Leaving Nsefu for Chongwe; The Most Exciting Moment of our Trip
Early, early the next morning we heard a crashing and crunching – sounds we can easily identify as elephant. At first we continue sleeping, our only morning for sleeping in, but I can’t resist, I have to get up, and lo! The elephant is between our cabin and the next, obliviously chomping and breaking and tearing the tree for an early breakfast.
I decide to get up and get dressed so I can get the iPad charged before the generator goes off at 10, but I can’t go out until the elephant has departed, and she heads in the direction of the lodge, which is where I need to be. Deb Tuttle, the walking guide, walks with me once we see the elephant walk a little further down the valley, I’m able to get the iPad charging and grab a cup of coffee so to be able to say farewell to some of the guests whom we will not see again.
Sunrise over Nsefu:
Travel agents heading out on a Robin Pope Walking Safari:
Making Toast is the favorite job in the winter, close to the hot coals:
It is so nice to be able to pack in daylight! My iPad is at 100%; I have finished The Paris Wife and am starting Wolf Hall, which also holds my attention. While carrying books is bulky, this constant underlying awareness of needing to recharge camera batteries and iPad is also a deterrence. I find I am less desperate about the camera batteries, I always carry at least one back-up so I always have a charged spare, but when the iPad goes, it has to be recharged before we can use it again.
A couple of the travel agents who didn’t know each other had to bunk together in Nsefu. I don’t feel sorry for them; they get to come free. It seems to me, though, is hard to come on these trips as a single person and not feel the odd one out when the game drives go out. They say it is no problem, but I’ve been the odd one on trips to Kawazaa, etc., when AdventureMan wanted to do some activity and I wanted to do something else. It is possible, anything is possible, but sometimes it is just a little awkward. Sometimes people are nice; sometimes they are not so happy to have someone else with them. We are finding that the best of all worlds is to come with your own little traveling group.
The first time we came as a small group was with our son and his wife. We were able to do game drives with people who share our preferences, have people to talk to at dinner if everyone else has their group, etc. We like meeting up with other people, and at the same time, it gives you more confidence to have a group with you, if the other people are all absorbed in one another, or not great company.
The most difficult people are those who don’t understand that this is not a predictable experience – that’s why it is an adventure. There is no guarantee that the lion will crawl over the lip of the riverbank just in front of your car. There is no guarantee you will find the same great, shaggy maned lion at the salt pans that the other guests found the day before. There are NO guarantees, and so you have to treasure all the moments, great and small, and if you are blessed with an extraordinary experience, you celebrate, but honestly, just being here is cause for celebration. Those whose noses get out of joint because you might have seen something they haven’t aren’t a lot of fun to be around. We had one experience when a group that had been friendly to us got all sour and disgruntled because we had seen the lions at the salt pan and they had not. Hey! The lion don’t always show up! The leopard are elusive. This experience is one that totally has to be lived in the moment.
You have to love the smell of the campfire in the morning, and be willing to sacrifice your one morning of sleeping in to spot the elephant chomping outside your bathroom wall. You have to love the little elephant shrew as much as the elephant. There are some drives that are just quiet. It’s like you can’t expect Christmas every day, and if it were Christmas every day, it wouldn’t be special any more.
Just before Holly arrives to open up the Bend Over Store (LOL, it’s a trunk full of goodies) we are blessed with one last elephant crossing! Two days earlier, the elephant were crossing back and forth like a street in New York, then yesterday – not an elephant! It was so unearthly quiet! Today, groups are massing once again, and crossing. We love watching the baby elephants as they learn how it is done.
Drinking; getting ready to cross:
Mom, wait!
On the way to Mfuwe airport, we see Eland – we’ve been looking and looking for these large elk-like ungulates, they are shy and elusive, but Jonah spots them off in the distance, a parting gift from Nsefu.
We have an all-too-brief mad dash through Tribal Textiles, where we ‘invest’ in tablewares, cushion covers and deco for children’s rooms. AdventureMan befriends one of the Tribal Textile cats while I am busy shopping. I have cleared out my backpack so I would have space to put my purchases. 🙂
We have a full flight from Mfuwe to Lusaka, and not a lot of time to spare before our next flight. Smooth flight to Lusaka, just minutes to pick up luggage and transfer to next ProFlight flight, this one is not even on the departure board, only eight passengers, our party of four and a German family from Bavaria. At the very last minute another man comes running, running to catch the plane, we are all busy chatting, it is already a family. They are en route to Chiawa.
It’s a short flight, but here comes the most exciting moment in our day. The pilot is looking at a cheat sheet and the suddenly the plane is saying loudly “Pull Up! Pull Up!Terrain! Terrain!”
The pilots are looking confused and annoyed, one still looking at the instruction sheet, a mountain is rising in front of us, the plane is banking and the loud voice keeps saying “Pull up! Pull up! Terrain!”
