I'm writing this post from the capital of Burundi, Bujumbura.
First, I wanted to write something I forgot to add in the last post, but it was so long anyways it's probably better I forgot. As I wrote I was on a pretty awful fishing boat for 20+ hours from Mahale Mountain park to Kigoma. Well, there was one memorable experience outside of just being on the damn boat for so long. That night was the Champions League final between Man. United and Chelsea, and a few people had brought along radios just to listen to the game. So for quite a few hours, I think the game ended close to 1am our time, I sat with a few folk moving radio antennas around constantly trying to get a faint signal of the game. Since it was a BBC broadcast in English, and I was the only person on the boat with anything remotely close to decent English it was up to me to let them know when goals were scored by who, when it was half time, the extra times, and finally each penalty result. Most people were Chelsea fans, so they were quite dissapointed with the result. For me it was just cool to listen to the Champions League final from a fishing boat in the middle of Lake Tanganyika.
Well, I spent a few days in Kigoma before making a half days set of bus rides over to Bujumbura. At the border they issued me a visa for three days only, so I have to leave tomorrow for Rwanda, despite wanting to have stayed here for a few more days. Apparently tourists get three days. From Kigoma you have to go a little east up into the mountains to the border, and than you go back down the mountains on the Burundi side to the lake which you than take north all the way to the capital. The ride is absolutely spectactular with some beautiful mountain scenery, especially on the Burundi section and than being on the lake is always amazing.
Burundi is a very poor country, possibly the world's poorest. GDP is estimated at less than 100 dollars per person per year!, and you can tell that it's just really, really poor. The GDP figure is misleading in my opinion, because of Bujumbura, but I'll get to that in a second. Outside of the capital there is pretty much just subsistence agriculture, fishing, and I think most people just feed themselves and make less than the 100 dollars figure. The country is very small, but is densely populated with a population around 9 million. Only Rwanda is more densely population in Africa. It has no mineral resources, has pretty much deforested the entire country for agriculture, which will lead to serious problems, and has no strong infrastructure for anything. It's not in the best shape to put it extremely mildly. Much of this is because since independence from the Belgians in the 60's its been fighting an on again off again civil war. The roots of the conflict are the same that caused Rwandas, ethnic violence between Hutus and Tutsis. Most people know quite a bit about Rwanda's violence, but just in the mid-90's more than 100,000 people were killed in Burundi too, and almost nobody's even heard of the country let alone its ethnic and political violence. The final ceasefire was implemented just in 2006, and there has been occasional attacks, including one about a month ago south of the capital. Things are considered in general to be pretty stable, and people think politically its headed in the right direction.
Alright, so now to Bujumbura. Bujumbura kind of sprawls down the hills to the lake at the northern end of Lake Tanganyika. The hills are beautiful, and across the lake you can see the towering mountains on the Congolese side. It's a very pretty natural setting, and the only thing more I could ask for would be beaches. The coast is very marshy in this area, and you have to go further south for beaches.
Bujumbura, despite being the capital of possibly the poorest country in the world, is by no means cheap. There is no cheap accomodation, I'm paying 30 dollars a night in a fine hotel, but one that is considered on the low end of the spectrum here. In Lusaka, for example, I paid five dollars a night, and Zambia's a much richer country. Apparently, the main reason for this is absolutely insane numbers of foreign aid organizations that have operations in Bujumbura. Kigoma, in Tanzania, I thought was a pretty NGO happy place. Bujumbura is on speed and crack together with the amount of NGO's around here. Every possible UN acronym group is here, and so many other groups from the US and every European country you can imagine too. Basically they've single handidly made the city pretty expensive, especially accomodation. For someone like me, here for only a few days, its no big deal, but for the average Burundian I can't even begin to imagine what its like to live here. All of a sudden you have this pretty large foreign population that can pay ten times for more for all basic services and products, and like any market it reacts and adjusts accordingly, screwing over the poorest folks.
There is also a small population is extraordinarily wealthy Burundians. There are ton of villas in this city, some areas remind me of Beverly Hills, and not all belong to foreign aid workers. The 100 dollar figure is off because you have a population in the capital making millions of dollars, meaning to get to the 100 dollar figure most people make nothing during the year, which would make sense based on the small farms you see most people living on everywhere outside the capital. There is some hope though, and its coffee. Burundi apparently produces some of the finest high end coffee in the world, and its now the biggest export of the country. Hopefully it can bring in enough money to help out some portion of the population. I'm not the most optimistic.
During my time in Buj, I've walked around from the top to the bottom of the city, eaten pretty well, and just relaxed. There's nothing in terms of sights to see at all for the place. No museums, no monuments, nada, but that's fine since I'm not a huge museum and monument person. Healthwise, I'm still trying to get back to where I was before I got malaria, and I'm pretty close, basically 100 percent. I do want to mention how good the food is here. There are bakeries everywhere, lots of tropical fruits, and the food is very influenced by the Belgians. There's also a wide variety of asian restaurants from the small, but culinarily active south asian community in Buj, and what I had heard before coming here was true. The food in Bujumbura is the best I've had in East Africa.
So tomorrow I have a bus to Kigali, Rwanda. I'll spend a few days there before going on to my next rift valley lake, Lake Kivu. I haven't seen another traveller yet, although plenty of aid workers in Kigoma and here in Buj, and will see if this continues in Kigali. I'm pretty sure I'll meet other folks on Lake Kivu though, and while its been cool to be the only traveller in these parts the last few weeks, I'm ready to meet some other folks.
Hope everyone is doing well, and I imagine I'll write again after a few days being at Lake Kivu. Tchau, B
Sunday, May 25, 2008
Friday, May 23, 2008
lake tanganyika pictures
here are links to my albums for the lake. also, shara, maybe you can help with this, it would cool if there was a map feature you could add to the blog. some way so you could see with google earth or some other feature where all these places are. if you know how to add this, por favor let me know.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2101189&l=2d334&id=2606069
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2101188&l=fa3de&id=2606069
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2101187&l=307a2&id=2606069
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2101186&l=edc33&id=2606069
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2101189&l=2d334&id=2606069
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2101188&l=fa3de&id=2606069
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2101187&l=307a2&id=2606069
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2101186&l=edc33&id=2606069
Thursday, May 22, 2008
Mpulungu, Muslims, Malaria, Mwongozo, Mahale, and More!!!
Hi, I hope you all appreciate the effort that went into this posts title.
Well, its been quite a two weeks to say the least, and this will probably be a long post. I'll just start from where I last ended at Victoria Falls unti I made it this morning to Kigoma, Tanzania.
After a nice few days in southern Zambia in Livingstone and Victoria Falls I took a 24 hour bus ride to the far north of the country to Zambia's port on Lake Tanganyika, Mpulungu. I arrived pretty exhuasted from the bus, but in better shape than I thought I'd be. I assumed there'd be a bank, internet, some someblance of a town there, but I was wrong. It's a pretty small town with just the most basic services, so no bank, no internet, nada. The setting is gorgeous, right on Lake Tangayika, with two islands right off shore. Since I planned on there being a bank, and didn't have enough money for the next part of my trip, two days after arriving I had to take a 5 hour bus(each way!) the nearest town with a bank. I guess that's the price I pay for not checking things out first.
Anyways, I arrived on Sunday and on Friday a big passenger boat was scheduled to depart north towards Tanzania and the chimpanzee park, Mahale Mountain, that I really wanted to visit. Outside of teh bank day I spent my days hiking and canoeing around the lake. First, a little side story.
I found one place in town that served rice, which was great, because I can't stand nsima. There was a big poster of the Dome of the Rock, the Hajj and Medina, so I assumed the owners were muslim. There's a big mosque at the entrance to town as well, and Zambia has an ok sized muslim population, suppsedly. Well, after my second day there in a row the owner came to talk with me in very poor english. Eventually I told him I came from Israel and that I had been to the Dome of the Rock, pointing to the poster on the wall. Well...due to the difficulty in communication it turns out he thought I was a muslim after I told him I was at the mosque. I didn't discover this until the next day when I came back for my rice and vegetables and there were two guys in those perfectly white long dress looking things that you see many arab and muslim men wear. They said hello, they were happy to meet me and quote "you may try to make plans, but only Allah can choose your path". Both were from Malawi originally, I found out, and spoke very good English, unlike the restaurant owner. They than told me that I should stay in Mpulungu start some businesses, but first there are some charitable donations that I should make. They than gave me a list of a few different things from some fellow muslim's medical bills, to mosque repairs, and a donation to their local school.
At this point I'm confused, kind of uncomfortable, but I had figured out at least that they thought I was muslim. At this point I told them that I think there's a misunderstanding. I told them I was not muslim, to which they reacted quite confused. It turns out the misunderstanding was when I pointed to the poster. They all thought you had to be a muslim to be able to go to the Dome of the Rock. They were quite embarrassed after realizing the mistake, but there was no tension. I kept coming back to that place each day I was in mpulungu for rice and vegetables(cabbage only) and the owner was as friendly as you could imagine.
Well, I went on two hikes while I was there waiting for the boat. One was through a road, and footpaths between the closest town to Mpulungu, Mbala, and Mpulungu. Alltogether it was around 35k, so I was pretty tired, but it was an awesome hike. Great views of the lake, nice people and villages along the way, and I got to see a lot of small farms.
The next day I went to Kalambo falls, which is the second highest single drop fall in Africa, whatever that means exactly, at 212 meters. Victoria Falls isn't even the highest falls in its own country. After walking up the rift valley escarpment a few hours I got to the amazing falls. The gorge is stunning, tons of birds flying around, and its a big falls. I'll post pictures so y'all can see. My other days in mpulungu i just rented a small dugout canoe and went to the offshore islands and went swimming. I also read another book, this one by an African author, Elechi Amadi. I read his first book, The Concubine, which was very good, and I highly recommend it. He's Nigerian, and his books are on traditional Nigerian life and his experiences during the civil war there. I'm hoping to find another one of his at some point along the way.
