A surprising anniversary

Today is our 41^st anniversary and the plan is to spend most of it traveling from the Okavango Delta to Kufue National Park in Zambia. We started with our hour drive to the airstrip. We saw nothing on the way, but at the strip we immediately spotted elephants. But even more surprising was a male lion walking on the road next to the air strip. As he sauntered along, we would reposition our jeep four or five times to watch him approach again. He nonchalantly approached right next to us and then continued. Amos, our guide in training, Taps, our guide, and Sanction all took their cell phones out and shot pictures. This was one of best lion sightings any of them had seen.

We flew back to Kasane, then began our bus ride to the ferry across the Zambezi River. The trucks taking the ferry here usually wait for days to get across the river. There are four ferries, each can only hold one semi-truck and the ferries break down frequently (only two were operating today). It takes 15-20 minutes to load a truck, cross the river, and unload plus the ferries only operate from 6 AM to 6 PM. The ladies of the night do a brisk business from the drivers. While we waited for the ferry, Sanction arranged for Matilda, a local prostitute, to talk to us about her life. Matilda's mother died when she was 16 and she quit school to care for her two younger brothers. But with no job, she had to resort to prostitution to feed her family. She meets the truckers in a bar, charges $200 for those who use a condom, and $400 without. She has three to four clients a night. She started at age 19 and is now 28, with two children: 3 and 5. We could see a few injuries on her neck from violent clients. Zambia and Botswana have started building a bridge across the Zambezi. It should be completed in five years. Matilda is training to be a beauty stylist to eventually quit the profession.

Zambezi Truck Ferry

We crossed the river and picked up a bus on the opposite shore. While we were waiting a parade of men were selling copper bracelets and carved animals, trying to support their families. We drove an hour to Livingstone, a city of 300,000 with one stop light. In Livingstone, we visited a local market selling fruit, vegetables, grains, used clothing, and other things. The vendors were happy to talk to us and explain about some of the fruits, tree pods, and larvae that were strange to us. Each of our ladies got to pick out 2 yards of brightly patterned material. We’re going to learn the various purposes for this material in a few days. Then we flew from Livingstone to Lufupa Camp in the Kufue National Park. This is the same camp we opened up two weeks early in 2008 Ultimate Africa trip. Our guides are Boyd and Brian. 

Livingstone Market

We went on a sundown game drive into the night to find the nocturnal animals. We stopped at one point because we could hear the bark of a Cape Bushbuck warning of the presence of a predator, but we never saw anything. It got dark and we continued searching for nocturnal creatures. We found one bird and some Cape Hares (our guide called them Bush Hares) that only come out at night. And then, we had our second surprise for the day: a leopard walking along the road. We watched him for about 10 minutes as he approached our jeep, defecated right in front of us (no shame at all), and continued on past us. What a sight! Later we spotted a Hippo walking one of the hippo trails away from us.

Our anniversary celebration was that night: Carol and Linda bought us Champagne, the camp folks sang for us, and baked a nice chocolate cake and then we had more champagne waiting in our room, when we retired for the night. What a special surprising anniversary!