Almost perfectly in synch, my parents and I thought they should come here on a visit, and although it came at rather short notice, we went ahead with the plan. Roughly four weeks later they were here, for ten days over Easter. Their first time in Africa. Their first meeting with Chimwemwe. I had planned to show them around and take them on a trip to Zambia to see the Victoria Falls and stay in a bush camp, to see wildlife on a game drive in Chobe National Park in Botswana, and to see Jo’burg and Soweto. And so we did! And they loved every bit of it! I let pictures speak 😉
at Moyo at Zoo Lake, Johannesburg
a new Livingstone?
waiting for our guests at and with O.R. Tambo
at the curio duty-free shop at O.R. Tambo
Welcome to Jo’burg!
Fanisa and Selo, two of the house helps
Chimz tidying up
At Maramba River Lodge outside Livingstone, Zambia
mom & dad’s chalet in the background
Chimz & I in front of our dome tent
at breakfast with hippos chilling in the background
Mosi oa Tunya a.k.a. Victoria Falls
Visiting the Falls at the end of the rainy season, you get a sense of why the local Tonga people call them Mosi oa Tunya ‘the smoke that thunders’. And did they live up to that name! We were soaked through by the mist filling the air as we walked along the accessible part on the Zambian side of the 1.7 km long Falls. See below! Mom also survived the attack by a baboon keen on her biscuit.
Maramba market and downtown Livingstone
People were amused to hear me ask for chibuku, the traditional sorghum or maize beer. I needed to treat my dad to it – and it was quite a new experience for him. Chibuku, in some local Bantu languages, would mean ‘book-language’ (chi-, or in other Bantu languages ki-, si-, isi-, indicates a language, and buku is a Bantu-ized form of book). The name was applied to the more industrial version of the home-made beer. A German, Max Heinrich, collected local recipes in a book (hence the name) and started brewing it commercially in Zambia’s Copperbelt in the 1950s. Read more here.
Chobe National Park, Botswana
Starting out with a boat trip on the Chobe river between Botswana and Namibia …
lots of hippos
… and on with the game drive
Back to Jo’burg
In Soweto
We paid a visit to the Hector Pieterson memorial and museum and to Mandela House, and after lunch in Vilakazi Street walked down to the late Winnie Mandela’s house where a lot of people had gathered to sing and pay their tribute.
Braai with friends and Chimz’ auntie and uncle
When in South Africa, you must have a braai. And so we did – a lovely evening because of the lovely people around me.
Wow such loving soul. It was nice to meet them.
And they were very happy here, not least because they were well taken care of 😉