So Friday comes, the boat to Tanzania is supposed to arrive, and I wake up feeling horrible. In the back of my mind I knew immediately what it was, but I didn't want to admit it. The boat hadn't shown up, so I went to the harbor, and they said it was delayed, but would come in the afternoon. Meanwhile, I'm just feeling worse and worse, and I go to the hostel owner and tell him I need to see a doctor. I had aches everywhere, a horrible headache, felt dizzy, all the signs of malaria. A doctor came to the hostel pretty shortly thereafter and gave me this prick on the spot malaria test they do. It came out negative, but they often do when in fact its malaria. In any case he told me to start taking the medications to treat it. I have enough for four or five bouts of Malaria, so that wasn't an issue, and I started on those pills. Well, just after that the hostel owner told me he heard the boat wasn't coming until the next day, which was just as good, because there was no way I was going to be able to get on that boat. For about 24 hours I was competely miserable, and another 24 hours feeling horrible. The boat came in the next morning, and somehow I managed to walk over to the harbor and get on it. It was probably not the best decision to get on the boat for my health, but if I didn't get on the boat than I was stuck in mpulungu with no way of getting to the park and it would have been an enormous hassle.
The boat, normally the Liemba, is supposed to go from its main port of Kigoma, in Tanzania, to Mpulungu and back once a week. Well, the UN has recently started shipping Congolese refugees that fled to Zambia back to the Congo with this boat. For about two months, and for another few months its pretty much just doing the refugee runs. The boat that came, the Mwongozo, usually goes from Kigoma to the capital of Burundi. About once a month now it does the Kigoma to Mpulungu route, and I got really lucky that the week I showed up in Mpulungu it was coming. So if I didn't get on the boat that day I'd really be stuck in Mpulungu.
My first day on the boat I felt horrible still, but it wasn't as bad as the first day, so that was one promising sign at least. I got myself first class cabin, which while not comfortable by any means, at least meant I had a room to myself. This was Saturday, and when I woke up Sunday I felt almost like a new person. Not feeling great, but compared to the previous two days I could not have been happier. Until than I thought there was no way I'd be able to go to Mahale Mountain park, and that I'd have to take the boat all the way to Kigoma. The stop for Mahale Mountain was supposed to be around 3-4am on Monday, so I told myself I keep feeling better all day than I'll still get off.
The boat ride itself is amazing in its own right. The lake is stunning, and there are small villages every few kilometers. The boat stops in the lake at quite a few villages, since there are no docks big enough for it to stop at, and small boats race out to bring it passengers and cargo. Its absolute chaos with boats ramming eachother, cargo falling in the water, fights breaking out, and its quite a scene to witness. I was going to have to get down onto these boats at the Mahale stop, which wasn't the most comforting thought, but I felt better all day and I was set on going to that park. Also, after appearing outside my room, after being holed up teh first day sick, I was something of a celebrity on the boat. The captain invited me to the wheel, radio room, whatever, and everybody wanted to talk to me. I was the only foreigner, and in fact from Mpulungu until I arrived this morning in Kigoma, almost two weeks, I met no other travellers or foreigners at all. I was even given permission to use the officers deck to sit and enjoy the ride. It's the top deck of the boat, and its practically void of people, while the bottom two levels are overflowing with people.
Well, the huge horn that goes off at each stop went off at 4:30am at the stop for Mahale Mountains, I was feeling even better than the day before, and I got off in the middle of the night into the madness of the small fishing boat frenzy. No problems though, and a few minutes later I made it to shore. I may not have had malaria, the test did come out negative, but I'm pretty sure I did. The symptoms were the same, and the fact that after taking the medication I improved so rapidly makes me think it was malaria. Its behind me now though, I feel fine, and I really, really hope I don't get it again. I don't think I can ever donate blood again, which kind of sucks.
Anyways, I got to the park headquarters for Mahale Mountain, and was in for a small shock. The costs for the park, new as of January 1st, are ridiculous. You have to pay 80 US for each 24 hours you stay in the park, you have to pay 50 dollars for the park boat to transport you from their headquarters to the campsite, 20 dollars for every four hours you have a park guide, and you're not allowed to walk without a guide, and finally 30 dollars per night for their accomadations. Even if you bring your own tent, its 30 dollars. In short, you have to pay a fortune to see the park. I had come all this way, so I wasn't not going to go, but I couldn't stay as long as I wanted. The other issue was a boat back to Kigoma. I arrived in the park on Monday, and there was a boat to Kigoma on Wednesday and Saturday. I couldn't afford to pay park fees through Saturday, so I had no choice but to leave on Wednesday, yesterday for Kigoma. The fees, in my opinion, represent how Africa is really a destination more catered for high end tourism only. I'll try to write more about it in a different post, but this one will be way too long as is, so it'll have to wait.
So......after a long argument I got the park people to let me pay 80 dollars one time, enter the park on Monday and leave Wednesday morning. I also got them to agree to let me pay for two guided hikes, but have them be all day and not be timed to the 4 hour bullshit. I had travelled on a boat for two days, planned on going to this park for months, and at this point I was just going to have to bit the bullet and pay a lot of money.
The park is absolutely stunning. The Mahale mountains rise up to 2,500 meters, and go straight into the lake. The water is exceptionally clear in this area and there are stretches of actually white sand from the ground of shells. The forests on the mountains are dense, tropical, and some of the prettiest I have ever seen. The mountains create their own weather system, so the area gets a lot more rain than the surrounding area. The area is also home to around 700 chimpanzees, the largest community left anywhere, and has been the site of a Japanese research project since the 60's.
So I hiked some 12 hours alltogher through thick forest, got stung by nasty flies, ants, and probably some other things, sweated out half my body weight, and I saw.....NO chimpanzees! Writing it just now its still hard for me to grasp, but I saw none. Chimpanzees move along the same trails pretty constantly, and every few days they move high up into the mountains, where there are no hiking trails, for a few days. Well, my guide is pretty convinced that I came during the two days the chimpanzees are up in the mountains. The hiking was absolutely amazing, its beautiful there, but I was, and still am to a lesser degree though, quite dissapointed in not seeing the chimpanzees.
On the second day we came across the Japanese researcher, this was already the end of the day, and upon hearing that I hadn't seen any chimps and that I was leaving the next day because of the costs started pleading with the park rangers to let me stay. I thanked him, but told him it wasn't his fight, and it wouldn't not have done any good. He offered to let me stay at his research station, and he's a really nice guy who's been to Israel too. He's collecting data for some post doctoral research of his, so I wish him lots of good research data and hope his papers get published.
A bit demoralized after everything I had gone through to get to the park and not having seen the chimps I left Mahale mountain yesterday morning for what I thought would be about a 10 hour ride on local fishing boats to Kigoma. When I got on I was told that we'd be arriving the next morning, today. So that just added to my mood, but I think at that point so many things had not gone according to plan that I no longer cared. The boat ride was horribly uncomfortable, but I actually quite enjoyed it. Last night was cold and miserable, and I'll never do anything like it again, but it was a hell of an experience, and I have really experienced this lake.
Now I'm in Kigoma, I've showered, and I'm just starting to take in the last few weeks on this lake. A few things about the lake(no, the post ain't over). Lake Tanganyika is the longest lake in the world and the second deepest. It has the second largest volume too after Lake Baikal in Russia, which is also the worlds deepest. Zambia, Tanzania, Burundi, and Congo border it, and there are almost no roads throughout the entire lake. The only way you get around is some kind of boat or flying, but there are very few airstrips throughout the area as well. You can see the Congo side pretty much everywhere you are, and I can't even begin to imagine what amazing, unknown sites are on that side. If that country ever becomes stable I am going to get to their side of the lake. I'm not done with the lake though on the this trip. I'm going to stay in Kigoma tomorrow, and on Saturday I continue north on the lake to the capital of Burundi, Bujumbura, which lies on the northern tip. I'll be in Burundi for only a day or two on my way to Rwanda. I've talked with people who were there a month ago, the country is stable, so no worries for anyone who has misgivings about Burundi. I've hard Bujumbura, Buj, is a really cool city so I'm looking forward to spending a day or two there. The lake is amazing, I'm in love with the rift valley lakes, and I'm glad I'll have several more days on the lake before I finally leave Bujumbura at the beginning of next week.
I'm absolutely exhausted, I haven't slept well in a long time, but my health is good. The malaria is gone, so there is no need to worry about that, and I'm going to spend the next few days in Kigoma and Bujumbura eating really well and sleeping a lot. I will post pictures tomorrow, the internet is really fast here:-), so I'll post those links when they're ready or just check out my facebook profile.
Hope everyone is doing well, and I'll write more from Bujumbura or Rwanda. Tchau, B
Well, its been quite a two weeks to say the least, and this will probably be a long post. I'll just start from where I last ended at Victoria Falls unti I made it this morning to Kigoma, Tanzania.
After a nice few days in southern Zambia in Livingstone and Victoria Falls I took a 24 hour bus ride to the far north of the country to Zambia's port on Lake Tanganyika, Mpulungu. I arrived pretty exhuasted from the bus, but in better shape than I thought I'd be. I assumed there'd be a bank, internet, some someblance of a town there, but I was wrong. It's a pretty small town with just the most basic services, so no bank, no internet, nada. The setting is gorgeous, right on Lake Tangayika, with two islands right off shore. Since I planned on there being a bank, and didn't have enough money for the next part of my trip, two days after arriving I had to take a 5 hour bus(each way!) the nearest town with a bank. I guess that's the price I pay for not checking things out first.
