22 – Zambezi Expeditions

The people of Zimbabwe whom I met were among the friendliest I have ever encountered. They are fully cognizant of the difficult political times that their country has had (and is still having), but are convinced that better times are ahead. Encouraging people to come to visit their country to enjoy both their hospitality and their animals is of prime importance to them, and if you go on safari I hope that you will experience both.

One other thing that really made this a vacation: none of the camps at which I stayed had wifi. So, for nine days and three hours, I had no contact with the outside world. No email, no Facebook, no news of any kind. None. It was wonderful! Strange? Yes. Unusual to realise that the phone which used its alarm clock feature to wake you up (when the hour still read 5!) was useful only as an alarm clock, and a very expensive one. No matter: I relaxed, really relaxed. I recommend it...

The range of hills in the background, on the other side of the Zambezi, is in Zambia

The previous camps on this trip had been “luxury tented camps” (which you knew from studying the websites). Yes, your residence is made of canvas, but with semi-permanent parts (floors, plumbing etc). This last was a mobile camp: at the end of the season it will be completely dismantled and moved to another location. There will be no trace left of where many people had visited, lived and worked. This means that the plumbing is necessarily slightly less refined (still with flush toilets, don't worry); the al fresco showers are filled with hot water whenever you need. Unlike the previous camp, which had charging stations for cameras etc in each tent, this had just one in the main office area. It received its electricity from solar panels, and they provided very low voltage lighting in the tents. Ironing of laundry (done free daily in every camp, fear not) was therefore done the old fashioned way: with cast iron hand irons, hot from a fire. Slightly rustic, not the Four Seasons, but still wonderful!

Though I am not sure that the Four Seasons offers room service delivered by elephant, so that is a debit in their column. Notice that your webmaster is keeping a very low profile behind a vehicle

This camp was on the banks of the Zambezi, and my tent was exactly 15 yards (14 m) away from it. So this means that nightly visitors around the tent are not just elephants (one can become so blasé about the possibility of bumping into a 10,000 lb (4,500 kg) animal), but other things as well. On my first night there, I heard an enormous row about 1am, reasonably close to my tent. I found out the next day that a cheetah had killed an impala in the middle of camp, but before it could have its late-night snack, thirteen hyenas arrived, and it fled. After they had demolished the poor antelope and disappeared, a couple of lions appeared to see if there was any dinner left. There wasn't.

But there is another animal which makes many nightly perambulations: the hippo.

I am here to tell you that, in all of Africa, the path travelled most frequently at night by these charming creatures (each a mere 3000 lb, or 1300 kg) is right outside tent number 1 of the Zambezi Expeditions campsite. And, as they wander by, they are making this sound (please listen with the volume turned up) all night long. And I mean all night long. Bose noise-cancelling headphones (normally great against everything except the very worst sopranos) cannot cope. Nothing can. Sleeplessness follows. Sigh.

Well, yes. If you visit them in their territory, then you have to go with their rather loud life-style. But I still wish that they came with a volume control

Speaking of the Zambezi, it is a beautiful and very clean river, controlled in part by the flow over the Victoria Falls and also by the Kariba Dam. Did you know that it is the fourth longest river in Africa? The longest is the Nile (indeed, it's the longest river in the world). After that come the Congo, the Niger, and the Zambezi. I can't find an operatic allusion for the Zambezi, but I could for the others. No prize for the Nile reference, but I did find another opera referring to the Niger and the Congo. Any ideas? No, not L'AFRICAINE. Hint: it is a very well known piece, I am sure that all of my readers (including those not operatically inclined) will have seen it. Feel free to tell me (or ask me what the answer is); send an email.

One of the pluses of this camp is that they offer canoeing, so one afternoon I went out on the mighty river with a Danish family and some guides. These photos show only how calm and relaxed we were, they do not show the panic that sets in when some hippos appear, and you have to take evasive action. Blood pressure and heart rate rise dramatically...

While in this camp, I also bumped into an old friend