We spent the day at Mudumu, under the shade of
some huge Jacalberry trees. Eve took the lead and had all the kids making
Christmas decorations to hang in the trees around us, when we stop for our
Christmas break. The boys soon got bored with that and started fishing in the
river. They could not go too close to the water’s edge as there are huge crocs
in the river and fortunately they are as scared of those brutes as the grown
up's are. It didn't take long for them to catch a Barber, yuk they are horrible
things with those long whiskers. They are also very clever fish and like
mozzies I am sure that they have big brains, anyway this one certainly was very
clever, it swam straight for the branches of a fallen tree and so try as they
may they couldn't reel him in. They eventually had to cut the line and let him
free so there is a Barber swimming around the Kwando river with a hook in its
mouth which will eventually land up in some crocodiles stomach! Would be
interesting to follow the trail of that hook!
We went for a game drive in the afternoon, saw a
bit of game but mostly just enjoyed seeing the terrains of this part of the
world. That evening some other guys arrived at the camp site...oops! A group of five guys from Hoedspruit of all
places. We had only booked in for a night and then decided to stay so we were
cheating. They very gracefully accepted our misdemeanor and just shared the
campsite, it really was a big piece of Africa lawn and we all fitted without a
problem, so we all swapped names, beers, stories and enjoyed the African sunset
together.
Next day it was time for the painful task of
packing up and moving off again. Ernest and I were ready first so we went off
to pay for the campsite after our little illegal stay over and we said that we
would meet the rest of them on the main road. Well, we waited and waited and
waited, we radioed, radioed and radioed and just as we had decided to go back
and find them, they came trundling down the road. As I said before we have got
to practice this packing up thing a bit more but this time they had an
additional problem. Guy went to empty their porto-pottie and as he threw the
stuff down the long drop, the lid as well...not good! Oh dear, that was a disaster,
but he had a plan to retrieve it with the fishing rod. As he was returning to
his car to get the fishing rod he passed Mark on the way to the long drop with
his porto-pottie. He had heard Guy’s swearing about this disaster. Mark asked Guy,
if he needed help and Guy said, ‘no problem it's all sorted.”
Mark thought he meant that he had retrieved the
lid so he proceeded to empty all the contents of his pottie into the long drop.
Now the screw top was irretrievable! And you can't easily buy a lid for a
Porto-pottie up here. “Eish” now that's a problem. Oh boy did we laugh!
The drive though the Caprivi was a very pleasant
surprise. We have never seen such orderly and beautiful built African villages
before. Each family group of huts has a reed fence built around it which are, absolutely
perfectly constructed, straight on top and not one piece of rubbish or plastic
bag lying around. Very neat schools with sports grounds that were perfectly
kept. This was truly a pleasure to see.
Katimo Malilo is quite a bustling little town
with a big supermarket and hardware store for us to buy some stuff for our
urgent repairs like lids for porto-potties and Valcro to restore our Mozzie
nets, filling up gas bottles which Ernest had not done in SA. He thought that
you purchased gas bottles full! Now that is being blond, don't you agree
especially that this is the second time he has made the same mistake!
Off to the border crossing now. The Namibian
side was a breeze except when we tried to go through the last police check and
they found that we went through the border post when we entered Namibia and
never paid the road tax, “oops” we had to go back to immigration and pay the
road tax, now we were the ones holding every one up for a change.
Oh boy, then we hit the Zambian border post
which took us well over an hour to get through. They have so many forms to fill
in and so many taxes to pay and so many queues to stand in and the locals who
are really very polite do know how to slip in to the front of the line, very
politely of course!
Seriously, I really do enjoy the Zambian people
especially the money changes at the border posts. But they are sharp and fast,
look like hip hop dancers doing a 'deal' and you can really get caught if you
don't keep your wits about you and are not sharper than they are. They were on
their phones and constantly checking the exchange rates and bargaining with
everyone that comes through. I remember in the old days it was very illegal to
change money with these guys but now nobody seems to bother about them anymore,
in fact the officials actually send you out to exchange currency.
Mark was up and away and got through almost half
an hour before us. Don't know how he was so fast! Anyway he waited for us about
five kilometers out of town and phoned us a few times to find out why we were
taking so long. He put his phone down onto the Dodge back when he was getting
cool drinks out for the kids and forgot to pick it up. So that was the end of
his phone, he drove off and only figured out ten minutes later that he had
forgotten it on the back of the truck so he has now donated it to somebody in
Zambia.
We eventually caught up with him after our
border ordeal and headed for Ngonye falls. Last time we were there we stayed at
the community center as we couldn't get down to the camp site on the river
because the Hippo couldn't get past the trees and Ernest wasn't going to start
any deforestation project at this point. This time I thought to hell with that
we would give it a try, we started to walk it with Guy following up slowly
cutting trees as he went. When we finally reached the bottom after at least
half an hour walk, we realized that we would never get the truck all the way down
plus it was full of mozzies and it would have been an awful campsite, so we had
to do a quick turn around and walk/run back up fast in front of Guy. He was too
far down and couldn't turn to get out
again, all this activities at 36C plus!