Anyways, I arrived on Sunday and on Friday a big passenger boat was scheduled to depart north towards Tanzania and the chimpanzee park, Mahale Mountain, that I really wanted to visit. Outside of teh bank day I spent my days hiking and canoeing around the lake. First, a little side story.
I found one place in town that served rice, which was great, because I can't stand nsima. There was a big poster of the Dome of the Rock, the Hajj and Medina, so I assumed the owners were muslim. There's a big mosque at the entrance to town as well, and Zambia has an ok sized muslim population, suppsedly. Well, after my second day there in a row the owner came to talk with me in very poor english. Eventually I told him I came from Israel and that I had been to the Dome of the Rock, pointing to the poster on the wall. Well...due to the difficulty in communication it turns out he thought I was a muslim after I told him I was at the mosque. I didn't discover this until the next day when I came back for my rice and vegetables and there were two guys in those perfectly white long dress looking things that you see many arab and muslim men wear. They said hello, they were happy to meet me and quote "you may try to make plans, but only Allah can choose your path". Both were from Malawi originally, I found out, and spoke very good English, unlike the restaurant owner. They than told me that I should stay in Mpulungu start some businesses, but first there are some charitable donations that I should make. They than gave me a list of a few different things from some fellow muslim's medical bills, to mosque repairs, and a donation to their local school.
At this point I'm confused, kind of uncomfortable, but I had figured out at least that they thought I was muslim. At this point I told them that I think there's a misunderstanding. I told them I was not muslim, to which they reacted quite confused. It turns out the misunderstanding was when I pointed to the poster. They all thought you had to be a muslim to be able to go to the Dome of the Rock. They were quite embarrassed after realizing the mistake, but there was no tension. I kept coming back to that place each day I was in mpulungu for rice and vegetables(cabbage only) and the owner was as friendly as you could imagine.
Well, I went on two hikes while I was there waiting for the boat. One was through a road, and footpaths between the closest town to Mpulungu, Mbala, and Mpulungu. Alltogether it was around 35k, so I was pretty tired, but it was an awesome hike. Great views of the lake, nice people and villages along the way, and I got to see a lot of small farms.
The next day I went to Kalambo falls, which is the second highest single drop fall in Africa, whatever that means exactly, at 212 meters. Victoria Falls isn't even the highest falls in its own country. After walking up the rift valley escarpment a few hours I got to the amazing falls. The gorge is stunning, tons of birds flying around, and its a big falls. I'll post pictures so y'all can see. My other days in mpulungu i just rented a small dugout canoe and went to the offshore islands and went swimming. I also read another book, this one by an African author, Elechi Amadi. I read his first book, The Concubine, which was very good, and I highly recommend it. He's Nigerian, and his books are on traditional Nigerian life and his experiences during the civil war there. I'm hoping to find another one of his at some point along the way.
So Friday comes, the boat to Tanzania is supposed to arrive, and I wake up feeling horrible. In the back of my mind I knew immediately what it was, but I didn't want to admit it. The boat hadn't shown up, so I went to the harbor, and they said it was delayed, but would come in the afternoon. Meanwhile, I'm just feeling worse and worse, and I go to the hostel owner and tell him I need to see a doctor. I had aches everywhere, a horrible headache, felt dizzy, all the signs of malaria. A doctor came to the hostel pretty shortly thereafter and gave me this prick on the spot malaria test they do. It came out negative, but they often do when in fact its malaria. In any case he told me to start taking the medications to treat it. I have enough for four or five bouts of Malaria, so that wasn't an issue, and I started on those pills. Well, just after that the hostel owner told me he heard the boat wasn't coming until the next day, which was just as good, because there was no way I was going to be able to get on that boat. For about 24 hours I was competely miserable, and another 24 hours feeling horrible. The boat came in the next morning, and somehow I managed to walk over to the harbor and get on it. It was probably not the best decision to get on the boat for my health, but if I didn't get on the boat than I was stuck in mpulungu with no way of getting to the park and it would have been an enormous hassle.
The boat, normally the Liemba, is supposed to go from its main port of Kigoma, in Tanzania, to Mpulungu and back once a week. Well, the UN has recently started shipping Congolese refugees that fled to Zambia back to the Congo with this boat. For about two months, and for another few months its pretty much just doing the refugee runs. The boat that came, the Mwongozo, usually goes from Kigoma to the capital of Burundi. About once a month now it does the Kigoma to Mpulungu route, and I got really lucky that the week I showed up in Mpulungu it was coming. So if I didn't get on the boat that day I'd really be stuck in Mpulungu.
My first day on the boat I felt horrible still, but it wasn't as bad as the first day, so that was one promising sign at least. I got myself first class cabin, which while not comfortable by any means, at least meant I had a room to myself. This was Saturday, and when I woke up Sunday I felt almost like a new person. Not feeling great, but compared to the previous two days I could not have been happier. Until than I thought there was no way I'd be able to go to Mahale Mountain park, and that I'd have to take the boat all the way to Kigoma. The stop for Mahale Mountain was supposed to be around 3-4am on Monday, so I told myself I keep feeling better all day than I'll still get off.
The boat ride itself is amazing in its own right. The lake is stunning, and there are small villages every few kilometers. The boat stops in the lake at quite a few villages, since there are no docks big enough for it to stop at, and small boats race out to bring it passengers and cargo. Its absolute chaos with boats ramming eachother, cargo falling in the water, fights breaking out, and its quite a scene to witness. I was going to have to get down onto these boats at the Mahale stop, which wasn't the most comforting thought, but I felt better all day and I was set on going to that park. Also, after appearing outside my room, after being holed up teh first day sick, I was something of a celebrity on the boat. The captain invited me to the wheel, radio room, whatever, and everybody wanted to talk to me. I was the only foreigner, and in fact from Mpulungu until I arrived this morning in Kigoma, almost two weeks, I met no other travellers or foreigners at all. I was even given permission to use the officers deck to sit and enjoy the ride. It's the top deck of the boat, and its practically void of people, while the bottom two levels are overflowing with people.
Well, the huge horn that goes off at each stop went off at 4:30am at the stop for Mahale Mountains, I was feeling even better than the day before, and I got off in the middle of the night into the madness of the small fishing boat frenzy. No problems though, and a few minutes later I made it to shore. I may not have had malaria, the test did come out negative, but I'm pretty sure I did. The symptoms were the same, and the fact that after taking the medication I improved so rapidly makes me think it was malaria. Its behind me now though, I feel fine, and I really, really hope I don't get it again. I don't think I can ever donate blood again, which kind of sucks.
Anyways, I got to the park headquarters for Mahale Mountain, and was in for a small shock. The costs for the park, new as of January 1st, are ridiculous. You have to pay 80 US for each 24 hours you stay in the park, you have to pay 50 dollars for the park boat to transport you from their headquarters to the campsite, 20 dollars for every four hours you have a park guide, and you're not allowed to walk without a guide, and finally 30 dollars per night for their accomadations. Even if you bring your own tent, its 30 dollars. In short, you have to pay a fortune to see the park. I had come all this way, so I wasn't not going to go, but I couldn't stay as long as I wanted. The other issue was a boat back to Kigoma. I arrived in the park on Monday, and there was a boat to Kigoma on Wednesday and Saturday. I couldn't afford to pay park fees through Saturday, so I had no choice but to leave on Wednesday, yesterday for Kigoma. The fees, in my opinion, represent how Africa is really a destination more catered for high end tourism only. I'll try to write more about it in a different post, but this one will be way too long as is, so it'll have to wait.
So......after a long argument I got the park people to let me pay 80 dollars one time, enter the park on Monday and leave Wednesday morning. I also got them to agree to let me pay for two guided hikes, but have them be all day and not be timed to the 4 hour bullshit. I had travelled on a boat for two days, planned on going to this park for months, and at this point I was just going to have to bit the bullet and pay a lot of money.
The park is absolutely stunning. The Mahale mountains rise up to 2,500 meters, and go straight into the lake. The water is exceptionally clear in this area and there are stretches of actually white sand from the ground of shells. The forests on the mountains are dense, tropical, and some of the prettiest I have ever seen. The mountains create their own weather system, so the area gets a lot more rain than the surrounding area. The area is also home to around 700 chimpanzees, the largest community left anywhere, and has been the site of a Japanese research project since the 60's.
So I hiked some 12 hours alltogher through thick forest, got stung by nasty flies, ants, and probably some other things, sweated out half my body weight, and I saw.....NO chimpanzees! Writing it just now its still hard for me to grasp, but I saw none. Chimpanzees move along the same trails pretty constantly, and every few days they move high up into the mountains, where there are no hiking trails, for a few days. Well, my guide is pretty convinced that I came during the two days the chimpanzees are up in the mountains. The hiking was absolutely amazing, its beautiful there, but I was, and still am to a lesser degree though, quite dissapointed in not seeing the chimpanzees.
On the second day we came across the Japanese researcher, this was already the end of the day, and upon hearing that I hadn't seen any chimps and that I was leaving the next day because of the costs started pleading with the park rangers to let me stay. I thanked him, but told him it wasn't his fight, and it wouldn't not have done any good. He offered to let me stay at his research station, and he's a really nice guy who's been to Israel too. He's collecting data for some post doctoral research of his, so I wish him lots of good research data and hope his papers get published.
A bit demoralized after everything I had gone through to get to the park and not having seen the chimps I left Mahale mountain yesterday morning for what I thought would be about a 10 hour ride on local fishing boats to Kigoma. When I got on I was told that we'd be arriving the next morning, today. So that just added to my mood, but I think at that point so many things had not gone according to plan that I no longer cared. The boat ride was horribly uncomfortable, but I actually quite enjoyed it. Last night was cold and miserable, and I'll never do anything like it again, but it was a hell of an experience, and I have really experienced this lake.