I thought I had a movie of all this. I remember making a movie, thinking that if these are my last moments, I will record what happened and try to store the iPad in a place where it might be safely found. Of course, as it turns out, we landed safely and . . . somehow, I don’t have the movie. I must have shut it off too quickly and it didn’t save; I was in a hurry – just in case those were my last moments. I have to admit I am disappointed not to have it to share with you.
Waiting at the airstrip is Victor, our guide, and we rode with him and Chris, who turns out to be one of the owners of Chongwe, to the Chongwe River Camp.
(This is a waterbuck we passed on our way into camp, and again on our way out of camp the next morning; so so sad, part of the circle of life and death, but as we departed Chongwe, his bloated body was in the same field; they suspect he was bitten by a snake and died.)
Arrival is lovely, we are greeted at a tall stand, so we are not climbing in and out of the Land Cruiser, we walk right out onto this stand and down the steps. Flossie greets us and then they tell us that we have been upgraded and put in the family suite.
The Family Suite . . . As soon as we see it, we remember. We had totally forgotten . . . we loved our cabins at Chongwe, we were delighted with all the amenities, and we also remember our first boat trip riding by a place that looked like a fantasy from 1001 Nights, a tented living room and dining room, with carpets and nice furniture and linen tablecloths and gleaming candles – it was so lovely. We remember, it was the family suites. And now, the family suite was ours!
We were a little dazed by our good fortune, we couldn’t believe this lovely place was ours. Our butler, Steve, offered us drinks, Flossie, the camp hostess showed us to our bedroom/bathroom/dressing areas and explained how everything worked, where the electrical outlets and switches were, how the double shower works, where the bath oils were for the claw-footed bathtub, gave us the white cotton pique robes and the fluffy thick Turkish Towels.
This is our sleeping area:
This is our dressing area:
This is the view from our tent toward where the Chongwe River meets the Zambezi River:
This is our bathroom, with a two-person shower and claw-foot tub 🙂
And this is the desk area, also where we can charge our batteries and electronics:
This is our dining room:
The Family Room:
This is the view out over our swimming pool to the Chongwe and Zambezi Rivers, and the hippo pods:
There are woven mats and kelim carpets, and we feel at home, if home can be a huge octagonal tent with an indoor / outdoor feel. Victor comes back, pulling up in a boat next to our swimming pool,to take us for a sundowners up the Chongwe and then back down into the Zambezi.
And Victor has fishing equipment with him for the fishing enthusiast in our party. He is able to cast to his heart’s content with a rod and reel trying to hook a Tiger Fish (catch and release) but no luck.
We see lots of animals coming down to drink at dusk, just across the Chongwe:
Our first Chongwe sunset:
Dusk settles on the Zambezi:
After sundowners, we head back and go to our luxurious tents to clean up, then reassemble around the fire to have a glass of wine before dinner.
The ultimate luxury is privacy. We have met such lovely people in the camps, and still, I am who I am, it is hard for me to exert myself to be charming every night at the end of a long day. I do fine at breakfast around a campfire. I manage at lunch, although after an early start and a long game drive, I am usually eager for a quick snooze. But by night, at the end of the game drive, all I want is comfort food, quick, like tomato soup and a cheese sandwich, not so much chit chat and good night, see you all in the morning when I am more chipper.
I recognize there are people who do well later in the day. I recognize that there is this thing called civilized behavior. I do have manners, I know what is important, and . . . yet . . . late in the day, I have the nature of a curmudgeon. I need some quiet. AdventureMan and our friends are out having a great conversation in our living room area, I can hear them, I delight that they are having such a great conversation, and I really, really need to be in here, writing up my notes. By the grace of God, they understand me and have compassion on me. I am able to join them a little later, and we have a lovely laughter-filled dinner in our private dining room and then off to bed – we have a full day tomorrow in Chongwe!
The butler, Steve, does wonderful napkins:
We did nothing to deserve this beautiful upgrade. We loved the spacious tents we had the last time we were in Chongwe River Camp, but this . . . this is a totally unexpected, undeserved blessing, it just fell in our laps, and we are so appreciative. We feel so cherished, so blessed, so beautifully taken care of. We go to sleep with the sound of hippos . . . . .ZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz . . . . . .
Syria’s Stonehenge
Older than the pyramids . . . desert find in Syria
A mystery city lies in Syria’s deserts, one older than the pyramids — but the war-torn area is preventing archaeologists from decoding its riddles.
Fragments of stone tools, stone circles and lines on the ground, and even evidence of tombs appear to lie in the desert near the ancient monastery of Deir Mar Musa, 50 miles north of Damascus, archaeologist Robert Mason of the Royal Ontario Museum said. He likened the formations to “Syria’s Stonehenge.”
