Day 8 – Mongu, en-route to Kafue, Zambia

We woke early as we were aiming to get right through to Kafue by this evening. Had a quick breakfast and then a quick walk to the falls as Ernest and Ken hadn't seen them last night. Fritz arrived back from his early morning fishing trip with a beautiful Tiger fish.... This time he didn't throw it back as nobody believed him when he said he caught one yesterday.

He had walked a bit further than we had gone yesterday and had managed to get a whole different view of different cataracts of the falls, so we decided to follow his instructions and go a little further. Wow!  is all I can say, the falls are quite magnificent and there are apparently 5 different cataracts and we managed to see three. Looking at the falls made me think of the pictures that we have at Safari lodge painted by Thomas Baines. He was a 19th century painter that traveled Africa and one of our suites, in fact the Presidential Suite, is named after him. Looking at the mist rising from the falls and the haze that sits over the whole scene gives the same atmosphere that he has captured in his paintings.

 We got back to camp to find most of the clearing up had been done and after talking to the camp manager who told us there were some camp sites in Mongu, we decided to take the pressure off and go for Mongu today instead of trying to make it all the way through to Kafue. So we sent the rest of the group off to the same point to view the falls, with strict instructions not to swim in the river.... Who knows what these dumb a...ses will get up to!  Just for insurance we sent Fritz off with them to be their guide.

We also had to swop the batteries from our truck (a small spare one) to Ken’s car as his had conked and so his fridge wasn't working properly. That is the drinks fridge and absolutely ESSENTIAL, now that it is getting hot and we have caught the colonial fever of a G and T before dinner every night.

We eventually set off for the ferry which is about 10 Km down the road. We were warned it could be a bit of a slow process but we didn't bargain for just how slow it was. There was a bus in front of us which had to go first and then us. The river is about 500 meters wide and the old ferry has a real slow chug chug motor. Quite scary in fact especially watching them load the bus and seeing how unsteady it actually was. Oh well I suppose they do this every day and the operators look like they know what they are doing. The only thing they don't tell you is how many cars/busses/ trucks that they have dunked into the river. We looked but didn't see too many wrecks on the side of the river so it is a case of close your eyes and hold thumbs.

 

While we were waiting we blew up one of the soccer balls that we have brought up for when we come across kids. What a hit, Fritz and Steve landed up playing with the kids for at least 30 minutes. The look of sheer joy on their faces as they saw the ball and realize it was for them is just the most fantastic sight to see. These children have so little and one small thing that we take so for granted will bring joy for months to come. It is rather like the bottle in that movie  "The gods must be crazy" except this is something they can all play with, it's something that brings a team together as you can hardly play ball by yourself and enjoy it. They sure know what to do with it and maybe we have even spawned a famous soccer player of the future.

Eventually it was our turn to load onto the ferry, two cars, Kim and Kobus went up front then our big  “blunderbuss” and then they tried to get Ken onto the back but it just wouldn't fit so they had to wait for the next round. A round trip there and back takes about 40 minutes so it was a long wait and we eventually got away at about 1pm. Thank goodness we weren't trying for Kafue as we would never have made it before dark. Ernest has one very strict rule in Africa, NEVER drive after dark. While getting onto the ferry Rouvierre was driving their car! Oh my gosh she nearly backed into Ernest and then missed another car by inches with us all shouting at her. She had her fake cigarette in her mouth and looked like a real colonial princess. She was a real candidate for the blond bimbo of the week but she was piped by someone else who I will get to later.

Being on that ferry is quite an experience, there are two motors, one on either side of the boat. One of them blows out so much black smoke it looks like it will blow up any minute and the guy has to keep pouring water into the radiator which he scoops out of the river. Sonja was just saying she wondered what the contingency plan was if  the engine failed. I don't think they had one and the scary thing is that half a kilometer down the river is the falls. If the engine failed the best thing you could do would be to grab one of the few life jackets that are strapped to the railings, jump overboard and swim like hell and hope a croc didn't take you on the way to the shore if you made it before the falls. To hell with the cars, they would go over the falls and maybe you could retrieve some of your stuff at the other end but I doubt it. It was comforting to know that we were all fully insured.