Now I'm in Kigoma, I've showered, and I'm just starting to take in the last few weeks on this lake. A few things about the lake(no, the post ain't over). Lake Tanganyika is the longest lake in the world and the second deepest. It has the second largest volume too after Lake Baikal in Russia, which is also the worlds deepest. Zambia, Tanzania, Burundi, and Congo border it, and there are almost no roads throughout the entire lake. The only way you get around is some kind of boat or flying, but there are very few airstrips throughout the area as well. You can see the Congo side pretty much everywhere you are, and I can't even begin to imagine what amazing, unknown sites are on that side. If that country ever becomes stable I am going to get to their side of the lake. I'm not done with the lake though on the this trip. I'm going to stay in Kigoma tomorrow, and on Saturday I continue north on the lake to the capital of Burundi, Bujumbura, which lies on the northern tip. I'll be in Burundi for only a day or two on my way to Rwanda. I've talked with people who were there a month ago, the country is stable, so no worries for anyone who has misgivings about Burundi. I've hard Bujumbura, Buj, is a really cool city so I'm looking forward to spending a day or two there. The lake is amazing, I'm in love with the rift valley lakes, and I'm glad I'll have several more days on the lake before I finally leave Bujumbura at the beginning of next week.
I'm absolutely exhausted, I haven't slept well in a long time, but my health is good. The malaria is gone, so there is no need to worry about that, and I'm going to spend the next few days in Kigoma and Bujumbura eating really well and sleeping a lot. I will post pictures tomorrow, the internet is really fast here:-), so I'll post those links when they're ready or just check out my facebook profile.
Hope everyone is doing well, and I'll write more from Bujumbura or Rwanda. Tchau, B
Friday, May 9, 2008
Victoria Falls Post
I've forgotten what number I'm on, so I think I'll start naming the posts.
I'm in Livingstone, which is Zambia's town on Victoria Falls. Zimbabwe's town is named Victoria Falls too. I'm also happy to say that this is the fastest and cheapest internet I've found yet in Africa. I'm currently loading my pictures, and they're loading fast.
I thought I'd be on an overnight bus from Lusaka, but I misjudged, and of course I never thought to ask, how long the bus ride would be. Instead of getting in early morning I came in Livingstone at 2:30am. So I didn't really sleep much a few nights ago, but I found a great hostel to stay at called Fawlty Towers. You can't go wrong with that name. The hostel has a pool, hot water(a luxury in Africa), free pancakes!, a very nice and friendly staff. It's still nowhere near Mayoka village, but I don't think anything ever will be.
The main thing I wanted to do, besides see the falls, was bunjee jump, so I looked into that first thing in the morning. What I discovered is that it's ridiculously overpriced, 110 US, and that advertising it as 111 meters is a bit misleading. The max height from canyon top to bottom of the zambezi in the area is 111 meters. The free fall on the bunjee is just over 70 meters, which is still something. Anyways, there's another activity you can do called a gorge swing. Just down the gorge from falls you can do this swing which is a bunjee jump, but than attached to an apparatus which than swings you across the gorge. The free fall is 65 meters, and the swing is pretty cool too. So I went for this instead of the bunjee, because for 100 dollars you get picked up, all the beers you can drink, lunch, and you can do the gorge swing as much as you want. A much, much better deal than the famous bunjee jump, which really milks the tourists for their money.
For most of the day I was the only person at the site, and I had a great doing the swing a good six times. It wears you out because you have to than walk out of the canyon below, which has a pretty steep climb out. There are also some ziplines across the canyon and some rapelling you can do, so I spent the whole day just jumping, swinging, or falling down canyon faces. It was an enormous amount of fun to say the least. The staff there were very friendly, and one guy, who was a rafting guide for a dozen or so years, had worked in California, and had been to Oregon a few times. It's nice to know that a Zambian has made it to Oregon, or just in general that an African has been a tourist in the US. You feel constant tourist guilt while in thirld world countries, so this made me feel less bad for a few minutes. I also asked him if anybody had ever rafted the Zambezi from the source to where it empties into the Indian Ocean in Mozambique. He said he was pretty sure nobody had, had never thought of doing it, but was going to get working on setting this up as a trip. I hope one day its possible to do this trip, which would be just amazing.
This morning I got up early and saw the falls. The peak water flow is from March to May, right now, and you can tell. The mist from the falls is viewable from Livingtone, some 8k away, and there's so much water right now that the mist prevents you from getting a full view of the falls. The mist is called Mosi o Tunya, which in the local language means Steam of Thunder. So, despite that the water is at its highest, this is not the best time to view the falls, which apparently is around August. Still, they're impressive falls, and very much worth going to if you're anywhere near them. Y'all can see the pictures in the album I'm posting. A lot of people think Victoria Falls is the biggest, widest, something biggest in the world. Well, it's not number one in any category regarding waterfalls. At 106 meters its twice as high as Niagra Falls, but nowhere near the tallest falls in the world. That goes to Angel Falls in Venezuela, which I've been to, and is 1000 meters high. I actually heard there's another falls in the area even higher, but it dries up in the dry season, so it doesn't get any credit. The falls with the highest amount of volume is Iguazu falls on the Argentina/Brazil border at 55 million litres per minute of water. Victoria Falls is around 6 million. I have heard a rumor that there's a falls on the Congo River, in Congo, that has even more water, but I need to do more research on that. And while it's very wide, over a kilometer, Victoria Falls is not the widest either. I found out today there's a waterfall in Laos over 10 kilometers wide. Ariel, Leora, I hope you both go there and take a picture for me. So Victoria Falls is very pretty, I'm sure more impressive when you can it all clearly too without all the mist, but it's not number for anything.
There are a few trails throughout the area, and one hike down into the gorge on the other side of the falls. Down in this gorge there was a local guy who, for a fee of course, will tell you about the geology, plants, nature, etc. of the area. The money goes towards paying for his education, supposedly, and I decided to give him a few bucks to find out some info on the area. While he does know quite a bit, I was more than a bit wary after my first question. On the way down into the gorge I saw a family of big rodent looking animals. I took a picture, and I showed him the picture and asked him what the name of the animal was. He paused for a second and than told me they were Koalas. I said I had seen them five minutes ago on this hike and there was no way they were Koalas. He laughed, and said he thought I was Australian (???), and thought I was showing him a picture of Koalas from Australia. I forget the name of the animal, which he than recognized, but it doesn't matter. I'm renaming them Zambian Koalas. I've posted the picture of them in the new album so y'all can see a family of Zambian Koalas too.
After seeing the falls from up close I went over the bridge spanning the gorge, just south of the falls, that links Zambia and Zimbabwe. The best view of the falls is from there, and I wanted to step over into Zimbabwe for a minute. Again, there is too much mist to get a clear view of the falls, but its cool to be so high over the Zambezi river, and I got to step into Zimbabwe for a minute. On the way out someone approached me about changing currency. I dismissed him, but than realized that I really wanted to see Zimbabwe currency with their insane inflation that's over 150,00% this year. He was holding a stack of 10,000,000 Zimbabwe Schilling notes. I asked him how much I could get for 2,000 Zambian Kwacha, which is about 50 US cents. After a little negotiating I got 100,000,000 Zimbabwe Schillings for 50 US cents. He said he had altogether 5 billion schillings in his stack of money. The quantities are just so unbelievably absurd, and its just sad that Mugabe is putting the country into a complete economic freefall. Livingstone at night is full of Zimbabwean women prostituting themselves just to be able to get some currency that doesn't lose its entire value overnight. Very, very sad what's happening to that country.
Well, that's all for this post. I'm going to go get some free pancakes and just relax for the rest of the day. Tomorrow I get on 24+ hours worth of bus rides going to the far north of the country to Mpulungu, which is Zambia's port city on Lake Tanganyika. I'm really excited to get there, which is the only thing that will help me get through the hellish day of buses, although my ipod helps too. Buses in Africa are infinitly worse than South America. I think one hour on a bus in Africa is equal to four hours on a South American bus. Mozambique has been the worse so far, so at least I'm not doing this ride there.
Oh, before I forget...I wanted to make a comment about Nsima, and this is primarily for Benjie and Tovi, who I know especially dislike the stuff. Nsima is a mash of either maize or cassava, and its the main food in pretty much all of sub saharan Africa. It's called something slightly different everywhere you go, but its the same food everywhere. It's really disgusting. It has no flavor, which makes it all the more surprising on how bad it is. I avoid it as much as possible, but in Zambia there's very little rice, so you have to bite the bullet and eat nsima more than you would like. On my first night in Zambia I had been travelling all the way from Nkhata Bay in Malawi and I was really hungry. Sure enough the only option in the town we were in was nsima. Normally when you're starving, and I remember being quite hungry, anything will taste good. Well nsima puts that theory to waste, as it was still pretty awful food. I've been meaning to write that in one of the blog posts and kept forgetting. Alright, this the real end of this post.
ate mais, Ben
picture link:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2099358&l=38228&id=2606069
I'm in Livingstone, which is Zambia's town on Victoria Falls. Zimbabwe's town is named Victoria Falls too. I'm also happy to say that this is the fastest and cheapest internet I've found yet in Africa. I'm currently loading my pictures, and they're loading fast.
I thought I'd be on an overnight bus from Lusaka, but I misjudged, and of course I never thought to ask, how long the bus ride would be. Instead of getting in early morning I came in Livingstone at 2:30am. So I didn't really sleep much a few nights ago, but I found a great hostel to stay at called Fawlty Towers. You can't go wrong with that name. The hostel has a pool, hot water(a luxury in Africa), free pancakes!, a very nice and friendly staff. It's still nowhere near Mayoka village, but I don't think anything ever will be.
