Archive for September, 2008
Shoot to Kill
Monday, September 29th, 2008
It’s been a month since I began chasing hippos. We visited many places that had them, but seeing them in all their oval glory proved difficult. Only now, in South Luangwa, I’ve managed to get a perfect look at them. You’ve got to love an animal that’s purple. You simply must. And the way they waddle out of the river late at dusk to graze, almost bouncing as they run away from the spotlights of game drives. My coveted photo was a bit of a cliché – I wanted a hippo roaring (or yawning, it didn’t matter) with all its might. We were sick of lodges and their strict rules. So after reviewing one lodge just to get the feel for it and the kind of tours it was offering (walking safaris, night drives, etc.), we decided to ignore the park rules and bush camp the next night. We drove all day, from sunrise to sunset, and though we were just as ready to bush camp as before, it was nice to find a cozy little hide overlooking the river. A pod of hippos was waiting for nightfall right under our noses. There, I spent hours and hours, like a sniper in a trench, firing at my target. Finally, Shurik and Vova realized that polite suggestions to leave, and then begging, didn’t have any effect on me, so they dragged me out of the hide by force, placating me with promises to return later and spend the night there. It was a good idea to dilute the hippos with some zebra and hyena. (The zebras in that park were exceptionally beautiful and striped all over, unlike in some other parts of Africa. I’d never thought zebra subspecies could be so different from one another.) But I did make the guys return to the hide to spend the next night, and even in the morning I was still shooting, at one point with the toothbrush sticking out of my mouth.
Overdosing on hippos to the point of a blissful almost-comatose state, I agreed to leave the hide, and just in time. Shortly after we started driving we stumbled upon a pride of lions killing a buffalo. It was quite an awakening sight. I felt like such a vulture – “feeding” off the lions’ kill. The pride was young and strong and tore into the still-alive buffalo eating it out through every hole they could get their fangs into, until the victim finally expired from bleeding or shock after at least half an hour of agony. It could have been finished off earlier, but the juvenile leader of the pride kept getting distracted from suffocating the prey almost lovingly licking the blood off its nose. The heart-wrenching moans of the buffalo twisted my insides. “I can’t look at this,” I said, never taking my eye off the viewfinder. “You don’t have to look. Just shoot,” said Vova.
South Luangwa Photo Gallery
enter at your own risk. (Gory images. Might be not safe for work or to view with children)
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Lower Zambezi – Higher Cost
Sunday, September 28th, 2008
It frightens and excites me at the same time, how little we sometimes know about where we are going. Africa’s national parks differ a lot from country to country and they are run in very different ways, so we never know what to expect next. In South Africa and Namibia, the parks are over-organized operations with gates, curfews and strict rules, though we found them somewhat bendable despite constant ranger patrols. In bureaucratic Botswana, the seemingly dead plains of the Kalahari Desert are empty from any regime, and, even though certain things are frowned upon, one can easily feel one with the animal kingdom and abide by its much logical rules, not the parks’. In Zambia, diving in head first with only minimal information on where we were going and a bad map, we drove deep into Lower Zambezi NP only to discover nobody in their right mind would have attempted such a journey. Most people get to the lodge of their picking by plane and then motor boat. Three hours in our Columbus on endless dirt roads, passing by groups of black construction workers led every time by one very sweaty and frustrated-looking Chinese man in a straw hat. Finally, we found a road sign, and followed it.
I can’t say the managers of the lodge were ecstatic to see us. Apparently the whole point of the lodge being in a secluded and relatively inaccessible wilderness is to avoid visits by penny-pinching independent travelers like us. Buying a concession in a national park provides the owner with exclusive use of its natural wonders. Logically enough, people who can afford flying in, paying $460-$900 pp per night to sleep in a “wilderness camp”, and being escorted to and from their rooms by a guard heavily armed with a flashlight, are the only ones who get to enjoy the park. For the riffraff like backpackers and families unable to afford booking the whole lodge/wilderness camp for themselves (wilderness camps generally don’t allow children under twelve unless you book the whole camp), the only remaining option is to drool watching the Animal Planet Channel. There are no designated camping sites, and independent camping or, as they call it here, “bush camping” is not allowed in the park.
Nevertheless, the staff was very accommodating. I explained what we were doing in Lower Zambezi and the prospects of being mentioned in a guidebook to a hundred million Russian speakers. They provided us with two rooms free of charge, meals included, and took us around by boat and jeep to photograph the area. The service was excellent, but not something one can afford on a $25 a day budget. Still, I can’t help but think to myself: if we were turned away by the lodge, we’d easily find ourselves a high bank in a shade of a baobab tree for our own VIP wilderness camp. We have an experienced guide who can even find a pangolin, a gourmet cook that will turn every pasta meal into a mouthwatering delight, and from personal experience I can promise that every woman visiting the camp would find herself sleeping right between two very handsome men.