“What it looked like was a landscape for the dead and not for the living,” Mason said Wednesday during a presentation at Harvard University’s Semitic Museum, according to the University publication the Harvard Gazette.
He made the find during a 2009 trip and is eager to return and further explore the site. But he says regional conflicts make such a return trip nearly impossible.
“It’s something that needs more work and I don’t know if that’s ever going to happen.”
‘What it looked like was a landscape for the dead and not for the living.’
– Archaeologist Robert Mason
The monastery itself, also called the Monastery of Saint Moses the Abyssinian, was built in the late 4th or early 5th century, he said, and contains several frescoes from the 11th and 12th century depicting Christian saints and Judgment Day. He told the audience at Harvard that he believes it was originally a Roman watchtower, partially destroyed by an earthquake and rebuilt.
But the desert puzzle is much older.
Bits of tools Mason found nearby suggest the mystery he discovered in the desert is much older than the monastery. It may date to the Neolithic Period or early Bronze Age, 6,000 to 10,000 years ago, the Gazette said.
Egypt’s oldest pyramid, the Great Pyramid of Giza, was built about 4,500 years ago.
Mason also saw corral-like stone formations called “desert kites,” which would have been used to trap gazelles and other animals. The desert around the monastery is hardly a verdant pasture — “very scenic, if you like rocks,” Mason reportedly said — but was probably greener a few millennia ago, the archaeologist explained.
Like Indiana Jones exploring Italy’s museums in “The Last Crusade,” Mason hopes to return to the monastery to excavate under the church’s main altar — he believes he’ll find an entrance to underground tombs there.
He also hopes to return to strange stone formations he found in the desert, which he dubbed “Syria’s Stonehenge.”
The Customer from Hell at Target
Me. Today I was the customer from hell at Target.
I like Target. I like it that you can find just about anything you need there. I usually look for a deal, or a good price on things, but when I just need something, I just go buy it at Target. I also like their ad campaign, it’s a little camp but very colorful and always has cool products featured.
So today I went in for hair color stuff. I found it, but then I also found a display containing packages of two together, and it costs a lot less. It says Buy Two for Less!
Yes! Yes! I am buying two! I always buy at least two so I don’t have to go shopping that often; holdover from my days of buying six months worth when I was living in Kuwait and Qatar. It doesn’t go bad, and you have it when you need it.
None of the cellophaned two-packs have the color I need, so I take the ones I need and the two pack to the cashier, and I explain I want the special “Buy Two and Save” price, and she says “Whoa! That’s beyond me!” and sends me to the customer service counter.
At the customer service counter they explain to me that this is a special deal to encourage customers to buy more than one; they buy two and get a special deal. I agree with them, and isn’t this great, I want to buy two! Well no, they explain, Target pays a different price for the package than for the singles, so they can’t sell the singles two for the same price as the two bundled together.
Wait. These are the exact same product. EXACT. Except that these two wrapped in cellophane are 2 for $11.99, and the two exact same product I want to buy are priced at $7.99 EACH. So I am supposed to pay $5 MORE to buy two single ones? Something is not right with this picture. I ask to see a supervisor.
I am quiet and mannerly. I have a secret weapon – it is called pleasant persistence. They keep explaining to me that I can’t buy what I want at the special price and I just smile at them and politely explain how it doesn’t make sense. They are telling me in their explanations to “PLEASE GO AWAY!” and I am smiling and politely telling them in my own way that I am not going anywhere, and I want my product at the two-for price.
Finally, the supervisor says to sell it to me at the two-for price. As she is ringing it up, the customer service rep says “this happens all the time, not with hair products but with all kinds of products when we have the bundle price and the single price.” I suggest she mentions it to management, and that it costs a lot in time and in customer frustration and customer service frustration, and she says “it wouldn’t help.”
I still like Target. I imagine there are a lot of customers who give up and walk away. Not me. It doesn’t make sense to me to pay $5 more for something that they WANT you to buy two of . . .
A Chat With Daudi En Route to Nsefu
“Happy Anniversary to You! Happy Anniversary to You! I Love You! I love you! Happy Anniversary to you! Happy Anniversary to you!” AdventureMan sings me awake to the tune of the Superman theme. He always knows how to make me laugh, and after 39 years, he can still surprise me. We are so delighted to wake up here, in Tena Tena, on our anniversary. Life is sweet.
Morning at TenaTena Camp:
AdventureMan is walking to the next camp, and I am spending the morning catching up on notes, organization, small things, charging up my iPad, etc.
As I was saying earlier, you’d think this would all be very restful, and everything is done for us, but it all revolves around our game drive schedule, and any necessary re-charging depends on the generator schedule (unless you are in Nkwali, where you can re-charge everything in your own rooms; there are lots of electrical outlets) and at the same time, why on earth are we bringing all these electronic devices to the bush???
