I just returned from perhaps my favorite exploration of this continent. But first let's recap the month: classes finished, my mother arrived for a visit, I said goodbye to my kids at Legacy, finals happened (German may or may not have been successful :/ let's blame it on the accent and call it finished?), friends started heading back to their home countries, my mother left, and I escaped the sadness of everyone leaving by leaving Stellenbosch myself in search of bigger and better African adventures. I found it on a week-long overland tour from Johannesburg up through Botswana and ending in Victoria Falls (Zimbabwe side). Mere hours since I returned and I am already packing for another volunteering stint in George I leave for in the morning. What a whirlwind month and I wouldn't have it any other way. Now for a slow-down of it all:
Yes, Mama Fisher took on South Africa for 10 days. And boy did she do it in style, stick shift and all! It was a lot of fun showing her the area and learning how to drive a manual as we went. The highlights included a safari we almost got blown away on and a trip to the southern-most tip of Africa where she got to see both the Atlantic and Indian Oceans at once.
Then she flew home while I flew to Johannesburg to begin my tour with two good friends via a small but mighty tour company, Livingstone Trails. We traveled with three others by means of a van and expert guide into Botswana and Zimbabwe, culminating at one of the seven natural wonders of the world: Vic Falls.
DAY 1: Driving 12 hours into the bush of Africa. Why go for a game drive when you can easily see animals from the road in Botswana, where the road stretches in front of you with nothing but bush on either side for miles and miles? Serious feelings of vast emptiness in Botswana where villages were hours apart and all was quiet except for the donkeys grazing beside the road (outside the fence if there was one, mind you). We stopped for an entire herd of elephants crossing and saw giraffes, zebras, hyenas, baboons, cattle, goats, and about a million impalas/antelope/deer while driving past. Truly incredible - after all of SA, I'd almost forgotten this Africa still existed. But it does - and I loved it. It was easy to imagine the road disappearing and only the savannah remaining, as untouched and uncorrupted as before the white men dreamed of conquering the continent. When we stopped to camp for the night, we saw elephants drinking in the dark at the watering hole 50m away.
Welcome to Botswana! I had finally found the Africa I had been longing for all semester, one where animals still reign and thatched huts are a reality of subsistence agriculture. Now the only white people I saw were those in my van and other tourists at campgrounds. I had left behind the white and coloured people of SA and was in for a reality check of all African people, all the time.
DAY 2/3: Chobe National Park, where we went for game drives in the enormous park seeing all the animals is next to the Chobe River. I couldn't believe the number of elephants we saw and the luck of spying the elusive leopard in the tree and amazingly, lionesses stalking a kudo. And the hippos!! The best part about the park is there are zero fences - a free reign place where the animals live but are leave and roam as they wish. The lion pride for instance has largely moved on to other areas. Coming from SA, where all but baboons are largely confined to reserves and game parks (no matter how big the park, it is still fenced), seeing truly wild animals was very cool. And it also explains why driving down the road one is able to spot the animals as well.
Interestingly, the camp where we stayed was part of a ritzy lodge. We lounged by the kidney shaped pool in the hot close-to-the-equator sun, next to fake thatched roof buildings to give the place a true "African" feel. Waiting to serve on us was an all black, fully uniformed staff. Now I felt incredibly privileged - taken back to the days when this was how every white person on this continent lived. Amongst all the gorgeous nature and the "primitive" African traditions of living, the white man always had his luxury. Coming from a drive through the poor town nearby, I had never felt the color of my skin more. Having never thought of myself in such terms before this semester, suddenly I was experiencing it unexpectedly and was uncomfortable with the connotations. I haven't mentioned it much here, but race has been a large idea to think on this semester, as SA tends to smack you in the face with it given the history of apartheid and massive oppression of the non-whites. Hmm, I could go on about this for a while, so we'll save the history lesson and its implications for another time.
DAY 4/5: Zimbabwe. As we crossed the border, all I could think of was how I couldn't believe I was in a country where not so long ago, there were massacres over the land and even today, people's homes are bulldozed as part of "cleaning the streets" projects. Such a terrible tragedy from a country which held so much hope when it gained independence and changed its name from Rhodesia - where did it all go wrong? Putting aside these feelings of being torn by the history (and remembering the events which happened in SA) I began to see Zimbabwe as it exists today. A place where almost no one has jobs, but there is hope. Local currency may now be defunct because of inflation - replaced by the US dollar - but at least there is bread back on the grocery store shelves unlike last year. The people feel the situation improving and refuse to dwell on the past, which I find amazing.
We met some local guys who showed us around the town Victoria Falls - beyond the tourist zone. Going into the township and see the housing, playing with the children (some of youngest who have honestly never seen a white person before as no white person wanders into that area), and legitimately getting to know Zimbabweans was the best day of my entire week. I overpaid for jewelry at the market (what tourist doesn't?) but I didn't care because I was supporting a family of a guy I was now friends with. I can't describe the feelings of meeting these people. But one conversation is very telling - one was thanking me for being his friend and being so gracious in doing so. I replied it was nothing, I enjoyed his company and conversation. Yet he felt as if most foreigners are distrustful of his people and blow them off in the streets as all beggars and hawkers (which I had to agree with), so my genuine interest was unexpected. I explained how getting to know people was what traveling to me was all about - not just seeing the sites but understanding the locals and their culture. Like I said, best day of the trip and it was all because of the people I met.
And then there was the site. Victoria Falls - one of the largest waterfalls in the world and where enough water pours over the edge in one minute to supply the city of London with water for an entire year. Quite the site on the Zambezi River between Zimbabwe and Zambia - there is no doubt it is one of the wonders of the world! The mist causes near constant rain on the opposite viewing cliffs, so we ran around in raincoats and stomped in puddles like children. Laughing is the only way to enjoy such a majestic sight when soaking wet (after the initial mouth dropping of course). With a native name translating to "The Smoke that Thunders," the falls could be heard our entire stay as a dull thunder - similar to the sounds of a highway in the distance. After exploring the falls, we crossed the bridge and stepped into Zambia for a picture. Not worth the visa because of the price, we didn't stay long but got back to Zimbabwe and our new friends.
DAY 6/7: A long drive split over two days back to SA. Once again, I stared out the windows in amazement at the empty lands, barely interupted by man's addition of cities, until the South African border brought back the frequent cities, farms and white people. Funny how crossing a border does that.
I have seen the real Africa and I want to go back. But I suppose I must go find my heart where I left it in George first. Meet you there.
