Kafue National Park

It has been presidential election week for Zambia.  VSO filled us with all kinds of information and preparations were made for anticipated and associated violence.

Ilene and I addressed all this news by deciding to “get out of town”.  (Oh my, what a surprise!)

So, it was off to Kafue National Park for all of last week.  It was a very remote lodge with a beautiful camping area – our own private insaka (open hut – for shade), another private shower/toilet/sink area (with all the wood heated hot water we could ever want to use) and right on the Kafue River.  It’s a great place called Kaingu Lodge.  It involved three hours of paved road (if we wouldn’t have missed the turnoff that is), one and a quarter hours of pretty good dirt road and then about an hour and a half (again, that is if we would not have missed the turn off, down in to a steep creek bed) (40 k’s)  of very tight single track, with moderate sand ruts and trees immediately on the side of the road to keep the driver quite “puckered” for the entire length of the travel.

We were VERY concerned for the last couple of hours, as tse-tse flys began to accompany us.  It got so bad, that if we rolled down the window, they just poured in!  And, they are really aggressive biters.  I had visions of sleeping the car and getting the hell out of there the next morning.

As it turns out, they are attracted to anything moving and when you add the methane from the exhaust, they find cars to be amongst the height of their passions.  At the lodge, they have you park for five minutes before entering the premises.  The flies go away!  While there, for four days, they were no problem at all – what a relief.

So we got that information and then were shown our camp site.  Oh how fortunes can turn (for the worse or for the better) in just a few minutes time.

A "Sweet Campsite" in the bush

We went on a river trip that was really beautiful.  There are hundreds of fingers in the river in this stretch and all of it running through a massive boulder field.

They navigate the river with small outboards and as we left I was wondering how they do this without hitting the rocks.  Answer…..

They don’t!  The first rocks that the engine hit, I just cringed…..an absolute “no-no” back home.  Here, you just get used to it (kind of)

We saw vultures circling at one point and our guide (an animal tracker), just couldn’t resist going to find out what was going on.  We found the remains of a carcass and started to follow drag marks, when he stopped and said “we will have to go back to the boat…this is too dangerous without a weapon.”

AS SOON as we got back to the lodge, our guide grabbed the other guide (who is also a tracker), a large rifle and jumped right back in to the boat.  I learned later, that he knew, as soon as we saw it, that this was a very fresh leopard kill and that the leopard would not quickly abandon his “booty”.

They followed the trail for a couple hundred meters and saw a thicket ahead.  With hand gestures, they communicated that the carcass, and in all likelihood the leopard, would be there.  They took off their shoes and slowly proceeded.  Just prior to the thicket, they came to a dry streambed and THERE…THREE METERS AWAY was the leopard.  It eventually wandered off and they were able to follow it for a short way.  In the thicket they did find the carcass, hidden from the vultures and nearby, a tree with all kinds of animal residue in it’s branches.  This was definitely a preferred dining spot for this very large leopard.  They commonly take their kills up in to the trees to get them away from hyenas.  Once a hyena gets wiff of one of these kills (which doesn’t take long in this hot African sun), the leopard can expect a visitor early in the evening, when the hyena wakes up.  And although the leopard commonly kills (and drags up a tree) animals that are one and a half to two times it’s size, it doesn’t ever mess with a hyena.

So, these guides come back to camp, all bubbly and call for Echbert (who runs the lodge) to jump in the boat…they are going to show him a leopard!  He has worked at the lodge for four years and has never seen one yet.  They came over to our site and also invited Ilene and I to come join them.

Echbert (camera) has never seen a leopard. The slump continues!

It was very exciting, following the guide in complete silence (although I just couldn’t walk as quietly as he could) through the bush of Africa.  Sun beating down on us, hot breeze  in our face, sweat drying from our skin before we get a chance to be cooled from it.  Creeping intently by a bush, along the dry streambed, over a burned out grassland, around a rock.

INTENSITY - is it in these bushes?

We didn’t find the leopard.  They were apologizing, but I had just had a most wonderful experience.  The rawness and intensity of the trek will last much longer than the spotting of the leopard would have.  We went back to the carcass and they explained that they knew right when they saw it that the remains were from a leopard kill.  The leopard immediately removes the intestine (which is what the vultures were feeding on) and then drags the prey to another site and eventually up a tree.  When the guide also grabbed, disected and smelled the fecal matter from the intestine, he knew that this kill had happened very recently…within a couple of hours.  They pointed out the puncture marks in the throat of the Kudu – which are from the teeth of the leopard and typical of how they kill their prey.

As with all of nature, this place can be just beautiful on one hand, and unbelievably cruel on the other.

Sata is Zambia’s new president.

There WAS some upheaval in Lusaka, but when they announced the results at midnight on Thursday night, THE WHOLE TOWN WOKE UP FOR A PARTY.  Unfortunately, we weren’t here to witness it.  I guess it was just nuts.  Honking, shouting, dancing going on all night.  When we came in to town on Friday afternoon……….Lusaka was “asleep”.  We were worried about rioting little hoodlums, destroying property and maybe attacking some “muzungus” just for the heck of it.  There was no one around.  We drove right in to town.  No traffic, no shops open, a few people still shouting, honking and doing little “jigs” in the street, but Lusaka is a pretty happy place right now.

So, the former president is living in the presidential palace on Thursday evening.  They announce the election results at midnight.  At one o’clock the next afternoon, they have the inaugeration (sp) and the new president sleeps in the presidential palace THAT NIGHT! (Friday)  I guess the first ladies don’t spend much time talking about the style of champagne glasses and whether the carpets match the end tables in the sitting room…..let alone essential administrative issues that would affect the transfer of the government to a new leader.

It’s the start of  the “hot season” and will go until the rains come in November.

Oh, there is a local (cheap) beer called Shake Shake.  It is packaged in cartons and the locals swear by it.  I was under the impression that it was brewed locally, but on the way home we saw that it comes from TREES!

A Shake Shake Tree.....I wasn't kidding about this one!

Fall in the Methow……. what a wonderful time of the year!

Hello to everyone back home!

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