The main thing I wanted to do, besides see the falls, was bunjee jump, so I looked into that first thing in the morning. What I discovered is that it's ridiculously overpriced, 110 US, and that advertising it as 111 meters is a bit misleading. The max height from canyon top to bottom of the zambezi in the area is 111 meters. The free fall on the bunjee is just over 70 meters, which is still something. Anyways, there's another activity you can do called a gorge swing. Just down the gorge from falls you can do this swing which is a bunjee jump, but than attached to an apparatus which than swings you across the gorge. The free fall is 65 meters, and the swing is pretty cool too. So I went for this instead of the bunjee, because for 100 dollars you get picked up, all the beers you can drink, lunch, and you can do the gorge swing as much as you want. A much, much better deal than the famous bunjee jump, which really milks the tourists for their money.
For most of the day I was the only person at the site, and I had a great doing the swing a good six times. It wears you out because you have to than walk out of the canyon below, which has a pretty steep climb out. There are also some ziplines across the canyon and some rapelling you can do, so I spent the whole day just jumping, swinging, or falling down canyon faces. It was an enormous amount of fun to say the least. The staff there were very friendly, and one guy, who was a rafting guide for a dozen or so years, had worked in California, and had been to Oregon a few times. It's nice to know that a Zambian has made it to Oregon, or just in general that an African has been a tourist in the US. You feel constant tourist guilt while in thirld world countries, so this made me feel less bad for a few minutes. I also asked him if anybody had ever rafted the Zambezi from the source to where it empties into the Indian Ocean in Mozambique. He said he was pretty sure nobody had, had never thought of doing it, but was going to get working on setting this up as a trip. I hope one day its possible to do this trip, which would be just amazing.
This morning I got up early and saw the falls. The peak water flow is from March to May, right now, and you can tell. The mist from the falls is viewable from Livingtone, some 8k away, and there's so much water right now that the mist prevents you from getting a full view of the falls. The mist is called Mosi o Tunya, which in the local language means Steam of Thunder. So, despite that the water is at its highest, this is not the best time to view the falls, which apparently is around August. Still, they're impressive falls, and very much worth going to if you're anywhere near them. Y'all can see the pictures in the album I'm posting. A lot of people think Victoria Falls is the biggest, widest, something biggest in the world. Well, it's not number one in any category regarding waterfalls. At 106 meters its twice as high as Niagra Falls, but nowhere near the tallest falls in the world. That goes to Angel Falls in Venezuela, which I've been to, and is 1000 meters high. I actually heard there's another falls in the area even higher, but it dries up in the dry season, so it doesn't get any credit. The falls with the highest amount of volume is Iguazu falls on the Argentina/Brazil border at 55 million litres per minute of water. Victoria Falls is around 6 million. I have heard a rumor that there's a falls on the Congo River, in Congo, that has even more water, but I need to do more research on that. And while it's very wide, over a kilometer, Victoria Falls is not the widest either. I found out today there's a waterfall in Laos over 10 kilometers wide. Ariel, Leora, I hope you both go there and take a picture for me. So Victoria Falls is very pretty, I'm sure more impressive when you can it all clearly too without all the mist, but it's not number for anything.
There are a few trails throughout the area, and one hike down into the gorge on the other side of the falls. Down in this gorge there was a local guy who, for a fee of course, will tell you about the geology, plants, nature, etc. of the area. The money goes towards paying for his education, supposedly, and I decided to give him a few bucks to find out some info on the area. While he does know quite a bit, I was more than a bit wary after my first question. On the way down into the gorge I saw a family of big rodent looking animals. I took a picture, and I showed him the picture and asked him what the name of the animal was. He paused for a second and than told me they were Koalas. I said I had seen them five minutes ago on this hike and there was no way they were Koalas. He laughed, and said he thought I was Australian (???), and thought I was showing him a picture of Koalas from Australia. I forget the name of the animal, which he than recognized, but it doesn't matter. I'm renaming them Zambian Koalas. I've posted the picture of them in the new album so y'all can see a family of Zambian Koalas too.
After seeing the falls from up close I went over the bridge spanning the gorge, just south of the falls, that links Zambia and Zimbabwe. The best view of the falls is from there, and I wanted to step over into Zimbabwe for a minute. Again, there is too much mist to get a clear view of the falls, but its cool to be so high over the Zambezi river, and I got to step into Zimbabwe for a minute. On the way out someone approached me about changing currency. I dismissed him, but than realized that I really wanted to see Zimbabwe currency with their insane inflation that's over 150,00% this year. He was holding a stack of 10,000,000 Zimbabwe Schilling notes. I asked him how much I could get for 2,000 Zambian Kwacha, which is about 50 US cents. After a little negotiating I got 100,000,000 Zimbabwe Schillings for 50 US cents. He said he had altogether 5 billion schillings in his stack of money. The quantities are just so unbelievably absurd, and its just sad that Mugabe is putting the country into a complete economic freefall. Livingstone at night is full of Zimbabwean women prostituting themselves just to be able to get some currency that doesn't lose its entire value overnight. Very, very sad what's happening to that country.
Well, that's all for this post. I'm going to go get some free pancakes and just relax for the rest of the day. Tomorrow I get on 24+ hours worth of bus rides going to the far north of the country to Mpulungu, which is Zambia's port city on Lake Tanganyika. I'm really excited to get there, which is the only thing that will help me get through the hellish day of buses, although my ipod helps too. Buses in Africa are infinitly worse than South America. I think one hour on a bus in Africa is equal to four hours on a South American bus. Mozambique has been the worse so far, so at least I'm not doing this ride there.
Oh, before I forget...I wanted to make a comment about Nsima, and this is primarily for Benjie and Tovi, who I know especially dislike the stuff. Nsima is a mash of either maize or cassava, and its the main food in pretty much all of sub saharan Africa. It's called something slightly different everywhere you go, but its the same food everywhere. It's really disgusting. It has no flavor, which makes it all the more surprising on how bad it is. I avoid it as much as possible, but in Zambia there's very little rice, so you have to bite the bullet and eat nsima more than you would like. On my first night in Zambia I had been travelling all the way from Nkhata Bay in Malawi and I was really hungry. Sure enough the only option in the town we were in was nsima. Normally when you're starving, and I remember being quite hungry, anything will taste good. Well nsima puts that theory to waste, as it was still pretty awful food. I've been meaning to write that in one of the blog posts and kept forgetting. Alright, this the real end of this post.
ate mais, Ben
picture link:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2099358&l=38228&id=2606069
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
picture links
so in the end i was able to upload a few pictures. here are the links, or view them on my facebook profile
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2099173&l=83401&id=2606069
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2099170&l=cd045&id=2606069
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2099173&l=83401&id=2606069
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2099170&l=cd045&id=2606069
Post 8
Hi, after reading my post from yesterday I realized that quite a few parts might seem unclear and there were a few things I wanted to add. So here's part two of this post.
First off, regarding the chief in Congo and land in Zambia and local populations rights in general. The Lunda chief that Stuart and I met with is not some person wielding a spear and dressed in whatever traditional clothing might have been. He's an older guy, dressed in pants and a buttoned down shirt. He had a cane and his house was quite unassuming. In Zambia all the land, outside of the big cities, pretty much belongs to a chief of the local tribe. In order to buy land in Zambia you have to first deal with the local chief and come to some kind of understanding, usually monetary, and than deal with the Zambian authorities. That's just the way it works, and I believe it is similar in Malawi, Mozambique, and I imagine most of the countries I'll visit.
When Stuart went to visit him it was mostly to discuss what kind of monetary arrangement was to be put in place regarding the splitting of game hunting revenue at Nkwaji and to have some input into which local people would be employed. If you don't go through the chief than you're going to have problems, although the people who the chief chooses know they don't have to work too hard because they have his backing. It's not the most conducive policy to getting things done fast, but it's kind of the only way to go about doing things.
The other thing I wanted to clarify a little more was the location of the farm and Nkwaji site. There is a tri border area with Zambia, Congo, and Angola and both of the sites are within a few kilometers of the triple border. You can easily drive into Angola or Congo without realizing it, and there are kind of token border agents at one post only, so it's basically accepted that people will go back and forth as they choose. For the most part the people who pass the border are the Lunda, who historically have lived in the region and the borders put in place by colonial powers had no logic to it. It divided up their people, and they don't really view the border as defining their nationality. They're Lunda first, and whatever country was imposed upon them second.
I also forgot to write about how nice the Lunda people I met were. Most did not speak any English, but there were several that spoke quite well. Everyone was quite friendly, although it's a little unnerving that they viewed me, because of my association with Stuart, as a boss. They greeted me like bwana, or master/boss/chief, which meant a half kneel and they bowed their heads to me upon the initial greeting. I felt half like a slave master, reminding me of a little like the family I first lived with in Salvador, Brazil, where there were three servants living in the house. Anyways, very nice people, although Malawi still takes the cake. From everything I've heard Malawians are the nicest people that I'll meet on this trip.
I also read quite a bit over the last week. I did a few book exchanges while at the hostel in Lusaka and also bought a book. I read Bill Bryson's A History of Nearly Everything which I strongly recommend. He basically gives a history of all of science, and does it in his very witty writing style. He's just an amazing author and can make any subject a fascinating read. I bought a book called Gun, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond. He's a UCLA professor of Geography and this book is about how it came to be that some peoples conquered others. He tries to make this discussion scientific and quantitative and show through facts how it came to be that the Incas were conquered by europeans and not the other way around amongst other examples. He shows how available crops, animals, population density, and disease explain it all. It's interesting, but it takes 600 some pages for him to explain it all. He could have condensed it a bit more in my opinion, but still an interesting book. I also read a Toni Morrison book, Paradise, which I think I liked. I'm not sure I get it, and if anyone's read it, please let me know. It was also really nice to just read, something I haven't done anywhere near enough of in recent months.
