, got back to the clinic at 11:00. Waited. Waited. Kept checking the fax machine. Finally at 11:27 (I decided I was just going to go home to back at 11:30 no matter what) the stamped visa waiver came through, officially saving us $180. Whew.

So Monika and I ran home, packed our stuff, and hopped in a cab to the airport. We got there in plenty of time, and met up with the Penn students a little later. The resident was coming with us, after having been told upon his arrival that everything was organized for him (wouldn’t that be a nice way to start a work cycle?).

Our plane took off late. We landed at around 4:30. It’s a 20 minute drive to the border, and the last ferry goes at 5:30. Plenty of time, right?

Wrong. We found a cab to take us to Kazungula – but only one. And that cab could only take three of us at once (he wouldn’t let all six squeeze in because he said there was a police blockade and they would hassle him. There was no blockade – I think he just wanted the extra fare). So I, with the first group, got there in plenty of time. Checked our stuff through (got passports stamped) and waited. And waited. And waited! Finally at 5:20 the cab comes tearing up, everyone jumps out and runs into immigration. Fortunately they got through there quickly, and we booked it to the ferry. Sure enough, we got there just barely in time for the last run of the day, wading through water up to our knees to get on board. We did see what could have been the beginning of WWIII as cars and trucks jockeyed for position to get onto the ferry before it stopped running. At least one person had his foot run over, and I quickly lost count of all the fender benders. Suffice it to say there was a lot of yelling.

But, we got across. Even managed to take some beautiful pictures of the sunset along the way! Grabbed a cab when we got through Zambian immigration, and made our way to Livingstone. Arrived by 7:00, found that we actually had a room! and went to dinner at Ocean Basket (touristy place, I know) across the street. After a few battles over the credit card and whether they should charge us in Kwacha or dollars (if they charged the card in Kwacha we’d get a better exchange rate) we headed back to the dorm and went to bed.

Up early the next morning – a couple of our companions went out for a walk and then didn’t return for a while. I wanted to head right to the falls – but everyone moves slowly! I suppose it’s really just one of those things you have to suck up and deal with when you’re traveling in a group like that. And I did, but I admit to falling prey to a slightly pissy mood because of it. We finally got out to the falls. And it is just spectacular! It’s amazing how much more water there is. The bridge that I took one picture on back in October is practically under water now (so no pictures). We stayed together for a little while, and then split into two groups so three of us could head into the falls and the rest could stay with our cameras and the clothes we wanted to keep dry.

It was like being submerged in water – more than a downpour, more than a shower. I swear I got wetter than I do even when swimming! It was just unbelievable. Really a spectacular sight – when you can open your eyes and see. Every once in a while the wind blows some of the water away from you, and the spectacle of the falls just opens up in front. It emerges from a cloud… Really amazing. Anyway, we all got wet seeing the whole length of it, and then grabbed some breakfast behind all the shops. Not a touristy breakfast – real local food. Stewed chicken and tshima (also known as pap) which is basically ground up corn boiled with water. I just ate it with a lot of salt.

We then walked over to the bridge and watched the bungee jumpers. We were surrounded by little salesmen the whole way (they couldn’t have been older that 12) who wanted us to buy little wire sculptures of bicycles, motorcycles, helicopters, etc. One person bought some and once finished, we headed back to Livingstone for lunch. We talked to Emma first (the woman who works at Fawlty Towers), booked a booze cruise for the evening for four of us, and tried to organize an overnight to Chobe (included our transfer across the border, and Kasane airport is right next to Chobe). Lunch then consisted of this tea garden with great but greasy samosas and french toast (interesting combo, huh?)

Two of our companions (the resident and one of the students) then left – they weren’t interested in the booze cruise and wanted an extra night to camp out in Chobe, while the rest of us wanted to stay in something a little more comfortable. We went to the market and bought some beautiful things – wood and stone. I’m not going to describe them because I’m giving them as gifts to some of you and don’t want the secret out!

Booze cruise was fun – we saw hippos and a beautiful sunset, and met some really interesting people. There were the Swedes who were living in the Kalahari for three months doing ecology research for their masters thesis and kept hitting on us (four females alone? Easy prey, I guess). There was Ian from AED (something Educational Development) in the US. There was an Indian family with the most adorable toddler daughter. Anyway, it was definitely fun. We got back to Fawlty Towers at around 7:00, then went for dinner at a pizza place nearby. Came back to find Emma, to see if she had booked our trip to Chobe. Turns out she did – but not how we wanted. It was a day trip, requiring us to transfer back to Livingstone in the evening (and then go back to Chobe/Kasane the next morning to catch our flight? Silliness). Urgh. But – it got us to Chobe which was what we wanted so we accepted it.

We got up at about 6:00 the next morning and went to find Emma – she was supposed to tell us what Safari company we were going with, and a bunch of other information that was really important in order to not get lost. She was no where to be found. The discovery at around 7:00 (when our cab arrived to pick us up) was that she had been up all night drinking and stayed in bed with a hangover (after promising to be up in the morning to talk to us – I think she just said it to make us leave her alone at the bar). Fortunately we found the other guy that worked at the desk and he checked us out (although made us pay for the people who had left early – when they had already paid for themselves!) and we decided we’d find something once we got to Chobe.

Taxi to Kazungula was a lot of fun – misty and cool, and there were markings all over the roads implying that elephants had been there very recently.

I’ll complete the rest of this on the next page.

Kazungula Ferry The ferry we rode to get into Zambia.
Sunset over the Chobe This is from the ferry.
Vic Falls in the WET SEASON From the front entrance of the park - I couldn't go too far in with my camera because I would have destroyed it, but even from here the contrast between now and October (see the first page with Vic Falls pics) is pretty impressive.
Group shot This was before we braved the bridge and headed into the wetness. In order: Peter, me, Monika, Jenn, and Jess.
After the WET We broke into groups of three - when we came back from braving the waterfront (and after drying a little!) this is what we looked like.
Bridge between Zim and Zam This is the bridge I jumped off of last time, it's in the background of the last picture.
Booze cruise hippos Saw lots of hippos as we were on the Zambezi river for sunset.
Monika and Me While on the cruise.
Zambezi Sunset The whole point of the cruise is views like this (and to get drunk, but I'll just gloss over that since respectable people are reading this).