Above the Clouds

| Tweet Just like with the Iquazu Falls in South America where you can enjoy views from two countries (Brazil & Argentina), its the same here between Zimbabwe and Zambia. We entered the Falls National Park on the Zimbabwe side and surprisingly had the trails and viewpoints all to ourselves for the better part of 3 hours. These are among the world’s greatest waterfalls – you can walk well over a kilometer to see their span.

A highlight of a walk here is to the very wet and very windy appropriately named “Danger Point” – this slippery precipice of a rock pile drops off in sheer cliffs on all sides with a view directly in front of the cascading waters. A visit out to the edge is not for the faint of heart – there are no fences or protection from these cliffs – you venture out as far as you dare.

The mists from the falls tower high into the air and parts of the viewing area are constantly raining – not just mist but big drops.

| Tweet We are loving the little town of Victoria Falls – US currency is the name of the game here – even the ATM’s spit out US dollars. However, unlike the currency in the USA most of the bills here are blackened beyond believe – some bills are just tattered smears of smudge – even though they are only a few years old!

One lady in a wheelchair told us to be very careful at night in regards to mosquitoes – she said she’s had malaria so many times that she has lost count. Oops!

We’ve been collecting Shona sculpture for over 20 years so we were pleasantly surprised to find the incredibly low prices for these stone sculptures. For a piece in California that would be $400, here is like $25!

Billion and trillion dollar bills are a hot item for street vendors. We’ve been approached countless times by these vendors offering to sell us these “huge” bills!

The main highlight of a visit here are the actual Victoria Falls which we will see tomorrow. In the meantime we stopped by the very swanky five-star hotel, Victoria Falls Hotel where you can see the mist from the falls rising in the distance. The bridge that connects this part of Zimbabwe with Zambia opened in 1905 with Charles Darwin’s son doing the dedication. Today its an impressive human made landmark to complement nature’s primary attraction.

The outside veranda is the perfect place to relax. We ordered a Brazilian Capiranha and a delic crocodile salad! While eating we watched a family of warthogs graze the grass – judging by their appetite the lawns never see a lawnmower. We’ve never seen animals kneel while they eat – the entire family moved along on their knees.

| Tweet On BA operated Comair flight now from JO’berg to Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe. I asked FA what my choices were for lunch as the announcement as often is the case on these small aircraft was garbled and coupled with the flight noise was impossible to hear. Her answer was “they are delicious” – I asked again, “delicious” was the answer repeated. Oh boy – vegetarian lasagne was all I was given. Edible – that’s all I will say. Certainly much better than some meals I’ve had – on one airline to Bangladesh a few years ago most of the unwrapped dinner contents on one cart (two pieces of muffin bread with mayonnaise in the middle) spilled out and all rolled down the aisles under people’s feet.

There are classes for those interested in making a career of packaging. The college I went to offered these under the Industrial Technology department. After pulling the plastic tab to release the cover on my small Italian pesto salad, it immediately broke. The rest of the lid was so tightly melded with the rest of the plastic that I was unable to get it open with the the teeth or by crushing the damn thing in my hand!

We are landing at Victoria Falls Airport but half the passengers seem confused on whether to continue on the 10 minute flight from VF Airport to Livingston Airport on the Zambia side. Part of that confusion comes from the ticket stubs for those going to Livingston say Victoria Falls Airport.

We have no car rental – may just wing it for the first few days here – will definitely be seeing the falls from both countries.

| Tweet If your looking for a Big Game Drive, look no further than the huge Kruger National Park in South Africa. Day visits are the cheapest way to see the park but there are a number of lodges within the park boundaries (more expensive then some of the nearby outside of the park accommodations). We took advantage of our early morning arrival time and drove on dirt roads all day on our own “big game drive”. We came across three of the “Big Five” – Cape Buffalo (one of Africa’s most dangerous and unpredictable animals), a number of elephant herds and several Rhinoceros.

There is one animal that you would have to have your eyes closed to miss – and that is the impala. Herds of these vaguely deer-like animals roam the park and they are the most common animal you will see. The birdlife in Kruger is abundant – we were intrigued for 30 minutes just watching colorful yellow birds (Weavers) build up side down hanging nests in tree branches. These nests are very well constructed; they are round and are made entirely from grass. Sounds like the males can expend a lot of energy in this nest building process- the females review the nest and if they don’t like it – they never move in and wait for the male to construct a new nest!

