A trip to the Zim-Zam border

Vic Falls at the Zimbabwe - Zambia border. It goes on like this for 2 km!

As exams, projects, and biostatistics were thrown at us in class, we were given a short break for the holidays. Thanks to a timely promotion, we were able to travel cheaply to Zambia, located on Tanzania’s southern border. Destination: Victoria Falls!! It is considered to be the largest waterfall on the planet, and it has been honored as one of the 7 Natural Wonders of the World. When explorer David Livingstone first came across the falls in 1855, he wrote, “No one can imagine the beauty of the view from anything witnessed in England. It had never been seen before by European eyes; but scenes so lovely must have been gazed upon by angels in their flight.” Given all of this, you can imagine that our expectations were pretty high – and our experience definitely lived up to those expectations.

We reached Lusaka, the capital city, in the midst of an awesomely massive lightening storm. At first glance, Lusaka looked like a city of the former Soviet Union… a completely uniform brown, brutalist concrete skyline where buildings had slits for windows. But on closer examination, it was really a fantastic place. No traffic jams, paved roads, street signs, orderly lines, crisp English, parking lots, strip malls, a cool climate… it seemed like a well planned city and fairly Western. Basically, it was like a mini-Nairobi but without the fear factor. And Zambians clearly love Zambia, as seen by the following excerpted dialogue I had with a random Zambian man.

Approaching the edge of the falls... 400 foot drop. Slightly terrifying.

Man: “Zambia is the greatest nation in Africa. I have been all over Africa. Here, no fighting, very peaceful.”

Anand: “Yeah, Zambia is very nice! Tanzania is also very peaceful, though.”

Man: “Tanzania is rubbish. Even South Africa I have been several times. You land there and you start shivering with fear. Which thief will get me? Zambia is the best nation in Africa.”

Apart from the Tanzania bashing, I had to agree with him that Zambia was very nice. I know that I’ve said Tanzanians are friendly but Zambians are ridiculously friendly. Another interesting tidbit – Zambia is the most sparsely populated country on the continent. It is five times the size of Illinois, but has the same population of about 13 million. And yet, HIV/AIDS rates are estimated to be nearly 20%. From Lusaka, we took a 7 hour bus ride to the town of Livingstone, during which we had the odd pleasure of watching Swahili music videos, Nollywood movies (Nigerian Hollywood), and listening to a God-fearing preacher who boarded the vehicle.

In front of the far edge of the falls - awesome.

When we reached the falls, all I could think was “Move over Niagara!” Victoria Falls is almost two kilometers wide and it’s three times the height of Niagara. We hiked all around the falls, and took advantage of the sprays in the heat. I felt like I was experiencing something right out of Lord of the Rings, seeing the Zambezi River crash into giant gorges stretching as far as the eye could see. We decided against bungee jumping over the river, but we still got our adrenaline running by venturing to the very edge of the waterfall and dangling our feet off. Traversing the lip of the falls is only possible now because after the rainy season, the exposed rocks are well beneath the water and the current becomes too strong. Last year, when the region was hit with especially hard rains, an elephant was sadly carried over the edge. Come April when the water is at its peak level, the mist can be spotted from 70 kilometers away!

Safari time at Mosi-oa-Tunya National Park, Zambia

1 of 5 white rhinos in all of Zambia

The next day, we did a mini-safari in Mosi-oa-tunya National Park (the smoke that thunders), Zambia’s smallest national park. However, it definitely makes up for its size by containing Victoria Falls and a variety of animals, including the only 5 white rhinos in the whole country. Of course, this safari didn’t compare at all to the majesty of the Serengeti and Tanzania’s parks, but it was still cool to see the animals, including the rhino which I didn’t get to see on my family’s Tanzanian safari. Many of the animals had also recently given birth, so we were able to see baby zebra, impala, alligators, etc. Our guide handed us off to some armed park rangers who were guarding the rhinos from poachers, and they took us into the bush where we soon found the prehistoric-looking beast. Even though the rhino has extremely weak vision, the ranger warned us that if it charged, we should climb a tree or stand behind a fallen one. Given the fact that we were about 20 feet away from it, I kept that advice in the front of my mind.

100 hundred trillion and 50 billion Zimbabwean dollar bills - talk about hyperinflation

The markets surrounding the park were interesting because we could actually barter! Lydia traded her shirt for a musical instrument. They wanted my hat, but it was my only one so I decided against it. Victoria Falls is located right on the Zambia-Zimbabwe border, so I caught some Zimbabwean currency fluttering around the markets. If you hadn’t heard already, Zimbabwe was hit hard by inflation… and by inflation I mean that they reached a point where they had 10²¹ % annual inflation rates and were printing 100 trillion dollar bills. Apparently, things have slowly improved now that the nation has switched to the US dollar.

Speaking of US dollars, our lack of them almost prevented us from entering Zambia. We didn’t know that Zambian visas could only be purchased at the Lusaka International Airport with US dollars… I suppose it is understandable that they did not accept my Tanzanian or Kenyan shillings, but they didn’t even accept Zambian kwacha! So we had to go the ATM, withdraw Zambian kwacha, convert to US dollars, and then purchase our visas. That was an ordeal in itself because the airport’s power completely shut off 3 times as we attempted to access the ATM machines.

Backpacking across Zambia

On the flight back to Dar, I sat next to a Canadian woman who grew up in Zimbabwe and now lives in Lusaka. She was actually Bahai, which was an odd coincidence because I grew up 10 minutes from North America’s only Bahai Temple (located in Wilmette, IL). And yet, I didn’t know much about the Bahai faith. Here’s a crash course from what I learned/re-learned from her. It’s a “new world religion” only about 160 years old. It was founded by Baha’ullah in Persia, and it is based on the concepts of unity in religion, mankind, and god. The religion incorporates elements from other world religions, as people like Buddha and Moses are all seen as divine messengers to the people of their time. Apparently, Baha’ullah once said “If religion is a source of disunity, it is better to have no religion at all” which is interesting given the state of today’s affairs.  The governing body for Bahais is called the Universal House of Justice, made up of 9 elected representatives.  The reps range from being world-renowned doctors to peasant farmers. Also, parents cannot force their children to be Bahai – they choose at age 15 whether or not they want to adopt the faith. There’s only about one temple on each continent. Oh, and of course, this woman’s husband turned out to be a die-hard member of the Lusaka Rotary Club.

She also found it hilarious that I thought Lusaka was a magnificent city, because her friends from Harare, Zimbabwe always make fun of it. She theorized that maybe the further south we go in this region, the more developed the cities become. Who knows? All I knew was that Dar es Salaam was probably going to surprise her!

As Rotary Ambassadors, we made attempts to visit both Livingstone and Lusaka Rotary clubs, but unfortunately the former was not meeting for Christmas and the latter had changed their meeting day. However, we did meet a Rotarian at our Livingstone backpacker’s hostel, the Lusaka Rotarian on our flight, and then our Tanzanian Rotarian friend at the Dar es Salaam airport who was kind enough to drive us home. I used to think that these were all coincidences, but it probably just goes to show that Rotary really is everywhere.

Happy Holidays to all of you! Thanks for reading, stay warm (not sweating warm like me), and I wish you a happy, healthy, prosperous 2010.