Kopa Street

It’s been awhile, and a lot has happened in the past few weeks. My parents and I journeyed to Lusaka (which was our first vacation in four months) to pick up my cousin, Shelby. She had a lot of troubles because her flights were booked with Air Zimbabwe, and finally managed to get to Lusaka after her flight being changed twice, then delayed 12 hours, and an overnight stay in Harare, Zimbabwe.


Sidenote: [I was once again introduced to cilivilization (after four months) when I took my first step into The Game, a department store in Lusaka. It was like walking into North America. The clean, aisles, high ceilings, shiny white everything... ahhh, memories.]

Within an hour after Shelby's arrival, we continued on the 7-8 hour drive to Livingstone – the location of Victoria Falls, one of the Seven Wonders of the World. The last 80km of the road to Livingstone are covered in potholes, but luckily we passed through them while there was still light. We found where our chalet was, settled in, and went to dinner.

It was so weird going to dinner the first night, because it was pretty much like I was back in North America. The waitress came right away, told us her name, and the service was so fast, it was amazing. The best part was that the chairs were comfortable! Back at our chalet, I climbed up to my rickety (it moved back and forth…) bunk bed, and had a decent sleep even though Livingstone is freezing cold at night.

We woke up at 5:30 the next morning, in order to drive to Botswana for our safari in Chobe national park. We made it through immigration alright, and waited in line for the ferry. It was one of those ferries that transports about 10 cars at a time. (Maybe like the Albion ferry, but without those indoor places to sit). We saw our first crocodile as we were on the 5 minute ride across the Zambezi River.

On the Botswana side, we waited for the Thebe safari vehicle to come pick us up. We ended up being the only ones on the safari besides an older man from the U.K., which was much better than being crammed into a vehicle with 20 other people in it. Our driver, Tonga, let us out at the Botswana immigration where we walked through the anti ‘Mouth and Foot Disease’ soaked mat. My first impression of Botswana was that it was much nicer than Zambia. The roads were beautifully paved, streetlights everywhere, and no garbage on the sides of the roads. It was very cold as we drove to the Thebe headquarters, so Tonga gave us some blankets after our small breakfast, and bathroom stop.

Next Tonga drove us up to Chobe game park, where we saw all kinds of animals - elephants, impala, giraffe just to name a few. The only downside to this was when I had to pee so bad for the last hour of it, and the bumpy road doesn’t do anything to help a full bladder. After a four hour drive, we took a quick bathroom trip (thankfully), and headed straight to where the boat was docked for our ‘Chobe River Cruise.’

Our driver’s name was Lucky, and I commented later that that was the reason the crocs didn’t eat us. Again, it was just the four of us, and the man from the U.K. so we had plenty of seats to choose from in a boat seating twelve. Thankfully there was a big awning overtop of the boat, because the sun was directly above our heads by this time. Lucky showed us a hippo (the most dangerous water creature), but we didn’t get too close because it happened to be mating. Next we saw an African water snake, that sort of floats along the water, and catches fish. Lucky drove us to Sedudu island which Namibia and Zambia both argued over, but Zambia ended up claiming. On it were herds of water buffalo, elephants, hippos, and crocodiles in the marshy edges. Lucky was determined to get us as close as possible to the crocs, which Shelby freaked out about, and I laughed at. Once or twice our motor got filled up with river (?) weed, and I’ll admit I was a little nervous. We found a spot to lunch, watching water buffalo (the biggest killers of humans), graze.


Shelby’s favourite part of the whole safari experience was finding out that Lucky knew where Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie lived in Namibia… just down the river. (She was very disappointed when he said he couldn’t take us there.)

Lucky dropped us off back on the shore (after showing us an elephant hide being devoured by crocs), and Tonga drove us back through Botswana customs and to the ferry. We went across the ferry, through Zambian customs, and the 60km drive back to our Chalet.

The morning we drove our own truck through the Livingstone Gamepark, bright and early at 7am. We saw all the animals as the day before, but rhinos, and monkeys for the first time. We also had a very good giraffe sighting.

Next we went to the main attraction of Livingstone; Victoria Falls. They are almost 2km across, and the water from the Zambezi River falls into a 100m gorge down below. The falls are claimed by both Zambia and Zimbabwe. It took us a while to figure out what kind of jacket to bring – my mom and I took those plastic ponchos, Shelby wore my mom’s winter coat, and my dad decided to brave it without any waterproofing.

When we got into the office to register (to make sure everyone came back at the end of the day, they said), somehow my dad got talking to the manager. He ended up giving us a tour of the different sight seeing places – making sure we went to the dry parts first, and wet last.

The falls were AMAZING! You hear them before you see them, and the water just pours down, into the gorge below. I’ve seen Niagra falls, but Victoria Falls doesn’t even compare. To start with, there are signs painted on rocks telling you not to swim in the river (just before the drop off). The ‘wet zone’ was fun, full of mist, soaking my hair (they say the mist so thick you can barely even see in March, though). We crossed a wooden bridge onto another look out point. The railings were pretty sketchy – at some points just a chain about two feet high, separating you and the edge. Its impossible to describe something so powerful, and even pictures can’t sum it up, but here are a few anyways:

We walked back to our truck, but weren’t finished yet. It was curio time. I love bartering, I really do. …though sometimes I’m not very good at it… This curio was about five times the size of the one in Kitwe, at least ten times as much stuff. The best part is when one guy tells you a story of how “My Grandfather and I carved this in a Village 7.5 kilometers away – do you know that one?” He goes on and on, and you believe him. But then, you go to the next stand, and the guy tells you the exact same story, but it sounds like it’s rehearsed! They’ll say anything to sell you their product, it’s quite funny, actually. Also, at the curio in Livingstone, each guy shakes your hand, and asks you your name. I told them I was Temwani (what the VOH kids named me), and they were very confused when I had a Zambian name. I also got offered many a “special price” because I was local – from Kitwe. Another interesting encounter was when one man wanted to trade me my hair elastic (for his sisters, he said) for “anything at my table.” This ended up to be my hair elastic plus a bunch of money, so I didn’t go for it. Apparently one of the people from a team who came to VOH traded their $12 Walmart Jeans (that they were wearing) for a big djembe (African drum) at the Livingstone curio.

We rushed off to our Chalet, to make it in time for our Sunset Cruise on the Zambezi river. A bus picked us up, and drove us to the dock where we got on the African Princess boat, instead of the African Queen boat. These are pretty big, open decked boats seating maybe 100 people at tables. There were very few people on the lower deck of the African Princess, where we were, which was wonderful. A South African lady, and her daughter who was visiting from the U.K. were sitting next to us, and took our picture. The waitresses served us a meal of appetizers, and … what I’ve been missing most from North America … bottomless refills!! It was awesome. We got so many pictures of the sunset, and even saw some hippos on the shore line. Another highlight was passing the ‘Booze Cruise’ where all the passengers were singing at the top of their lungs. We also saw Botox lady, who is a story in herself… wow, all I can say is… wow, and I wish I got a picture. Haha.

The rest of the trip was driving home the next day at 6am; stopping at the rest stop with amazing bathrooms, and having Shelby sleep on my shoulder for a few hours. We made it to Ndola, just as it was completely dark, and after dinner at the Bersaglio’s were home again.