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 😉
Rocks are patient. They happily bear inscriptions of all kinds, and stoically accept whatever tale human imagination imposes on them. Or break, but that usually happens only a loooooong looooong time after an engraving has been made. Engravings may wither away, and the rock palimpsest becomes open to reinterpretation …
After a month and half in Auckland Park Lodge, a nice place with lovely staff, beautiful garden (see here) – ah, I miss you! – I am now in a nearby lodge. I call a bungalow my home, with 2 rooms, and most spectacularly: overlooking a pool. Considering there is nobody else staying here currently, I can call it “my pool”, and hence I’m taking care of it, what with cleaning and such. The place looks like an old English country house, though I can only guess its style. It comes with a beautiful garden as well, in the midst of which there is a lovely old fountain. A major attraction for birds, and there’s lots of them around here, notably the noisy hadeda ibises.
Zambia has got to be my favourite country (beaten by Zimbabwe only in the field of music, sorry guys). It is twice the size of Germany, with only around 17 or so million people. In other words, there’s a lot of space here. And more than once, when driving through the country, I found myself thinking I’d love to have one of those huge farms with some hectars of largely untouched bushland.
When I realized that entering Tanzania overland from Rwanda was going to be difficult, amongst other things because visas are not issued at the border, and also considering the size of the country and costs involved in entering the Serengeti or Ngorongoro, I decided to deviate from my plan, took a flight to Dar es-Salaam and cut my stay short. After all, I wanted to attend a festival in Malawi in early November, and it felt like I’m running out of time. Seriously? Anyway, my plans changed, I planned on two weeks only in Tanzania. Air Rwanda was as impressive as Rwanda itself, and the flight was truly pleasant. On that note, I’ve come to love the airport announcement tinched in heavy Bantu r/l-mixups that wish you a “prresent frright” instead of a “pleasant flight”, that’s what it sounds like anyway.
Driving to Bwindi Impenetrable Forest in the early morning hours (5:30) is like entering a magic world. Mist hangs in the valleys below as you proceed at an altitude of around 2300m. The name derives from the local Runyakitara language(s), and means something like ‘place of darkness’. This has been a forest forever, and it is as primeval as a forest can be in the 21st century.
For the impatient ones, here’s some Gorilla video caption. [switch to HD]