At this time of year all gates and camps close right around sunset – we lost track of time and and pulled in well over dark to find our camp gate shut. The guard was pissed and was going to fine us a bunch of Rand but fortunately we had already checked into the camp earlier and we were somehow able to talk him out of it.

| Tweet We rode into the National Park today in our little Honda Jazz. Many of the roads are more suited for soft 4wd and the park has erected large dirt burms every 20 meters or so on these roads to stop passenger vehicles from driving. That didn’t stop us however! We popped over each burm and drove through mud puddles from recent rains – trying to avoid bottoming out the vehicle and or getting stuck. Getting stuck is a bad thing out here – you are in the middle of nowhere – we saw no other vehicles the entire 3 hours we drove around, and lions, elephant, rhino and hippo live here.

Its amazing to drive up to huge black rhino – and scary at the same time. We came across several herds of elephant – surprising one herd so that they trumpeted and stomped the ground. We quickly shut off the engine to show them we meant no harm – one of those larger elephants could easily turn our car on its topside! This park is a resource of wild game – we came across wildebeest, large groups of Wart Hogs, many gazelles, rhino and saw Hippo from afar on the edge of a big lake. Its awesome to seemingly have a National Park with so much game nearly all to ourselves. The only people we saw the entire time in the park was at the main lodge/restaurant. So cool!

| Tweet The Kingdom of Swaziland is small and you can easily see the major attractions within 4-5 days or longer if you prefer spreading the driving out over a longer period of time. The oldest mine in the world is here and dates back 43,000 years!! Its an iron ore mine and ancient people’s use to get hematite and other iron ore for making tools, and coloring for painting in caves. We drove in just after the the visitor center had closed for the day but the guard was super cool and let us through. We made a video to satisfy our friend Nick of MyVideoVisa.com ‘s craving for Africa videos while overlooking the vast pit that was carved out over the years.

Some of the oldest humans have been found in a “border cave” with Mozambique. Blue green algae, the worlds oldest record of a living thing has been found in Eastern Swaziland. It dates to 3.5 billion years old – a mere cool 1 billion years after the planet has been formed. Africa is OLD. Eastern Africa is where everything started. Its an incredible.

We found the Ezulwini Valley too crowded and somewhat touristy – the best parts of Swaziland have been the most remote parts of the country. It was a welcome relief to drive into the mountains on the way to the small town of Piggs Peak because the temperature dropped noticeably (pity the poor man whose last name is Pigg – the namesake of the town). We were also surprised to find few communities – on the drive we saw a number of stone carvers selling their carvings on the side of the road. Several roadside shops had beautiful statues on display but no one around!

| Tweet We arrived at the Nisela Safari Lodge after crossing one of the smaller southern border post crossings. We immediately found ourselves on dirt roads before reaching the main tarred highway leading north. Swaziland is very small and driving distances are not what we had become accustomed to in the much larger country of South Africa.

The Nisela Safari Lodge was the perfect stop for us – reaching it at dusk. At first it appeared somewhat touristy but we found no tourists here! We stayed in the Swazi Village (named after and sponsored by a beer company). This village is a collection of traditional style Swazi homes – all with thatched roofs and doors so small even a smurf would have to duck to enter! Expecting high prices we were surprised when this was the lowest price we’ve paid for accommodation on the entire trip. And we were the only ones in the village. And they gave us the largest hut of them all – King and Queen for a night.

This lodge is awesome because its the only one of its kind in this part of the country and its soooo remote. The natural world is right at your doorstep – big beetles, huge millepedes, colorful frogs, crocodiles, colorful birds including those building nests and at night a symphony of sounds I’ve rarely heard. The camp is surrounded by large sharp sticks and fences to try and keep the big game at bay. Before sleep we heard grunting and other large animal sounds from nearby.

In the morning we walked out into the Africa Velt – thorn trees everywhere and many were in bloom. We just headed out and came across a large group of Giraffe feeding on the thorn trees. As soon as they spotted us they stopped and all raised their heads, not moving and just stared at us. This continued for about 15 minutes – we watched them and they watched us! Finally as we moved away slowly, they went back to grazing.

| Tweet We arrived in Kosi Bay after about 10 hours of at times stressful driving – from near the Lesotho Border in the Free State of South Africa. We arrived here in the dark of night and promptly made a beeline for the beach on the sandy roads in our 2wd Honda Jaz- looking for lodging – big mistake. There were no lights – and signs indicating hotels located just down the road were misleading as we later found out we were many kilometers from the beach. Passing no cars and fishtailing in the sand many times we decided to turn around and found an inn right next to the road. AS the case always is with late night arrivals – the inn was, less than ideal and quite expensive.