Finally, a little more about Zambia. One telling sign for me is a billboard in Lusaka for a bank. It says "If you think you have to use bribery to do business in Zambia, think again" That a bank uses this idea shows how pervasive bribery is here. From what I understand from talking with Stuart, the family that owns Hillwood farm, and a few other folks its just understood that without bribes nothing gets done. This is why I don't see Zambia becoming the Chile of Africa. Not that Chile is without corruption, but the country prides itself on its relatively low levels of corruption. Its police force may be the least corrupt in the world. Too much of the copper money in Zambia will just dissapear and prevent the country from realizing its potential. Zambia also has huge agricultural potential with vast areas of land suitable for all sorts of crops, but its potential is far from being realized. There is no capital to start this up, and not enough trained workers as well. Many of the white farmers from Zimbabwe have moved to Zambia to start farms, so this is changing a little, but not enough. Zambia should be able to feed the continent, yet in all but a few years of its history since indepedence in the 60's its had to recieve food aid. Another ridiculous issue regarding this is that it sells a lot of its maize to the Congo. The price for maize in the Congo is five times that of Zambia, so instead of feeding its own people, the country sells huge amount of its food to their neighbor. Who knows where this money goes, but I sincerely doubt as much goes back into govt. projects as it should. The country can also get away with this, because the UN, World Food Programme, and other groups pump food aid into the country. They can't tell Zambia to stop selling its food and feed its own people, because they Zambia won't and if they stop giving food aid it only means people will starve, not that Zambia will start feeding itself. A similar story happens in quite a few different countries in the area, and one of the reasons I'm becoming really disallusioned with all of these foreign aid groups. I'm not blaming the food aid groups, because its really the government corruption that creates the situation, but their existence makes it a lot eaiser for the government to put more money in their pockets knowing there will always be the aid groups to pick up the slack.
Well, I'm going to go to Victoria Falls in a few hours, and tomorrow I'll be at the falls. When I'm done at the falls I'm going to take a few crazy bus rides all the way to the northern tip of the country to Mpulungu. From there I take a boat on Lake Tanganyika to a chimpanzee park in Tanzania with the largest population of chimps in the world. Its' a really remote park, and I'm excited to hike around there for a few days. The boat only leaves on Friday, so I'm going to spend almost a week in the Mpulungu area exploring the Zambian side of the lake. There are some other huge waterfalls and nice hiking. I'm told there's good internet connections there so I'll try to load pictures when I get to Mpulungu, if not when I get out of the Tanzania park to its lake port city of Kigoma in a few weeks.
Tchau, B
First off, regarding the chief in Congo and land in Zambia and local populations rights in general. The Lunda chief that Stuart and I met with is not some person wielding a spear and dressed in whatever traditional clothing might have been. He's an older guy, dressed in pants and a buttoned down shirt. He had a cane and his house was quite unassuming. In Zambia all the land, outside of the big cities, pretty much belongs to a chief of the local tribe. In order to buy land in Zambia you have to first deal with the local chief and come to some kind of understanding, usually monetary, and than deal with the Zambian authorities. That's just the way it works, and I believe it is similar in Malawi, Mozambique, and I imagine most of the countries I'll visit.
When Stuart went to visit him it was mostly to discuss what kind of monetary arrangement was to be put in place regarding the splitting of game hunting revenue at Nkwaji and to have some input into which local people would be employed. If you don't go through the chief than you're going to have problems, although the people who the chief chooses know they don't have to work too hard because they have his backing. It's not the most conducive policy to getting things done fast, but it's kind of the only way to go about doing things.
The other thing I wanted to clarify a little more was the location of the farm and Nkwaji site. There is a tri border area with Zambia, Congo, and Angola and both of the sites are within a few kilometers of the triple border. You can easily drive into Angola or Congo without realizing it, and there are kind of token border agents at one post only, so it's basically accepted that people will go back and forth as they choose. For the most part the people who pass the border are the Lunda, who historically have lived in the region and the borders put in place by colonial powers had no logic to it. It divided up their people, and they don't really view the border as defining their nationality. They're Lunda first, and whatever country was imposed upon them second.
I also forgot to write about how nice the Lunda people I met were. Most did not speak any English, but there were several that spoke quite well. Everyone was quite friendly, although it's a little unnerving that they viewed me, because of my association with Stuart, as a boss. They greeted me like bwana, or master/boss/chief, which meant a half kneel and they bowed their heads to me upon the initial greeting. I felt half like a slave master, reminding me of a little like the family I first lived with in Salvador, Brazil, where there were three servants living in the house. Anyways, very nice people, although Malawi still takes the cake. From everything I've heard Malawians are the nicest people that I'll meet on this trip.
I also read quite a bit over the last week. I did a few book exchanges while at the hostel in Lusaka and also bought a book. I read Bill Bryson's A History of Nearly Everything which I strongly recommend. He basically gives a history of all of science, and does it in his very witty writing style. He's just an amazing author and can make any subject a fascinating read. I bought a book called Gun, Germs, and Steel by Jared Diamond. He's a UCLA professor of Geography and this book is about how it came to be that some peoples conquered others. He tries to make this discussion scientific and quantitative and show through facts how it came to be that the Incas were conquered by europeans and not the other way around amongst other examples. He shows how available crops, animals, population density, and disease explain it all. It's interesting, but it takes 600 some pages for him to explain it all. He could have condensed it a bit more in my opinion, but still an interesting book. I also read a Toni Morrison book, Paradise, which I think I liked. I'm not sure I get it, and if anyone's read it, please let me know. It was also really nice to just read, something I haven't done anywhere near enough of in recent months.
Finally, a little more about Zambia. One telling sign for me is a billboard in Lusaka for a bank. It says "If you think you have to use bribery to do business in Zambia, think again" That a bank uses this idea shows how pervasive bribery is here. From what I understand from talking with Stuart, the family that owns Hillwood farm, and a few other folks its just understood that without bribes nothing gets done. This is why I don't see Zambia becoming the Chile of Africa. Not that Chile is without corruption, but the country prides itself on its relatively low levels of corruption. Its police force may be the least corrupt in the world. Too much of the copper money in Zambia will just dissapear and prevent the country from realizing its potential. Zambia also has huge agricultural potential with vast areas of land suitable for all sorts of crops, but its potential is far from being realized. There is no capital to start this up, and not enough trained workers as well. Many of the white farmers from Zimbabwe have moved to Zambia to start farms, so this is changing a little, but not enough. Zambia should be able to feed the continent, yet in all but a few years of its history since indepedence in the 60's its had to recieve food aid. Another ridiculous issue regarding this is that it sells a lot of its maize to the Congo. The price for maize in the Congo is five times that of Zambia, so instead of feeding its own people, the country sells huge amount of its food to their neighbor. Who knows where this money goes, but I sincerely doubt as much goes back into govt. projects as it should. The country can also get away with this, because the UN, World Food Programme, and other groups pump food aid into the country. They can't tell Zambia to stop selling its food and feed its own people, because they Zambia won't and if they stop giving food aid it only means people will starve, not that Zambia will start feeding itself. A similar story happens in quite a few different countries in the area, and one of the reasons I'm becoming really disallusioned with all of these foreign aid groups. I'm not blaming the food aid groups, because its really the government corruption that creates the situation, but their existence makes it a lot eaiser for the government to put more money in their pockets knowing there will always be the aid groups to pick up the slack.
Well, I'm going to go to Victoria Falls in a few hours, and tomorrow I'll be at the falls. When I'm done at the falls I'm going to take a few crazy bus rides all the way to the northern tip of the country to Mpulungu. From there I take a boat on Lake Tanganyika to a chimpanzee park in Tanzania with the largest population of chimps in the world. Its' a really remote park, and I'm excited to hike around there for a few days. The boat only leaves on Friday, so I'm going to spend almost a week in the Mpulungu area exploring the Zambian side of the lake. There are some other huge waterfalls and nice hiking. I'm told there's good internet connections there so I'll try to load pictures when I get to Mpulungu, if not when I get out of the Tanzania park to its lake port city of Kigoma in a few weeks.
Tchau, B
Tuesday, May 6, 2008
Post 7
I'm dedicating this post to the Sharabbq on May 30th, which I have RSVP'd for.
Anyways, I'm back in Lusaka after a week in the Northwest of Zambia. After an extra day in Lusaka because of car problems the three of us finally made it out on the road. We drove north to the region of Zambia called the copperbelt the first day. Zambia is very rich in minerals, especially copper, and most of the countries revenues come from copper. This region is where the majority of the industry in the country is, its oil refineries, better hospitals, pretty much everything. The two main cities, which we passed through, of Kitwe and Ndola look pretty nice. They have wide streets, modernish looking buildings, and you don't feel like you're in a poor country. Just outside of Kitwe was the city of Chingola, which has copper mines literally on the edge of the city, which alarmed me environmentally. In Chile I visited what is the world's largest open pit copper mine, and the city next door was evacuated because of environmental issues. So I can't imagine it's too healthy to grow up in Chingola.
There are other copper mines being opened up all over this region and exploration is being done further north and west, where we were headed. Zambia reminds me of Chile in a few regards. They're both very large, sparsely populated countries, with tons of copper. Chile is the economic success story of south america, and while there are too many issues in Zambia, in my opinion, to see it reach Chilean economic levels, who knows. If the price of copper keeps rising, and there's sound economic planning, than Zambia could be pretty well off. On top of copper, there are diamonds, and quite a few other minerals in the area. In one city, just stopping to be some oranges, we were approached by some folks trying to illegally sell us some mineral i'd never heard of. Apparently, illegal mining is a big thing in the area. The area is huge, forested, and there's not too much law and order, so its almost an anything goes atmosphere.