Too late he was right behind us! We then sent Mark off to check out
another campsite down the road and got a very welcome radio call from him to
say that the place was great and we must come over there.
By now it had started to rain and we had all the
kids in our little hippo, all saying, ‘Granny what have you got to eat,’ so we
were feeding them with chips and junk while the moms and dads weren't around, a
thing that grandparents do to keep the grandkids happy.
Sometimes in Africa you come across little
tucked away hidden gems and this is what Mark had found. A South African couple
had moved up to Zambia on contracted to build the Zambian/Angolan border post.
They had bought a property on the Zambezi river and created the cutest little
lodge/camping spot. We unfortunately couldn't all park together as the actual
sites weren't big enough but we each had a little clearing and we used our van
as the central cooking area. It was called ‘Whispering Sands’ and you could see
exactly why. The campsites all overlooked these huge white dunes with the
Zambezi river on the other side. As you walked over the sand dunes they
actually squeaked, hence the name whispering sands. He had a sign on the road
saying ‘Whispering Sands’ and ‘Koue Bier’ so no question about it, where he was
from!
We had been messing around (cutting trees and
fighting through border posts) that we decided to just eat at the ‘Restaurant.’
The owners, Eddie and Jeanette are from Pretoria so we figured she must know
how to cook a good old hearty meal and we were right, she had schnitzels for
the kids and the most delicious oxtail for us. Guy ate so much I swear I thought
he was going to pop! Doesn't say much for my cooking!
We decided to stay put, so the next day let the
kids, particularly Garrick enjoy some fishing.
Eddie took him down to the river and showed him where to go fish. Well,
he reeled in a huge tiger fish and it was the biggest one that even his dad had
ever caught. Seriously it was huge!
After that the kids were hooked, never mind the
fish being hooks. We just couldn't tear Garrick, Guy and Luke away from that
water. There are apparently 3 to 4 locals a month taken by crocodiles, so us
girls were a bit paranoid about the boys especially the younger ones staying
well away from the water’s edge.
Anyway while Guy, Mark and Garrick were fishing,
the other kids started picking up the small shiny crystals on the beach and
came rushing to show us their ‘diamonds.’ I must say they looked just like the
diamonds that we saw at the Kimberley museum but really we didn't take too much
notice until Luke and Eve later came running to our small hippo as I was
cooking dinner, just beside themselves with excitement. Eddie had bought a
little stone analysis machine and when he ran the light over the stones, the
light went red which meant that they were diamonds. Oh my gosh, they had about 16
each in their packets that had all shown a clear red. Eve was already counting
up her millions and spending it at great speed in her imagination.
The excitement was palatable. They all wanted to
go straight down to the beach and collect more ‘diamonds’ but of course by then
it was nearly dark and the hippos were out of the water so it would have been
rather dangerous on the beach. We planned to leave the next morning but the
allure of diamonds was too great and Eve with her negotiating powers over her father
managed to persuade Mark that we definitely needed another day to get more
diamonds and at this rate he will be able to retire right away. So the
itinerary got shifted around and the kids were on the beach at six the next
morning collecting crystals. I now understand the diamond rush at Kimberley,
the allure of those little stones are irresistible. Anyway, Eddie said that he
has a friend who is a diamond expert and he was coming around later in the
afternoon to re-asses the stones as he didn't think his little machine was too
accurate. After exhausting the collection activity we managed to get the kids
off the beach and we went for a short ride in Guy’s Hippo and then a longish
walk to the actual falls. We had seen them a few years ago and felt it was worth
the time to go back there again.
They are the second biggest falls in Zambia, the
first being Victoria falls, and really worth seeing. It was a hot day so the
mist from the falls really cooled us down. When we got back to the camp we all
waited for the ‘diamond expert’ to arrive. Finally he arrived and very quickly
loomed through all the stones and dashed everyone's expectations of a rich and
happy future. Oh my, what a letdown for the kids, no diamonds, not even one.
Eddies machine was a complete dud and obviously couldn't really tell if they
were diamonds or not!
We had very deflated children for all of half an
hour and the swimming pool became the favored activity, they soon forgot about
the stones and we forgot about our plans to buy the campsite with it’s non-existent
diamonds. We spent the next few hours watching the TV with baited breath to see
if Zuma was in or out! They even had a TV in their little pub! Then we had a
G&T to celebrate the outcome of the voting – Zuma, head of the ANC party. Not
Champagne mind you as Ace and David M, was not the results that we, or I am sure
Cyril Ramaposa were hoping for.
Signing out for now!
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| The Zambezi River Basin |
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