We entered the border the next morning – the line of 4wd vehicles only was testament to the roads in this part of Mozambique. We left our 2wd vehicle at the border and crossed on foot. The line up of cars was from Mozambique to South Africa – not the opposite direction. This is not a main border crossing and it is only open during select daylight hours.

From there we hitch hiked to the beach which under normal circumstances was going to prove very difficult with the lack of traffic – but we had met some chaps earlier in the day who indicated they were going to be crossing – so we just waited for them. Finally they showed; the actual ride took about 45 minutes because of the terrible sandy roads – deep sand, steep sandy narrow ruts – crazy driving! This is remote Africa. No Internet, no phone service. Fortunately we were in their state of the art Land Rover and fortunately they liked Aerosmith. Fortunately their speakers could handle the high volume. AWesome!

| Tweet Its been a crazy few days in South Eastern Africa! Sitting with John and Trish at Rose House Inn plotting our drive to Mozambique we were discussing how there are no guarantees in Africa. 30 minutes after we left their idyllic location we experienced this “no guarantees” first hand. Our route took us back through the small touristy town of Carens. Only this time as we approached the city limits we were greeted by large rocks strewn across the highway. We promptly slowed down and quickly saw what looked like a riot ensuing. Rocks were strewn all over the highway, gangs of people were running around yelling and things were burning in the middle of the road throwing up a bunch of black smoke. We screeched to a halt and saw people throwing rocks in the direction of our car and yelling “go back, go away” – we quickly u-turned and raced off in the opposite direction. Very scary. One police car was just arriving as we were heading back the opposite way.

This cost us about 90 minutes of time as we had to totally retrace our route and choose another highway. If you can take kilometers in Africa – do it! Between road construction, traffic, major potholes, vehicles stopped in lanes of traffic, people walking on and or near the road – driving can be slow at best.

| Tweet Today we drove to the northern part of the country, passing small villages, rural fields and many sheep and cow herders. Walking seems to be the preferred form of transportation and one always has to keep an eye open for people on the side of the road. Driving can be challening yet fun. Some of the roads were full of pot holes – or perhaps potholes is not the appropriate word – craters might be more sufficive! So you come up on a crater in your lane, a slow mini van full of people, an aggresively passing car coming the opposite direction and no shoulder to pull off on – yes, driving here can be challenging!

Ok, on to the event of the day. We were pulled over at a routine traffic stop in the northern mountainous part of the country. The police looked at the registration info on our windshield and promptly informed us that we had expired registation and needed to pull over and stay put. We found our rental car information but did not have a working cell phone. One of the policemen tried to call the phone number for us but had no luck. We just said down and waited to see what would happen here.

While waiting, the police pulled over a bad ass large land rover. They were not Africans but rather Chinese and they were speaking the local language. The conversation became heated with both the driver and the main policeman yelling at each other. The driver walked out and they continued talking. The driver walked back to his vehicle and made a phone call on his cell phone – he then walked back towards the police. They didn’t like that – one police started trying to pull down his pants and began hitting him.

The driver lunged away and returned to his vehicle. This time he came out brandishing a fancy looking shiny pistol. There were 7 or 8 police present – they started shouting, one police reached for his gun and waived it in the air. One of the police snuck behind the driver and attempted to tackle him. Another police grabbed the gun and they pushed the guy to the ground and started beated him viciously. It became mob like – the two other occupants rushed out of the vehicle at the police – one big dude in a pink shirt rushed the police.

As soon as this happend I rushed to the safety of one side of our vehicle. This all happened within seconds. I yelled at Syy to get in the car. The passenger side of our vehicle was directly next to all the action. We slammed the doors and pulled out in a skid leaving dust and rocks flying behind us.

We pulled into the next town to collect our thoughts and get gas and screaming police cars raced by us in the opposite direction. Then we saw a police car with “traffic enforcement” written on it driving past us. We decided to try and get the forms faxed or emailed to us – but with such slow Internet and phone problems we didn’t get this resolved for 2.5 hours. Crazy