Livingstone Shenanigans PART I

I got a call from Ndandula, my good friend in Lusaka, earlier this month, during which she hit me with a proposition. She and two of her friends were making a road trip down to Livingstone, Zambia, over the week of Christmas, where they planned to bounce around to Botswana, Namibia and Zimbabwe (all three countries border Zambia near Livingstone). She wanted to know if I wanted to join them, thus posing somewhat of a dilemma for me.

You see, I am the biggest fan that road trips ever had. It’s great to move around, see new places and experience new things. I hadn’t been able to travel around as much as I would have liked to since arriving, so the opportunity to jump a few borders was appealing. And the day to day grind of running multiple businesses in sub-Saharan Africa had led me to the brink of insanity, so getting out of Siavonga would surely be beneficial to my mental health. Finally, as it’s been all work and very little play for me for some time I felt the strong need to engage in shenanigans of some type.

On the downside, if I went on the trip I wouldn’t be able to spend Christmas with my Namumu family, and something about ditching orphans on Christmas made me feel pretty terrible. I’d miss the Namumu Christmas Feast and the worship services.

I tossed and turned over this one for a few nights, believe me, but in the end I decided to hit the road. I packed my bags, told all my Namumu nieces and nephews that I loved them very much and that I’d miss them, and hopped a bus to meet the group in Lusaka. And, despite the occasional pangs of guilt I’ve felt during the week, I haven’t looked back. It was a very, very good week.

Shenanigans did indeed ensue. Some occurrences were funny, some were scary, and some are certainly not suitable for public consumption. Here are some of the highlights:

In order to get down to Livingstone from Siavonga, you have to take a minibus up to Lusaka, Zambia’s capital, first. Lusaka is where Ndandula (girl), Mwenya (girl) and Mucho (boy), my fellow road-trippers, live and work, so I headed up on a Saturday morning to spend the day and night there with them before setting off on Sunday for Livingstone. The vacation kicked off quite well as that night we hit up a Zambian karaoke bar in the city. I wish I had more time to delve into this mind-blowing experience, but I will say that performing Marvin Gaye’s “Sexual Healing” in front of a packed house in a dingy Lusaka bar and receiving an incredible crowd response may have been one of the proudest moments of my life.

The next day we hopped on a big chartered bus to get to Livingstone, which, luckily, unlike the minibuses, don’t require you to ride in the fetal position for hours on end while listening to crappy bootlegged African pop music that the drivers like to blast full volume. It was a pleasant seven hour journey. Plus, they played “Blood Diamond”, starring Leo Dicaprio, on the overhead TVs, a good (albeit violent) movie that I would recommend checking out. You know, I’ve spent a lot of time with some of these white fishing camp owners around Siavonga, some of whom were pushed out of Zimbabwe (like Leo in the movie) or have come up from South Africa. Let me tell you something, they got Leo’s character down perfectly. From the accent to the brash demeanor to the chain smoking, most of these guys are exactly like that. Way to go on that one, Leo. So anyway, again, it’s pretty violent, but it poses some interesting questions about Africa and what we in the US can or can’t do to help, so check it out.

Once in Livingstone, we set up shop at a small, relatively inexpensive lodge in the city that primarily caters to back-packer types moving about in southern Africa. The rooms were tiny and there was a central courtyard with a large grassy area, trees and a pool, so it was easy to make friends as everybody usually just hung out in the courtyard. I sure met some characters at this place. There was Dennis, a middle-aged man from the UK who has bicycled all over Africa, competes in triathalons on a regular basis and did yoga in the lodge’s courtyard daily. There was Carolla, a German woman living in Canada who is looking into setting up an orphanage in Zambia somewhere. There were a few Peace Corp volunteers and your average vacationers.

But, I’d have to say that the coolest people I met were Josh and Nicole, a young married couple from the US of A. Nicole was in the Peace Corp in Ethiopia and Josh, a carpenter, lived there with her for a year. They met on the Appalachian Trail, as Josh was hiking the entire thing and Nicole was hiking a short stretch with some friends. Now, though, they’ve bicycled down from Ethiopia and are on their way to Cape Town, South Africa. What a couple of maniacs. They were kind and friendly and fun to be around. I got to chat with them about life, love and Africa. Josh inspired me to hike the AT when I get back to the US and to grow a longer beard like his was (saw a picture, it was large and in-charge, and Nicole still fell in love with him anyways...it brings joy to my heart to know that such women are indeed out there). They both inspired me to travel around Africa a bit more.

So, we ended up spending all of our nights at this lodge and just moved around during the day.

I’ll end Part I with an animal encounter I experienced at the beautiful Victoria Falls on day one.

Livingstone is home to Victoria Falls, a very large, very powerful, very beautiful group of waterfalls. The Falls are a very popular tourist destination, one of the biggest draws to Livingstone, Zambia’s tourism capital. Rightfully so. The size of the Falls is unbelievable. I’d had the opportunity to see them the last time I was in Zambia, but they are without a doubt worth seeing again and again.

Our group went to see the Falls on our first morning in Livingstone. It was a warm, sunny day and the mist from the Falls felt wonderful. We walked along the narrow path to all the small viewing areas. We sat and stared, took pictures and engaged in other such touristy activities. Down beneath the Falls there’s an area known as the Boiling Point, where the water rushes down and churns as though it’s boiling, before it flows away down the river. I had heard it was nice and convinced our group to head down the long path to check it out.

So, we meandered down the narrow, steep path, surrounded by trees and bushes on either side. The path is set a ways away from the other viewing areas and I’m not sure everyone who comes to the Falls knows about it, so we were the only ones there. We made it to the bottom, sat and watched the water for a while, and then headed back up the hill.

As we continued trudging up the path we began to spot a number of baboons of all shapes and sizes, roaming around nearby, no less than 10 or 12, I’d say. Hmm, I thought. That’s interesting. I didn’t see any baboons around the last time I was here. They were running around and making very, very loud monkey noises. Maybe they’re fighting, maybe they’re having sex, maybe we’re in their territory and they’re pissed off, who knows? I thought.

As we got a little higher we noticed a baboon of medium build laying down and staring off into space, smack dab in the middle of the path. Ok, I thought. Let’s not annoy this guy. Let’s just wait for a hot second until he moves, I told my group. So we waited.

Shortly thereafter, a group of around 5 large baboons started convening around 20 meters down the hill, right around the path below us, thus cutting off our only means of escape (at this point on the path there were rock faces to either side of us). It felt like we had been led into their clever little monkey trap and that they were going to pounce on and eat us.

Now, Victoria Falls is a touristy area. Part of me said, you know what, this is ridiculous. These animals have to be tame and peaceful. There’s no way that the people running this place would let wild and crazy animals run around near tourists. We should just walk right up to it and go around it or shoo it away, this part said. After all, I’ve gone out for long periods of time into the bush around Namumu. I’ve been pretty close to baboons out there. I can handle myself.

But you know what? I’d seen/heard of so many ridiculous things happening in southern Africa that the other part of me realized that a brutal monkey attack would not be outside the realm of possibility.

So we stood there and waited. And waited. And waited.

Around 30 minutes later a group of young girls came bouncing around the corner, down the path. The baboon in the path hopped up and immediately ran away. We looked back and the monkeys at the bottom of the hill had gone too. Just like that. No noise. No animosity. Nothing. Our fears were thus proven completely and totally baseless. By young girls.

In order to live with myself I’ve convinced myself that the girls never saw any of the baboons, that if they had they would have done exactly what we had been doing, that they were in fact no braver than we were.

Please don’t try to convince me otherwise.