Have you ever thumbed through a National Geographic magazine and looked at the pictures from Africa?
That's what yesterday's boat ride on the Zambezi River felt like.
We headed out from Lusaka at 5:30 a.m. for a three hour trip south. Dustin said we would descend almost a mile in that time. If we had been able to travel on a highway such as I-40, it would have taken us about 90 minutes. At times, even though the road is the main highway from Lusaka to points south, we were riding on nothing but a dirt road with many bumps and ruts. We were sharing the road with tractor trailer trucks and all sorts of vehicles.
Eventually we got into some hill country that was beautiful. It reminded me very much of the approach to Asheville around Old Fort (and maybe a little bit east of there). The hills and mountains looked the same except for the foliage. Whereas in NC, the trees form a pretty uniform canopy across the tops of the mountains, here the acacia trees are not as closely packed. It makes for an interesting effect from a distance. Also, the vegetation on the mountains here is more sparse (of course, it is the dry season. Perhaps it is more lush during the rainy season.).
We arrived at the Gwabi River Lodge around 8:30 a.m., registered, ate a little breakfast, and headed down to the river to meet our guide. The Gwabi River Lodge is a beautifully landscaped facility that sits high on the edge of the Kafue River, which joins the Zambezi River about six kilometers from the lodge. Here are some pictures of the grounds and cabins.
Here are some of the lodge's dogs.
This view of the Kafue River is from the lodge patio at the top of the hill (shown from the river in the second picture.)
We were in a fairly small fishing boat with an outboard motor. Our guide was a young Zambian man (maybe 21-25 years old) named Clesheer.
We saw many pods of hippos, three elephants, several crocodiles sunning on the banks of the river, and many different kinds of birds.
The crocs weren't nearly as large as the crocs we saw at the reptile farm. I guess those in the wild don't get as much to eat. The woman who registered us warned us not to trail our hands in the water (even if it felt good), because the crocs are so quick, one could come up and take your arm off. She also cautioned against getting out on a pretty sand bar, because a quick croc could come out of the water and take you under.
We saw many pods of hippos. It seemed like they were family units -- there were plenty of baby hippos hanging out with larger hippos (mom and dad?). We never got very close to them, but Clesheer would let the engine idle and we would sit and watch the hippos. Typically, the largest hippo (we figured it was the daddy) would make some display of himself. Our guide said the hippo was warning us off. The big hippo would stand up and show his size or snort at us or simply keep his eyes on us the entire time. The only times I really got nervous was when the hippos would go under the water. I didn't know if they were going to swim up under the boat and flip us. Clesheer said they were afraid of the sound of the engine (I wondered how he knew that!).
The hippos were fascinating to watch. Occasionally they would make some noise -- sort of a loud grunting noise or a loud breathing that sounded like a horse snorting. Hippopotamus does come from the Greek words for "river horse," and I can see why they were named that. Their heads are sort of shaped like horses' heads and when they were swimming in the water, they looked kind of like horses running by. They have funny little ears that they constantly wiggled. It looked as if their ears were spinning around.
We came across a family of hippos on land. The adults were very large. The daddy bolted very quickly and slid into the water, followed by the smaller ones. Two larger hippos stood absolutely still on the bank the rest of the time we watched them. It was as if they thought they were hiding from us.
We asked Clesheer if people ate hippo meat. He said yes, that he had, and that it tastes like pork. There's a new industry for Duplin County! You could get a lot of hippo chops out of one of these animals. Here are some of the hippos.
The elephants were the highlight of the trip for me. They were simply majestic. I was looking out over the river when Dustin called to me to look to my left at the elephants. There they were! We sat within ten yards of them and watched them eat for about twenty minutes.
After three hours, we were back at the river lodge. Christopher and Jared swam in the pool while Dustin and I ate sandwiches. We met a man from Tennessee who had been in Zambia for ten days (he was heading back to the States today). He was engaged in some mission work in a village a little way down the Kafue River. It was his fifteenth visit. The group stayed in the river lodge and took the boat to the village each day. We also met a Zambian farmer who had come across the river to buy some supplies. He farms and manages 2000 hectares. He was interested to find out where we were from and to talk about farming in the U.S. He grows wheat and soybeans. His daughter was with him; she just graduated from high school and will be going to college in the United Kingdom.
Since we missed going to church in Lusaka, the four of us had a little worship service under the shade of some trees on the grounds of the river lodge. Dustin read from Psalm 148 ("Praise the Lord from the earth, you sea monsters and all deeps, fire and hail, snow and frost, stormy wind fulfilling his command! Mountains and all hills, fruit trees and all cedars! Wild animals and all cattle, creeping things and flying birds!") and Psalm 150 ("Let everything that breathes praise the Lord! Praise the Lord!"). I chose some verses from Psalm 104 and edited the words a little bit to fit our river experience (vv. 24-26: "O Lord, how manifold are your works! In wisdom you have made them all; the earth is full of your creatures. Yonder is the Zambezi River, great and wide, creeping things innumerable are there, crocodiles and birds, living things both small and great. There go the boats, and the hippos that you formed to sport in it.").
Here is a picture of me standing next to a baobab tree. A few years ago, we had a Vacation Bible School with the baobab tree as the centerpiece. We learned how important the tree is for life in Africa.
The Zambezi River trip was a wonderful experience. I kept reminding myself, "You're riding on a boat on a river in Africa, seeing animals in their natural habitat."
Here is a picture of the landscape from the river. When I commented to Dustin that this is what I think of when I picture Africa, he said, "That's probably because so many wildlife photographers come to the Zambezi River to take their pictures."
All of a sudden, my Zambian adventure seems to be drawing to a close very quickly. I now have only three more days of teaching (Tuesday - Thursday). My students requested that they be allowed to take their Greek final exam on Thursday afternoon instead of Friday afternoon, since they have another final exam on Friday. That suits me just fine, as it will give me Friday to grade the exams, figure out final grades, submit all of my course paperwork, and pack to leave for home on Saturday morning. I have class from 10:45 a.m. - 12:35 p.m. Tuesday - Thursday and again from 14:00 - 16:00 p.m. (2:00 - 4:00 p.m.) on Thursday.
The students were very tired in class this morning. I guess they were pooped from playing so hard at Saturday's Sports Festival Day.
Marty and I are scheduled to eat supper tonight at the rector's home, Dr. Zulu. However, I'm not sure Marty is going to make it. He was very sick over the weekend. Today he is doing better and gone to hold one hour of class this afternoon. I think he probably needs to stay at home tonight.
I'm off to write out the final quiz to be given tomorrow and to work on a lesson plan for class.
Here are some pictures of different plants and flowers I saw yesterday at the river lodge.
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