Home » Zimbabwe Zambia » Africa: North to South, Part 5: Zambia and Zimbabwe

Africa: North to South, Part 5

Africa: North to South, Part 5: Zambia and Zimbabwe

Simon and Jennifer
2006-04-26 10:30:33

Displayed times (last time: )

Zambia

By the time we reached Zambia we were starting to find the people and scenery more in keeping with our first memories of Africa. The roads in Zambia were certainly a great improvement over most of those we'd traversed, of course this be because there was practically no other traffic!

With good tar roads it wasn't long until we were at Livingston, home to the famous Mosi-o-tuni (smoke that thunders) more commonly known as Victoria Falls. Livingston seemed to be just catching up with the realisation that Zimbabwe was now not as popular and starting (slowly) to catch on to the tourist market with new hotels and cafes appearing, and many of the businesses transferring head quarters, or at least branching out into Zambia from the city of Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe.

The falls were as majestic as ever, and we were lucky enough to see the elephant which frequent the area on the side of the road. Obviously used to tourist traffic, they didn't so much as bat an ear at our presence an a number of people stopped, got out and took photos.

Zimbabwe

Our arrival time in Zimbabwe was pretty good (for us at least, but not those living there). It was amazingly cheap, inflation just couldn't keep up with the fall of the dollar from one day to the next. We saw this as the perfect opportunity to spend time in Hwange National Park, home to the elephant. For many years Hwange has been a refuge for the long poached elephant, so much so that the numbers in the park were obviously far too great at the time we were there and the damage being caused to the forest areas and water sources alike was apparent even to the most untrained eye. This did nothing to dampen the wonder at seeing such huge numbers of elephants, both at waterholes and on the roads. To watch families of elephants drinking, bathing and interacting with each other is a thing of wonder which never ceases to appeal. From the youngest to the eldest they are always excited at the thought of water and come lumbering in at a surprising pace, yet there is always at least one guard keeping watch while the others drink and wash. Gradually they finish drinking and bathing and come to a stand still, then at an unseen and unheard signal (at least to us mere humans) they all seem to put their best foot forward in the same moment and within a few seconds herds of 30 or more simply disappear into the bush.

Although there is no doubt the game spotting was predominately elephant, no large expanse of water was without a few resident hippos, and even some of the water holes resembling mud holes had a resident family. We also saw Sable antelope (now fairly rare since being hunted out of their natural habitat in Angola during the war), buffalo, crocodiles, hyena, lion, cheetah and many, many birds, both large and small. What was most enjoyable to us was being able to leave the vehicle to sit in the empty hides at waterholes and to be able to camp at certain picnic sites near waterholes.