I’ve discovered a program on the iPad called Notes, and it allows me to write so much more than I would if I were writing by hand. I forget a lot of the smaller details and some of those small details are what makes camping life here so much fun.
The Robin Pope camps pay a lot of attention to detail. One of the things they provide is an insect repellant that is also lotion; it goes on easily, it smells good, and it really seems to keep the insects away, so I gladly use it instead of the Deet we brought with us which melts plastic if it leaks. How can that be good for our cameras?? How can that be good for us? And it is oily, and it smells so bad, and the tsetse flies just ignore it altogether. The insect repellant lotion, on the other hand, seems to work . . . and it smells like lemons.
We are all discovering new ways to use our cameras. I have discovered a program called Night Scenery, which allows me to take spectacular sunsets, and even photograph the essence of a night drive with some clarity – how cool is that? We are a good group in that we can sit patiently and shoot twenty or thirty shots of the lilac breasted roller, experimenting with various shutter speeds, aperatures, and compare them to the automatic function.
(I love my Lumix. I get great shots, and it takes me close to get the finest detail of a bird feather. It is lightweight, easy to handle, and doesn’t need as much light as many of the longer interchangable lenses on other cameras. I have two batteries, so I can be charging one and using another. I have another, smaller Lumix also with me as a back-up in case the unthinkable happens and something goes wrong with the bigger Lumix. My one gripe – the back-up battery is not a Panasonic battery; it works, but it doesn’t show how much battery is left, so just at the worst moment, my camera can just die if I don’t remember to change the battery out when I think it might be time.)
Our new Scottish friends, Mark and Madolyn, show us photos they took at the salt pan and they saw lion with a big huge bushy dark mane, and she took a photo – are you sitting down? – with her iPhone, that I would have killed to take. It is close, it is detailed, it is every bit as good as a photo taken with a camera. So much for all the control we are trying to develop.
They also ran a rescue mission for all the village men passing on bicycles, telling them of the lion ahead, loading bikes into the Land Cruiser, ferrying them past the lion and dropping them off past the danger zone. Some of the pride of lions have 10 – 20 members. Most avoid humans, but . . . would you want to bet on that, riding by a pride of lion, say . . . hungry lion . . .on a bicycle? (shiver) Not me!
It is approaching deep winter here, so it can be cold, not bitterly cold, but cold enough to make you stupid when you get up in the morning, cold enough that you want a fleece and a scarf for the first few hours of the morning drive. Around mid-morning you start stripping off layers, until around noon when it is very hot and you know the sunscreen won’t be enough; you have to put on some kind of cover against the strong African sun, even approaching mid-winter.
On my way to Nsefu, our last camp in the South Luangwa, I am with our old friend Daoudi, whom we first met twelve years ago, on our first trip to the South Luangwa. We talked of our families, and changes, and I thought to ask him about a conversation I had had the night before, with our Tena Tena guide, Julius. I had asked him how his wife coped with him gone guiding several weeks each month, and he began his response with “She is a well-mannered girl . . . ” going on to discuss how they problem-solve and work with the situation. It’s of interest to me, as a former military wife; military wives also spend time apart from their husbands.
So I pondered this, it was the first thing he said, “she is a well-mannered girl . . . ” and that tells me being well mannered is the most important thing, but well-mannered behavior differs, I have learned, sometimes painfully, from culture to culture.
“Daoudi, when a Zambian girl is said to be well-mannered, what does it mean?” and he explained it meant from her earliest days, her parents had instructed her on proper behavior.
“OK. I understand that. But I might not understand well-mannered the same way you do. Like when we lived in the Middle East, you know I learned to wear clothes that covered me to the elbow and to the knees, and did not have a low necklline . . . ”
“Yes, modest . . .” he said, thoughtfully.
“Yes, exactly,” I affirmed, “but also things very un-American . . . I learned to keep my eyes down, or at least not to look directly at a man and smile – that for us it might be friendly, but there it might seem forward. And I learned to use my quiet voice in public, and not to laugh out loud in the souks. Things like that, things I would not have even known if I had not been told.”
“Ah, yes!” he agreed, “these are also what it is to be a well-mannered Zambian woman. To speak softly with your husband, not to be shouting at him when you disagree, but to talk softly so you can come to agreement. Like that.”
We rode together in a comfortable silence, then I had another question.
“Would it be OK for a Zambian woman to be sitting here in the car with you when she is not your wife or your sister or a closely related woman?” and he laughed and said “Yes, it is helpful! Like you give someone a lift to help her get where she is going, there is nothing improper in that.”