At the end of our first day we pulled into a Chimpanzee reserve called Chimfunji, or something like that. There's a white Zambian family that decades ago was given some hurt chimpanzees that the police got while stopping smugglers from the Congo. The police gave the family the chimpanzees and ever since they've been rehabilitating sick chimpanzees from whomever will give them to them. Most are ones taken from smugglers from the Congo. The family is actually quite mean, don't like tourists, but need them to help pay for the chimp farm. Fortunately they hired a Zimbabwean family to run the campsite, lodge section and they were quite nice and very helpful. We came in late at night, and they got a fire going for us right away, and heated up water for showers.
The sunrise the next morning was absolutely incredible. The campsite is right on the river which divides Zambia and the Congo in the area. I'll post pictures tomorrow, so you can see how amazing the sunrise was. That night we saw this city glow in the distance, which turns out to be the major Congo city of Lumbambashi. It's a huge copper city, and the mines in that area make Zambia's look like scraps in comparison. The instability has prevented the Congo from really taking advantage of their mineral wealth, but that country is loaded with natural resources.
The next morning we saw the chimps in the reserve, and their pet hippo. They have a hippo that has been there since she was born, and is basically tame, which for a hippo is a heck of a thing. They're quite mean animals, apparently. The Zambian family was again fairly dismissive of us in the morning, so we left and kept on our way.
Our first destination on this trip was supposed to be a place called Hillwood farm. We didn't know much about it, just that it was supposed to be really impressive, and that the region was nice. We were hoping to get there that night, but the roads were in such bad condition we couldn't make much progress, and spent the night on the side of the road in the Zambian bush. The next day we finally made it to the farm, and what a farm it is. It's massive first of all, there's a game hunting ecoreserve in the middle of it, and it's as modern a farm as I've ever seen. All of this is great, but they were closed for tourists for a few more weeks. Fortuantely for us we met up with Stuart, another white Zimbabwean, who was working for the farm. He was just leaving to go to a different reserve, operated by the same farm, about 70 kilometers away. He said it was super remote, really pretty, had a river right by the site, and we could stay as long as we wanted for free. So, off we were following Stuart to the site called Nkwaji.
Nkwaji means Fish Eagle, in the Lunda language, the language of the local people, who are called, no surprise, the Lunda. The area is also being slated to be a hunting reserve, and Stuart is building fences and other facilities for the area. The site really is about as remote as it gets, and its just stunning. Semi-tropical forests, big grasslands, and just really stunning. The next day I went hiking in the area on the footpaths and 4x4 trails that go through the area. Went through quite a few villages, and just had a great time in the area. Stuart set up a canoe trip for the three of us for the next day with his workers. Stuart also took us to all these cool spots in the area, and was just thrilled to have company. He's been there for a few months, pretty much on his own, and was so hospitable to us the whole time we were there.
So the next day he took us to the nearby river and three of his workers came with some dugout canoes. It was kind of like Heart of Darkness light. We paddled through rainforest, mangroves, and some really nice scenery. We paddled a lot though, and mostly not straight. Dugout canoes are not easy things to maneuver, and a lot of the time was spent avoiding going into mangroves, and other places we could get stuck in. Going upstream was also not so easy, but was a nice workout. After paddling for about 3.5 hours upstream, we got to finally enjoy a nice cruise back to the starting point. For all of that time paddling, we only got about 20 minutes to float back downstream. We were stunned by how short of a distance we made paddled, but it makes sense with all the time spent just trying to direct the canoe in the right direction. It was a great time though.
Oh, back to mining for a second. Throughout my time up in this area I saw lots of light aircraft carrying drones behind them. Apparently the drones are surveying the area for copper and other minerals. Again, there is a lot of copper, and lot of people trying to take advantage of the wealth.
There's not much to do a Nkwaji at night, and Stuart has gone a little stir crazy in his time there. His main source of entertainment is shooting bottles filled with gasoline into fires. He's got this huge shotgun with him, and we spent our nights shooting stuff. Bottles with water we'd throw, like clay pigeons, and shoot in midair. At night we'd shoot these gas filled bottles, which made a huge blast, but at the same time the blast for the shotgun was enough to immediate extinguish the fire and the small fire we set up behind the bottle. It was a lot of fun, and I'm not a bad shot. I hit almost every water bottle in midair that was thrown for me.
So, after a few days at Nkwaji Tom and Omer wanted to continue further south in western Zambia, and I didn't want to go. I was having a great time being in Nkwaji, and I couldn't bear the thought of being in a jeep for a few more days. So, after talking to Stuart, I decided to stay at Nkwaji for another day and than go back to Hillwood Farm for the weekend. From there I'd head back to Lusaka, where I am now, and than go to Victoria Falls on my own. So Tom and Omer went off, and I hope they're having a great time, and stayed at Nkwaji.
My last day at Nkwaji I went hiking again, and found these cool fruits that are the root of a plant. The hard shell holds a really sweet fruit, which nobody could tell me the name of, but guarenteed me were safe to eat. That day I also took a half day trip with Stuart to visit the local chief. The local chiefs have to kind of approve everything, otherwise your bound to have certain problems. The thing about this chief is that he lives in the Congo. So, off we went through roads not monitored by immigration officers to the chiefs village in the Congo. Because the chief likes the reserve, and everyone knows that Stuart works for the reserve we were actually as safe as one could be in the area. We went the chiefs village, had lunch with him, and headed back for another night of shooting things. So it was amazingly cool to have gone to the Congo, but it was just an hour drive from where we were, and was kind of anti climactic. Still, I can now say I've been to the Congo.
The next morning I left Nkwaji and headed back to Hillwood farm with Stuart. Like I said before, the farm is enormous, and there are quite a few large houses on it. Stuart, and a peacecorp volunteer have one to themselves. There are quite a few extra rooms, so I got myself a room in a villa for this past weekend. The farm also raises cattle and sheep, and Stuart gets a certain amount of meat for free. So this past weekend I had steak and lampchops, and really good ones too. The house we stayed in has an orchard around it with guavas, oranges, and avocadoes, so i picked those fresh from the trees each day too. It was a really nice weekend to stay the least.
During the day Stuart took me around the game reserve. All the wildlife in the area has long sinced been poached or killed for food. So the reserve is specially fenced off and antelopes, buffalo, zebra, and all sorts of stuff has been reintroduced. This area once had lion, rhino, and elephant too, but the farm has not reintroduced that because they don't have enough room. Rhino might come back though. Basically super rich people spend an enormous amount of money to come shoot them, and that's how the farm supports itself these days. A zebra costs 50k US to kill! Rhinos, if they add them, would be in the 200k US range!!! So some people have got a lot of extra money lying around. I was initially against this whole hunting thing, but it actually does quite a bit of good. The local communities always get a cut, going back to the keeping the chief happy thing, and this way at least the animals are back in the area, even if its just in a reserve. Hunting concessions in general also keep poaching down, because you can hunt legally, and the local people have an interest in keeping tourists coming to the area. So they dont' engage in poaching anywhere near as much as in areas where sanctioned hunting in prohibited.
Anyways, a little about the farm. The farm was started over a hundred years ago by missionaries from Britain that came originally to Angola. They came across the country and crossed the Angolan border and set up a hospital where the farm is today. The hospital is still there, and is apparently the best in the region. People come from Angola and Congo for treatment there, and its still run and funded by missionaries, from Canada mostly. There's also a prestigious boarding school on the farm. The school, called Sakeji, is ridiculous. Huge swimming pools, and air strip, modern buildings, science labs, its quite weird to see it in this far out location. Another really interesting feature of the farm is the footpath going across the game reserve. The footpath is hundreds of years old, and was used by slave traders to take slaves from the Congo to the Angolan coast. The farm still lets local people use it as they pass through the area from village to village.
Stuart took me into the reserve to the animals, and I saw almost everything they have, except the two really cool things, the zebra and sitatunga. Sitatungas are some weird antelope animal that submerges itself in water most of the day. I missed both because I was off looking at plants. There are tree ferns and iris all over the place, and i was looking at these when Stuart says he say the zebra and sitatunga. I was thrilled to see the tree ferns and iris though, and I don't care for a second i missed out on the animals. I think I'll be able to see at least zebras later while in Uganda. The forests in this area full out tropical, and really cool to see and hike through.
Well, after an amazing, relaxing, and well fed weekend at Hillwood farm I hitchhiked my way out of the farm back to Lusaka. Its been two long, not comfortable days, but its over. So now, I'm going to go to Victorial falls before I head north to Tanzania. I'm going to get an overnight bus or train tomorrow and spend a day or two before heading back to Lusaka and going back north. I'll try to post pictures tomorrow, and I'll post the links in another blog post. I'll probably remember a few more things I forgot to put on this post. All is going well, and I'm excited for Victoria Falls and a big bunjee jump.
Hope everyone is doing well, and Happy 60th to Israel!
Anyways, I'm back in Lusaka after a week in the Northwest of Zambia. After an extra day in Lusaka because of car problems the three of us finally made it out on the road. We drove north to the region of Zambia called the copperbelt the first day. Zambia is very rich in minerals, especially copper, and most of the countries revenues come from copper. This region is where the majority of the industry in the country is, its oil refineries, better hospitals, pretty much everything. The two main cities, which we passed through, of Kitwe and Ndola look pretty nice. They have wide streets, modernish looking buildings, and you don't feel like you're in a poor country. Just outside of Kitwe was the city of Chingola, which has copper mines literally on the edge of the city, which alarmed me environmentally. In Chile I visited what is the world's largest open pit copper mine, and the city next door was evacuated because of environmental issues. So I can't imagine it's too healthy to grow up in Chingola.