The next day, on the way out of Lower Zambezi NP, a tire that we’ve patched just a few days ago burst with a loud pop. It happened next to one of the Chinese-run road work sites, and before we had time to blink, let alone start changing the wheel, there were ten workers changing it for us. Four minutes later the popped tire was in the trunk, the workers grabbed a few water bottles from the car and waved us away.
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Private Parts
Saturday, September 27th, 2008
I am far from a nun, extremely comfortable with my body, and if you describe me as “shy” in front of anybody who even remotely knows me – they’d laugh in your face. All that being said, I would like to think I’m all about respect. Respecting other cultures and their degrees of modesty are highly important during the sort of travel I enjoy most, though in Africa, I officially declare myself confused by modesty regulations and locations of the private parts.
When visiting Himbas in Namibia, I was as alien to them as they were to me, so it didn’t even cross my mind to cover my ankles – considered by them to be the most private parts. Only in hindsight I wondered if they saw me as an immoral savage. However, in Zambia, the country of western-style brick houses and people dressed in clean clothes and shoes, I’ve let my guard down ( and was reprimanded for it )
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Livingstone’s Pets
Friday, September 26th, 2008
I could cry – I’ve hugged an elephant. I’ve walked with lions tail in hand, and swam in Devil’s Armchair nearly spilling over the edge of Vic Falls. I’m not a daredevil. In fact I am afraid of heights (though that doesn’t stop me from climbing the highest whatever in vicinity). But these were all calculated risks, with tamed animals and lifeguards controlling my every move even in the shallowest of waters.
Now I’m having trouble deciding how highly may I allow myself to cherish these “tame” experiences. My heart certainly wasn’t on the verge of leaping out of my chest when I first felt the rough fur on the neck of a lioness, nor was it when she singled me out as the smallest one of the group and wanted to play with me. But it almost did leap out when I stood between two huge ivory tusks and wrapped my arms around an enormous nothing-else-like-it trunk, and felt a storm begin above my head as the elephant flapped its ears.
Have I also got close to wild animals? The kind that could kill me in a blink of an eye? Certainly, and thanks to the guys who are always there to capture me on film as I move in for the kill – climb, crawl, inch to position myself for the best shot – I also have pictures to prove it. The “high” I get from either kind of encounter is humbling and so incredibly precious, I want time to stop from moving. Doesn’t matter if the animal is truly wild, or tame so I can allow myself to let my guard down and bask in the awesomeness that is in every single wrinkle and eyelash on a creature of such magnificence.
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Vic Falls and The Mighty Zambezi
Thursday, September 25th, 2008
This is how man triumphs over nature. Tames lions, kills mammoths, conquers raging rivers roaring and foaming at the mouth with white water as if outraged that man has dared to venture in. In Zambia’s Livingstone, home to the mighty Victoria Falls, man has enslaved nature. It happens in so many places I visit; it’s strange how I’ve only realized it now.
Aside from being used as an energy source, the Falls are an inevitable and obvious tourist attraction. People come here and tour it inside and out. Simply watching the falling water, from paved walkways, pictures spoiled by non-photogenic railings in the way, quickly bores today’s sophisticated vacationers, and they seek a view from a different angle. Some hop a helicopter, or better yet a microlight, and get a bird’s eye view. Others take a more hands-on approach and, paddle in hand, slash their way through mighty rapids, swallowing the Zambezi gulp by gulp, and come out feeling like they’ve truly become one with the river. We did both and even bribed a security guard to let us see a lunar rainbow at the waterfalls which are a national heritage site and are closed at night.
lunar rainbow
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Welcome To Zambia!
Wednesday, September 24th, 2008
at Livingstone Island, on top of Victoria Falls
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Leaving Namibia
Tuesday, September 23rd, 2008
I hate to leave Namibia – it has been so good to us. But our last days here weren’t without memorable escapades. I wandered if the day would come when our Columbus would drown in the sort of thick mud we often find ourselves driving through. And that day nearly came.
Mamili National Park was going to be the last on our list in this country, but when we arrived there, it turned out it was flooded and looked deserted. A few successful river crossings finally led to an unsuccessful one, and we found ourselves spinning our wheels in what the locals call “black cotton” – fine black mud. The guys tried everything: branches, logs, even rubber mats from inside the car, but it all just sank. After three hours of hard work, sunburned and up-to-their-necks-in-mud, Shurik and Vova had completed jacking up one wheel, were almost done with another, and were about to start digging out the front axle. Out of the blue a jeep with elephant hunters showed up and pulled us out. I wouldn’t have anything to do with them if I had a choice, but beggars can’t be choosers.
( It could have been a miserable and sad finale to our time in Namibia )
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Caprivi Wildlife
Monday, September 22nd, 2008
malachite kingfisher
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Caprivi Wildlife
Sunday, September 21st, 2008
carmine bee-eater
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