So while some of the manners are like the manners of the Middle East, there are differences, too, and a person could spend a lifetime learning all these little distinctions and still not get it all right. Learning another culture is a never ending task, and it makes you envy those children who are born of two cultures (or more) and can pass fluently from one to another, knowing the subtleties of each.
We have American nieces and nephews who have lived most of their entire lives in a foreign country, and while they are not born of different cultures, they played on the streets, attended social functions, the local culture seeped into them by their daily lives. They are idiomatically fluent and inter-culturally fluent, but it takes a lifetime of bi-cultural living to attain their level without a dual-culture mother and father.
Nsefu Camp, the original Norm Carr camp, has little round plastered bandas set right on the river, where you can watch the elephant families cross the river, entirely lovely.
Everyone arrives hot and tired from the walk, and delighted with all they have learned. We have a lovely lunch, and AdventureMan sleeps soundly for an hour before afternoon tea.
Afternoon tea is a lot of fun; the chef has baked a beautiful chocolate cake for our birthday girl, and seven men enter singing “Happy Birthday” with the birthday cake for tea. 🙂
On the afternoon game drive we spot a civet cat, which we have never seen so clearly before,
and we see a porcupine family. When we first spotted them, it looked like the big porcupine was dragging something, but no, it was a little tiny baby porcupine sticking to Mom’s heelslike glue.
(Sorry, it’s just hard to get good clear sharp shots at night)
Again, a gorgeous night sky and a lot of fun trying to find constellations. Dinner was a Mongolian barbecue, with sparkling wine provided by the Australian honeymooners, who had a true honey moon – the moon rose huge and red in the sky as we were eating our dinner.
Galilee Cafe, Mobile, and Foley AL; Life in Small Adventures
AdventureMan was perusing the Weekend Section of the Pensacola News Journal when he saw the opening of the Farmer’s Market in Foley, AL, and he said “Let’s go!”
“Let’s Go!” and my agreement doesn’t always mean we will really go. The market isn’t until 3 in the afternoon, and a lot can happen. Sometimes we just change our minds.
But at water aerobics, I get a great idea, and I can hardly wait to share it with AdventureMan.
“Let’s go to the Jordan River Cafe for their Friday buffet, then head down toward Foley through Fairhope!” He loves the idea, we run a couple errands on the way home, I call the restaurant to make sure they are still open (It’s been about a year since we last went there) and then hit the road for Mobile:
When we get to the restaurant, we discover it is no longer the Jordan River Cafe; it is now the Galilee Cafe, and I wonder if the food will still be so good as before. As we enter, we are shocked – the Cafe is PACKED. Every table is taken – no, no, there is one small table, over in the back, we can have that one, the welcoming waitress says.
Galilee Cafe
326 Azalea
Mobile
T: 251-304-0297
Lunch was fantastic. Yes, the restaurant has changed hands; the current owner born in Bethlehem, and we are astonished and delighted to see so many people enjoying “Mediterranean” cuisine, which is suspiciously like what we used to eat in Jordan and Syria 🙂 The restaurant stayed busy the entire time we were there, so busy that some people ate outside on the front terrace. The food is delicious, and worth the drive from Pensacola. The Friday buffet (and it appears they also now have a Sunday buffet) is all the usual suspects – hummous, baba ghannoush (some of the best I have tasted), tabouli, fattoush, etc. plus a lot of the home-cooked favorites, lamb, chicken, grains, beans and vegetables, pita bread – all delicious.
The first time AdventureMan went to this restaurant (as the Jordan River Cafe) he went with a Saudi buddy and his son, and he has talked ever since about the route they took, but we never knew how to find it. Yesterday, we experimented, taking a right on Azalea as we left, and driving down to Government and turning left. (These iPhones are great navigational tools) It takes you through an older part of town, with large glorious mansions, and into a rather quiet downtown Mobile.
The good news is, it takes you to another tunnel under the Mobile Bay, closely paralleling the one I-10 uses. We like to have an alternative; I-10 can get clogged going through Mobile. This route serves our purposes as it is Highway 98, and it is the road we want to be on to get to Fairhope and then to Foley.
It is a lovely day for a drive, and while we have taken this drive before, it is never the same twice in a row. As we are on the stretch between Fairhope and Foley, the clouds darken and a few stray drops fall.
“That wasn’t bad!” I said as we arrived in Foley, promptly at three for the opening of the Farmer’s Market. “Great parking, too!”
We got as far as the first booth, which was soaps and toiletries (I love hand made soaps) and AdventureMan walked off to explore the rest of the stalls – and the torrent broke forth. Rain came down in buckets, and lightning came, crackling and booming, one strike after another. It never lasts very long here, so I thought we would just wait it out. The wind is blowing the rain under the canopy, so we gather up all the soaps to try to keep them dry, and we wait. And we wait. AdventureMan comes back, soaked; the wind has blown the rain under his umbrella. We wait another five minutes, and then everyone is starting to pack up – and I never made it beyond the first stall! We quickly made our purchases, ran to the car, and drove home mostly without air conditioning because we were so soaked and shivering.