There are other copper mines being opened up all over this region and exploration is being done further north and west, where we were headed. Zambia reminds me of Chile in a few regards. They're both very large, sparsely populated countries, with tons of copper. Chile is the economic success story of south america, and while there are too many issues in Zambia, in my opinion, to see it reach Chilean economic levels, who knows. If the price of copper keeps rising, and there's sound economic planning, than Zambia could be pretty well off. On top of copper, there are diamonds, and quite a few other minerals in the area. In one city, just stopping to be some oranges, we were approached by some folks trying to illegally sell us some mineral i'd never heard of. Apparently, illegal mining is a big thing in the area. The area is huge, forested, and there's not too much law and order, so its almost an anything goes atmosphere.
At the end of our first day we pulled into a Chimpanzee reserve called Chimfunji, or something like that. There's a white Zambian family that decades ago was given some hurt chimpanzees that the police got while stopping smugglers from the Congo. The police gave the family the chimpanzees and ever since they've been rehabilitating sick chimpanzees from whomever will give them to them. Most are ones taken from smugglers from the Congo. The family is actually quite mean, don't like tourists, but need them to help pay for the chimp farm. Fortunately they hired a Zimbabwean family to run the campsite, lodge section and they were quite nice and very helpful. We came in late at night, and they got a fire going for us right away, and heated up water for showers.
The sunrise the next morning was absolutely incredible. The campsite is right on the river which divides Zambia and the Congo in the area. I'll post pictures tomorrow, so you can see how amazing the sunrise was. That night we saw this city glow in the distance, which turns out to be the major Congo city of Lumbambashi. It's a huge copper city, and the mines in that area make Zambia's look like scraps in comparison. The instability has prevented the Congo from really taking advantage of their mineral wealth, but that country is loaded with natural resources.
The next morning we saw the chimps in the reserve, and their pet hippo. They have a hippo that has been there since she was born, and is basically tame, which for a hippo is a heck of a thing. They're quite mean animals, apparently. The Zambian family was again fairly dismissive of us in the morning, so we left and kept on our way.
Our first destination on this trip was supposed to be a place called Hillwood farm. We didn't know much about it, just that it was supposed to be really impressive, and that the region was nice. We were hoping to get there that night, but the roads were in such bad condition we couldn't make much progress, and spent the night on the side of the road in the Zambian bush. The next day we finally made it to the farm, and what a farm it is. It's massive first of all, there's a game hunting ecoreserve in the middle of it, and it's as modern a farm as I've ever seen. All of this is great, but they were closed for tourists for a few more weeks. Fortuantely for us we met up with Stuart, another white Zimbabwean, who was working for the farm. He was just leaving to go to a different reserve, operated by the same farm, about 70 kilometers away. He said it was super remote, really pretty, had a river right by the site, and we could stay as long as we wanted for free. So, off we were following Stuart to the site called Nkwaji.
Nkwaji means Fish Eagle, in the Lunda language, the language of the local people, who are called, no surprise, the Lunda. The area is also being slated to be a hunting reserve, and Stuart is building fences and other facilities for the area. The site really is about as remote as it gets, and its just stunning. Semi-tropical forests, big grasslands, and just really stunning. The next day I went hiking in the area on the footpaths and 4x4 trails that go through the area. Went through quite a few villages, and just had a great time in the area. Stuart set up a canoe trip for the three of us for the next day with his workers. Stuart also took us to all these cool spots in the area, and was just thrilled to have company. He's been there for a few months, pretty much on his own, and was so hospitable to us the whole time we were there.
So the next day he took us to the nearby river and three of his workers came with some dugout canoes. It was kind of like Heart of Darkness light. We paddled through rainforest, mangroves, and some really nice scenery. We paddled a lot though, and mostly not straight. Dugout canoes are not easy things to maneuver, and a lot of the time was spent avoiding going into mangroves, and other places we could get stuck in. Going upstream was also not so easy, but was a nice workout. After paddling for about 3.5 hours upstream, we got to finally enjoy a nice cruise back to the starting point. For all of that time paddling, we only got about 20 minutes to float back downstream. We were stunned by how short of a distance we made paddled, but it makes sense with all the time spent just trying to direct the canoe in the right direction. It was a great time though.
Oh, back to mining for a second. Throughout my time up in this area I saw lots of light aircraft carrying drones behind them. Apparently the drones are surveying the area for copper and other minerals. Again, there is a lot of copper, and lot of people trying to take advantage of the wealth.
There's not much to do a Nkwaji at night, and Stuart has gone a little stir crazy in his time there. His main source of entertainment is shooting bottles filled with gasoline into fires. He's got this huge shotgun with him, and we spent our nights shooting stuff. Bottles with water we'd throw, like clay pigeons, and shoot in midair. At night we'd shoot these gas filled bottles, which made a huge blast, but at the same time the blast for the shotgun was enough to immediate extinguish the fire and the small fire we set up behind the bottle. It was a lot of fun, and I'm not a bad shot. I hit almost every water bottle in midair that was thrown for me.
So, after a few days at Nkwaji Tom and Omer wanted to continue further south in western Zambia, and I didn't want to go. I was having a great time being in Nkwaji, and I couldn't bear the thought of being in a jeep for a few more days. So, after talking to Stuart, I decided to stay at Nkwaji for another day and than go back to Hillwood Farm for the weekend. From there I'd head back to Lusaka, where I am now, and than go to Victoria Falls on my own. So Tom and Omer went off, and I hope they're having a great time, and stayed at Nkwaji.
My last day at Nkwaji I went hiking again, and found these cool fruits that are the root of a plant. The hard shell holds a really sweet fruit, which nobody could tell me the name of, but guarenteed me were safe to eat. That day I also took a half day trip with Stuart to visit the local chief. The local chiefs have to kind of approve everything, otherwise your bound to have certain problems. The thing about this chief is that he lives in the Congo. So, off we went through roads not monitored by immigration officers to the chiefs village in the Congo. Because the chief likes the reserve, and everyone knows that Stuart works for the reserve we were actually as safe as one could be in the area. We went the chiefs village, had lunch with him, and headed back for another night of shooting things. So it was amazingly cool to have gone to the Congo, but it was just an hour drive from where we were, and was kind of anti climactic. Still, I can now say I've been to the Congo.
The next morning I left Nkwaji and headed back to Hillwood farm with Stuart. Like I said before, the farm is enormous, and there are quite a few large houses on it. Stuart, and a peacecorp volunteer have one to themselves. There are quite a few extra rooms, so I got myself a room in a villa for this past weekend. The farm also raises cattle and sheep, and Stuart gets a certain amount of meat for free. So this past weekend I had steak and lampchops, and really good ones too. The house we stayed in has an orchard around it with guavas, oranges, and avocadoes, so i picked those fresh from the trees each day too. It was a really nice weekend to stay the least.
During the day Stuart took me around the game reserve. All the wildlife in the area has long sinced been poached or killed for food. So the reserve is specially fenced off and antelopes, buffalo, zebra, and all sorts of stuff has been reintroduced. This area once had lion, rhino, and elephant too, but the farm has not reintroduced that because they don't have enough room. Rhino might come back though. Basically super rich people spend an enormous amount of money to come shoot them, and that's how the farm supports itself these days. A zebra costs 50k US to kill! Rhinos, if they add them, would be in the 200k US range!!! So some people have got a lot of extra money lying around. I was initially against this whole hunting thing, but it actually does quite a bit of good. The local communities always get a cut, going back to the keeping the chief happy thing, and this way at least the animals are back in the area, even if its just in a reserve. Hunting concessions in general also keep poaching down, because you can hunt legally, and the local people have an interest in keeping tourists coming to the area. So they dont' engage in poaching anywhere near as much as in areas where sanctioned hunting in prohibited.
Anyways, a little about the farm. The farm was started over a hundred years ago by missionaries from Britain that came originally to Angola. They came across the country and crossed the Angolan border and set up a hospital where the farm is today. The hospital is still there, and is apparently the best in the region. People come from Angola and Congo for treatment there, and its still run and funded by missionaries, from Canada mostly. There's also a prestigious boarding school on the farm. The school, called Sakeji, is ridiculous. Huge swimming pools, and air strip, modern buildings, science labs, its quite weird to see it in this far out location. Another really interesting feature of the farm is the footpath going across the game reserve. The footpath is hundreds of years old, and was used by slave traders to take slaves from the Congo to the Angolan coast. The farm still lets local people use it as they pass through the area from village to village.
Stuart took me into the reserve to the animals, and I saw almost everything they have, except the two really cool things, the zebra and sitatunga. Sitatungas are some weird antelope animal that submerges itself in water most of the day. I missed both because I was off looking at plants. There are tree ferns and iris all over the place, and i was looking at these when Stuart says he say the zebra and sitatunga. I was thrilled to see the tree ferns and iris though, and I don't care for a second i missed out on the animals. I think I'll be able to see at least zebras later while in Uganda. The forests in this area full out tropical, and really cool to see and hike through.
Well, after an amazing, relaxing, and well fed weekend at Hillwood farm I hitchhiked my way out of the farm back to Lusaka. Its been two long, not comfortable days, but its over. So now, I'm going to go to Victorial falls before I head north to Tanzania. I'm going to get an overnight bus or train tomorrow and spend a day or two before heading back to Lusaka and going back north. I'll try to post pictures tomorrow, and I'll post the links in another blog post. I'll probably remember a few more things I forgot to put on this post. All is going well, and I'm excited for Victoria Falls and a big bunjee jump.
Hope everyone is doing well, and Happy 60th to Israel!
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