African Safari 2007

We had a 50 minute flight to Kesane, where we did a quick tour of the immigration and customs area of the airport, then got back on our charter flight for Livingstone. Along the way we saw lots of elephant and water buffalo. The pilot had a friend in the airport tower and got permission to do a fly by of the falls, which were quite spectacular.

After landing in Livingstone (and dodging the golfball sized raindrops that were just starting to fall), we were met by Emmanuel, our guide at Songwe Village. We had a 50 minute drive to the camp. The camp is made up of 8 huts with thatched roofs. It sits on the edge of a huge gorge, with great views from the bathroom windows of each hut. There were three huts with bathtubs with awesome views of the gorge, and a library with the same great view. We booked a helicopter tour of the falls for the next day.

As we were touring the camp we heard a noise and then saw a waterfall start to flow across the gorge. It was caused by the rain earlier in the day, but it started as if someone had turned on a switch. We relaxed for a bit and then headed to the main tent for dinner. We sat around the campfire for bit beforehand. After dinner we retired to our huts and went to sleep.

We had a leisurely wake up at 7am, with breakfast in the main hut, overlooking the gorge. The weather had cleared during the night and looked very nice. We had a short drive to the helicopter terminal on the top of Baobab Ridge. We had booked a falls plus gorge tour that was to last about 30 minutes. We took of and flew down the river a bit, then had a high speed voyage through the gorge, following the river at a very low altitude, it was really exciting!

Afterwards we drove a short distance to Victoria Falls. We walked along the trail and marveled at them. In several places we were rained on from the falling mist of the falls. It was quite spectacular. We made a quick stop at a small bazaar near where we parked. Assana got a great deal on a wooden hippo. Rick and Randy wanted to buy something, but were turned off by just how aggressive the vendors were. We ended up just hanging out by the car until it was time to go.

Back in camp we had lunch and relaxed for a bit. Then we all jumped in the minivan and drove down to Songwe Village. Alice, a girl who is a resident of the village gave us a tour. We saw an older couple who had a main hut, a kitchen hut and a hut for their children. It was all enclosed in a thatched fence. Next we met the Village Chieftaness, an 87 your old woman who is in charge of the village. Alice told us how the village is divided into four sections, each presided over by a supervisor. She pointed to a tree behind us and described how any disputes between villagers that cannot be resolved by the supervisors is brought to the Chieftaness under this tree. The different sides tell their stories and then she rules. The whole village gets to watch. It sounded like the African version of The People's Court!

At the end of the tour we stopped at several stalls selling locally made hand carvings. We looked around for a bit and bought several items to take home. We were pretty sure that Emmanuel had mentioned our bad experience at the other market earlier in the day as all of the vendors were very polite and almost whispered.

Afterwards Emmanuel took us to "The African Queen", a double deck catamaran river boat. We had a table near the front, right by the railing. It was a leisurely ride down the river and back. Along the way we saw some hippos and a crocodile (swimming after the boat looking for hand outs). We had fun chit-chatting over cocktails.

We met Emmanuel back at the dock and drove back to camp. We were treated to a traditional Zambian meal, which was very fun. It started with a description of traditional Zambian attire, which we were given to wear. Then we went into the main hut, where twelve different dishes were served. We all tried a little bit of most of the dishes (three of us even tried fried caterpillar!). After dinner the staff sang us some traditional songs and had us dance with them, and Rick, Randy and Dan even participated in a song where each one had to act out some sort of hunting using items around the hut. Very fun! The whole day had been a very nice experience, giving us a bit of real Zambian culture.

We woke up, had breakfast and then packed. At the airport we checked in for an hour and a half flight in a 6 seat bush plane to Lusaka. There was a bit of weather around so the pilot had to stay below the cloud level. This meant we flew the whole way at about 1000 feet, which was pretty fun. In Lusaka we had about two and a half hours, so we had lunch and wandered around the airport. At 2:30 we boarded a Zambian Air flight to Mfuwe.

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