The Farmer’s Market is held on Friday afternoons, 3 – 6 pm, in Heritage Park:
It was a great adventure 🙂 Thank you, Google Maps, for making it so easy to share the small adventure with our friends.
Transfer from Nkwali Camp to Tena Tena Camp
Monday, 3 June transfer to Tena Tena
Fred takes us on a game drive to Tena Tena, and it is a great morning, with a lot of fun. First thing out, we come across another elephant family, and we love stopping to visit with the elephants.
We stopped to take photos of signs for Nkwali, and I really love this one because we are the shadows taking photos in the photo, LOL.
There were baboons out grooming on the bridge going into the park, and I took a photo of the restroom. It was primitive but totally clean – wouldn’t you prefer that to modern, but totally filthy? And . . . it beats going behind a bush. I always think about that lion lying under the tree; he sees me and I don’t see him.
We saw a cooperative waterbuck, with the target circle on his bottom:
And a family of frolicking zebra:
A great hippo – this one is for you, BL:
And another fish eagle, which make a great screech as they hunt:
We had a great stop for a family of giraffe feeding, then crossing the road to the flat plain across the road where they drink and continue on their journey. It’s one of the things we like best about the Robin Pope safaris; the guides respect our delight in spending time just observing the animals. We shoot photos, but we also love just watching, trying to figure out what is going on. The guides know so much, and Fred is good at helping us understand a lot of the smaller things.
We reach the river, where the bags are loaded into a small canoe, and
we are too. We wave goodbye to Fred, are poled across the Luangwa, and
meet our next guide, Julius, on the other side of the river, for a
drive to our next stop, Tena Tena Camp.
Tena Tena is one of our favorite camps ever. It is sort of tented – if
tents are tall enough to walk around in, with a great veranda for
sitting and watching the wildlife passing within feet in the nearby
lagoon, with an outdoor bathroom with separate circular areas for
toilet and shower, all shaded by a tall tree whose branches entirely
cover the bathroom area. Between the two is a large dressing room with
shelves and a luggage rack.
Our tent:
Our washing up area:
Our shower area:
Our dressing area:
View looking out from our tent through our veranda:
Oh, and frogs. I couldn’t get my toilet to flush, so I took the top off to see if it was all hooked up, and FIVE frogs looked up at me, two sitting on that ball that goes up and down, two on the flushing mechanism and one in the little notch at the back of the toilet. I guess they love a cold, damp environment 😦
A short walk away from our tent is the gathering room with its large bar, and down about twenty paces further is the outdoor dining room, where
scrumptious lunches and dinners are served.
As we arrive, we are met by Claire and Nyale with cold “flannels”
to wipe our dusty faces and hands, and then shown to our cabins. We
have a few minutes to organize and then we head for lunch, where we
meet the other six guests in the camp. Tena Tena hosts ten guests
maximum, so it isn’t that hard to meet everyone. The wait staff excel in napkin folding; today we are eating fish 🙂
And “what will you eat in Africa?”
It’s a long, leisurely lunch, and then back to the cabin to unpack a little
and catch a quick snooze before the afternoon game run. We spot a huge elephant, tearing apart a tree, and a lion lazing on the beach, a couple bush babies, a genet and elephant shrew, and search for leopard, but never find him. Back at Tena Tena for late dinner, we can barely keep our eyes open, and excuse ourselves soon after dessert to lay our our clothes for the next day and hit the sack.
And! We see a Scope’s Owl!
To bed, we have a long day tomorrow, going to the Salt Pans!
PATRICIA WELLS AT HOME IN PROVENCE: Recipes Inspired By Her Farmhouse In France
Ahhhhh. . . . . this is a gift for Father’s Day to AdventureMan, a gift that just keeps on giving.
The first night, he read it in bed, enthusiastically reading aloud ingredients for various recipes; they all sounded so delicious we were HUNGRY! Today we headed for the grocery store to find the crucial ingredients, which, because this book is very homey, are not hard to find. AdventureMan is making a pasta with sweet red peppers, and tonight, because we trust Patricia Wells, he is even going to add the Parmesan cheese which he sometimes hates. He has discovered that if it is really really good Parmesan cheese, it’s not so bad. (I don’t think he will ever like the stinky, salty Pecorino that I adore.)
I can hear him whistling in the kitchen as he prepares the onions and red peppers. My tummy is grumbling; I know this is going to be good!
We are Patricia Wells addicts. When we lived our many years in Germany, we had her books The Food Lovers Guide to France, and the Food Lovers Guide to Paris, and they were our major resources to go see things we might never otherwise have even known. She introduced us to Monsieur Fallot’s magnificent moutardes, and to La Duree’s hot chocolate and macaroons. We found kitchen shops and bakeries and charcuteries, and while she often led us into temptation, she never led us astray.