Anyway needless to say we made it to the other side, drove off and had to wait out the next 40 minutes till Ken and Rouvierre arrived on the next run.

So eventually it was 1.30 before we could set off to see the main falls. We had brought Patrick over with us to guide us to the top of the largest of the cataracts which you could get to from the other side of the river. Thank goodness we took him as we would never have found them and as Ken said seeing them was pretty much the highlight of the tour so far.

We drove down this little track for ages, several times we wondered if we were even going in the right direction but Patrick urged us on till we went through a gate that had a big sign "Ngonya falls" we parked and started our long walk to the top of the falls through ankle deep water, over slippery rocks, through muddy sections and then through reeds that we couldn't see over. Several times we asked him how much further and he would say just around the corner. His corner was about half a kilometer but luckily we persisted as the falls were really something special far better than any of us expected.

Lava rock clearly visible

The scope of the falls was all of 400 meters wide and about fifty meters high. Apparently the second largest falls on the Zambezi, the largest being Vic falls for any dumb blonds out there. The force of the water going over was exhilarating and the spray that billowed up engulfed us where we were sitting on this wonderful volcanic rock that is all gnarled and misshapen. Unfortunately it is very difficult to capture the beauty of these falls on camera, it's just too broad for my camera lens and the force of the water just cannot be duplicated except through the human eye. Never the less our cameras were clicking at a huge rate and hopefully some of the pictures will be able to partly describe the scene.

Fritz arrived with his next Tiger fish for all of us to admire and again the cameras clicked away. He is completely in his element and poor Kim hasn't been able to get his hands on his fishing rod since we hit the potential fishing spots.

  

How you like them pearly whites?

Anyway time was marching on and we needed to get going if we were going to make Mongu by the evening. We also didn't have a specific camp site but the guy in charge of the last camp site assured us that there were several camp sites in Mongu which was a two hour drive away. Big mistake! Never trust a non-camper to tell you about camping sites.

 

We were guided to the first campsite... The instruction said "turn now" but that happened to be right through the middle of a local’s hut, first one scratched off the list of so called camp sites. Then about three km’s down the road there was a sign to another camp site.

We sent Ken down to look at it, looked like it was in the Barotse plain and looked promising. We always send Ken down first to judge if we can get the truck down there. The site was perfect but the road was too steep and sandy for the truck so that was strike two!  Now we all split up looking for somewhere here to stay. Ken and Rouvierre found something 15 K's out of town on their GPS so off they went to investigate. Kim and Steve found an old camp site but it was deserted and we couldn't get the truck there, we found a very large parking lot in-front of a very dodgy hotel and Ernest sent Fritz in there to negotiate with the guy to use his parking lot. He was fine with that in fact, delighted but it turned out to be a “brothel” and he said we can even use the rooms and his services if we like. Fritz bolted out of there quite fast saying he didn't think that would be the right place to stop. Oh dear! This is always Ernest's worst nightmare. So we decided to try and get through the chaos of town, it is the biggest mess you have ever seen and to navigate through in the truck was not exactly easy, and follow Ken and Rouvierre who were still trying to find their campsite.

We had lost contact on the radio as they were now too far out of town. We had just made it through town when Rouvierre came back on the radio to say "wild goose chase" there was simply nothing there. Just then we passed a place called Green view lodge and campsite. Yippee, it was my score this time as I spotted it. We turned around and drove in to find a very pleasant place where we could camp. The truck we had to leave on the parking lot overlooking a very pleasant green lawn. Shew as it was already getting dark and way over stopping time.

While sitting around after dinner Kim confessed to his blond bimbo moment of the day. He was in the office trying to negotiate the camping, rooms etc. for us when they asked him for his passport number. Being a bit flustered at this point because he couldn't remember it he rushed out to what he thought was his car. Sonja was sitting in the front driver’s seat and he thought what the hell is she doing in my car. He pulled open the door, pushed her legs away and tried to get his passport out from under the seat. Suddenly he realized he was in the wrong car. All this while Sonja was sitting in her car thinking Kim had gone completely mad. Now that is what you call different viewpoints... Who was the mad one! It is a matter of viewpoint is it not?

Finally we can relax, until tomorrow!