People transport across the Zambezi River
Tourist Africa: Chobe Botswana
We’re almost 1200 miles from Cape Town and 17 degrees closer to the equator tonight. Getting here required leaving Cape on a 7:30 am flight for Johannesburg, then a flight to Livingstone (named for David Livingston, I presume), the onetime capital of Zambia, now one with a major (Chinese built airport), and roads into the interior (again Chinese built), that took us through 3 countries/customs, and across the Zambezi River at a point where it defines four countries: Zambia, Namibia, Botswana, and Zimbabwe. If that sounds confusing, you should have seen the traffic waiting to cross the river—by ferry. We got fast tracked, but the trucks were lined up and wait anywhere from three days to a week to go across. We took a speedboat to get across, and so did our baggage.
What an insight into logistics nightmares! Makes you wonder about what was really happening at that checkpoint, and grateful for the transportation system in the United States. I met an Indiana Hoosier in Cape Town who had motorcycled with a group from Cairo to the Cape, and he said it took about a month, but was mostly on roads, mostly paved. He did mention a few stretches which required armed guard escorts.
As for us, we’re back in tourist Africa, at a lodge that is also a marina. What that means is that we’re on the Chobe River (one of the Zambezi tributaries), at the entrance to a National Park, with wetlands that look like the Canadian Wilderness near Bissett, but with the significant difference in the animals,, naturally. We did a dinner cruise when we got here, and saw, in habitat: giraffes, buffalo, crocodiles, elephants, hippopotami, and the ever useful impala. Not to mention a stunning sunset and a sky that is full of stars you probably can’t see at home—and I finally discovered where Orion hides during the summer. We’re doing a land safari tomorrow morning (6-9 am), and we’ll have a choice whether to do another cruise or another land safari tomorrow afternoon. Sunday we’ll be visiting Victoria Falls before resuming our business visits in Lusaka, the capital of Botswana.
I may actually get to finish “Nature Merit Badge” before we leave.
Have a great holiday.