The recipes in this book are doable. She requires GOOD olive oil and fresh ingredients, we can do that. There is nothing very complicated or difficult – it’s home cooking, as only the French can do it. God bless you, Patricia Wells. 🙂
And now . . . to dinner 🙂
Nkwali Camp, Day 2
We’ve booked three nights at each camp, so we get at least two full days at each, and additional drives or hikes for the transfer days – there is never a dull moment.
The drums, the drums, and we are ready and out the door in no time. Today, as we are walking down to catch the boat, my toe catches on a root and I almost fall into the river. Even though the Luangwa is shallow, it would still be humiliating, and I would have to go back and change clothes, and then (gulp) there are those crocodiles . . . . The path is rough and I am a little unbalanced by my backpack, and by the grace of God, the guide, Keyala, steels himself, I hit him and he doesn’t fall in the water when I hit. He holds steady. Thanks be to God! (By evening, there was a new set of stairs, and no roots.)
Our day starts with leopard. We are once again at a green lagoon, watching ducks and cranes, when Keyala says “look, there is a leopard!” and about two hundred yards back, he is at a pond, drinking, then quietly, slowly, turns and walks back into the forest. What a great way to start!
Sorry, the leopard is in the distance and you learn to shoot fast. It doesn’t always make for the sharpest shot, but by the time you get all the settings right and the focus set, the leopard is gone and you have a photo of the lagoon where the leopard was, who wants to see that?
We have a lively morning, full of birds and more elephant and giraffe:
These giraffe are young males, and they are fighting with their necks, sort of comical to watch, but they can seriously hurt one another. I think these ones are more playing at fighting:
This hippo has gotten tired of the fighting for a spot in the river and has found a lovely isolated spot in the lagoon. You can tell he is a weathered old soul by the scars on his body.
We also get a chance to photograph that glorious fish eagle in a tree – this is how you usually see them; the one I shot in the previous post on Nkwali was actually catching a fish. You don’t get that shot often:
Many stops later, we are driving along and we smell sausages. Keyala says it must be a nearby lodge, but there is no lodge near by. . . We turn a corner and there is a crew, with a fire, and camp chairs all set up, and we realize we are about to experience one of the infamous Nkwali BBQ cook-outs, oh what fun. We are overlooking another great lagoon, full of hippo, Cape Buffalo, baboons, and all kinds of wildlife. Robert, the stellar camp cook, is there asking us how we like our eggs, and with our eggs are sausage, bacon, corn fritters, fried onion, baked beans and toast from loaves of bread made in camp, big thick slices.
On our way back to camp, we will cross the river again:
And here is one of many of the crocodiles sunning on the river sand:
Just before we get back to camp, we see a Zambian local, fishing in the river. Look closely at the canoe – we used to see canoes like this in Alaska, too, dugouts. Imagine the hours it takes to hollow out a tree so that you can use it as a boat, and imagine that if you have very little, the man who has created for himself a boat can be a man with an enhanced opportunity to feed his family . . .
Once again, we arrive back at camp, and snooze a little until dinner. Bumping around in the Toyota trucks wears us out, and we are still jet lagging, some times we think we’ve beat it, and then when we least expect it, it beats us. I really need to wash my hair, it gets so dusty from the trails, but I really really need a nap and a nap almost always trumps washing hair.
As we head out on our last Nkwali game drive, there is an air of excitement. We find the noble-looking kudu, so shy, and he astonishes us by walking across the road so we can get a clear shot of those amazing curled antlers.
You’d think there would come a time when we might think “Oh, it’s just another elephant family,” but for us, that time never comes. We always watch them with fascination, thinking how very smart they are, how far they range, how they communicate, and how they mourn the deaths of their group. Elephant are huge, and they have their own agenda, they are not there for our entertainment but for their own survival, so we watch them with great respect.
Keyala takes us across the river and we head up to the highest hill for sundowners, half-searching for lion and leopard on the way. The highest hill has a 180 degree view of the land all the way to the escarpment, and the sun sets at just about 90 degrees – right in front of us. Behind us, about the same time, the full moon rises. It is awesome.
This is Keyala and Keyfus. Keyfus (Kay-fus), on the left, is the same as Cephus in Greek, meaning rock – Saint Peter’s name. Keyala is our guide, and recently marketed for Robin Pope Safaris in Seattle. 🙂
On this high hill I spot a tree, Sterculia quinqueloba, a tree I have never seen before, and Keyala tells us the name. It is such an unusual tree:
Sunset from the high hill in the Chongwe Game Park:
Moonrise in the east, magical:
Dinner conversation is fast and furious back at camp, and we excuse ourselves to make sure we are packed up and ready for departure the next day for Tena Tena. We say a sad farewell to Chris, and Tina, and Keyala, who have taken such good care of us and gotten our Zambia safari off to such a great and happy start.
Angry Father Beheads Daughter with Sword
I am embarrassed to tell you that my source for this story is Fox News:
JAIPUR, India – Police say a man upset over his daughter’s lifestyle chopped her head off with a sword and then paraded it through his village before surrendering to authorities in western India.
Marble miner Ogad Singh’s 20-year-old daughter had been living with her parents in the Rajasthani village of Dungarji after leaving her husband two years ago.
Police Superintendent Umesh Ojha says Singh was upset by his daughter having affairs with men, and became enraged when she eloped with one of them two weeks ago.
Ojha says Singh forced her to return home Sunday, and beheaded her Monday with a sword.
Rapidly modernizing India faces increasing social clashes as youths resist traditions like arranged marriage or limits on women venturing outside their parents’ or husbands’ homes.
Sorry, China!
Found this on AOL News, reported by the Huffington Post
“Stop! Stop!” says China. “It is illegal to publish air pollution readings!”
LLLLLOOOOLLLLLLLL! Sorry, China, those days are past. Too many ways the information can get out and verified.
(Clarifies translated comment from ministry spokesman)
By Ben Blanchard
BEIJING, June 5 (Reuters) – A senior Chinese official demanded on Tuesday that foreign embassies stop issuing air pollution readings, saying it was against the law and diplomatic conventions, in pointed criticism of a closely watched U.S. embassy index.
The level of air pollution in China’s heaving capital varies, depending on the wind, but a cocktail of smokestack emissions, vehicle exhaust, dust and aerosols often blankets the city in a pungent, beige shroud for days on end.
Many residents dismiss the common official readings of “slight” pollution in Beijing as grossly under-stated.
The U.S. embassy has installed a monitoring point on its roof which releases hourly air-quality data via a widely followed Twitter feed. The U.S. consulates in Shanghai and the southern city of Guangzhou provide a similar service.
While China tightened air pollution monitoring standards in January, the official reading and the U.S. embassy reading can often be far apart.
Chinese experts have criticised the single U.S. embassy monitoring point as “unscientific”.
Deputy Environment Minister Wu Xiaoqing went a step further, saying such readings were illegal and should stop, though he did not directly name the United States.
“According to the Vienna Convention on Diplomatic Relations … foreign diplomats are required to respect and follow local laws and cannot interfere in internal affairs,” Wu told a news conference.
“China’s air quality monitoring and information release involve the public interest and are up to the government. Foreign consulates in China taking it on themselves to monitor air quality and release the information online not only goes against the spirit of the Vienna Convention … it also contravenes relevant environmental protection rules.”
Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Liu Weimin called on foreign diplomatic missions to respect China’s laws and regulations and to stop issuing the readings, “especially over the Internet”.
“If the foreign embassies want to collect this kind of information for their own staff and diplomats, I think it’s up to them,” Liu told reporters. “They can’t release this information to the outside world.”
The U.S. embassy acknowledges on its website (http://beijing.usembassy-china.org.cn) that its equipment cannot be relied upon for general monitoring, saying “citywide analysis cannot be done … on data from a lone machine”.
Despite his criticism, Wu acknowledged that China’s air quality and overall environmental situation remained precarious, with more than one tenth of monitored rivers rated severely polluted, for example.
“What needs saving is the country’s air quality, not the government’s face,” Zhou Rong, an energy campaigner for Greenpeace, said in emailed comments. “The environmental authorities must stop finger pointing and start taking actions that really address the issue.” (Additional reporting by Sui-Lee Wee; Editing by Nick Macfie)
And this also from the Huffington Post:
A mushroom-like cloud was spotted over Beijing earlier this week, closely resembling the explosion of an atomic bomb, reports China Daily.
Now, footage of the mysterious cloud has been released on YouTube. One shows raw video of the haze taken from what appears to be a high-rise building, while another video is an edited version documenting the haze on June 14.
The yellow and green haze led Chinese authorities to advise residents to stay inside Monday, according to Agence France-Presse.
While rumors swarmed online about the cause of the unusual cloud, Chinese police arrested two internet users who said the pollution had been triggered by a chlorine leak at a chemical plant or an explosion at a steel refinery, notes The Economic Observer.
Meanwhile, government authorities told the Xinhua news agency straw burning was the cause and denied there had been any industrial accidents.
Air pollution is increasingly becoming a major problem in China, and the government is often accused of downplaying the severity of the problem in metropolitan areas.
Earlier this month, China demanded the U.S. Embassy in Beijing to stop publishing air pollution readings, saying it was against diplomatic conventions and the law.
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