This blog is about time. What time is it where yóu are? You can stretch time or beat time.
We all run out of time and we need more time. But what ís time, really?
Especially when you travel, knowing the time is of the essence. But time as we know it now is man-made and can be confusing. Here’s a short history of time and time zones and hemisperes…
This may be the most unusual country you’ve ever heard of, full of amazing facts! Because of the threat of global warming and rising sea levels, the government has purchased land in Fiji so that they can relocate the population should it come to losing their land to the sea…. Ever heard of Gilbertese? Here’s some more interesting stuff about a country you may not be familiar with…
We each have a small wheeled suitcase and a daypack as we leave on our two months long trip for the South Pacific. In it, we have clothes, shoes, swim wear and a good supply of books. It’s 6 AM when we board the ferry from Salt Spring Island to Vancouver. We love the fact that we don’t need to fly anywhere for this trip!
By 11 AM we enter the cruise terminal in downtown Vancouver. With passports and boarding passes in hand, it takes mere minutes to clear customs and walk onto our home for the next 56 days: the MV Zaandam of the Holland America Line.
Cruising.
It’s a very different way of travel from our usual independent travels. But we had enjoyed the few cruises we took - to Alaska, through the Panama Canal, etc. No driving, but you get to settle in one ‘hotel’ room and magically arrive at your destination. We may not be your average cruiser - we don’t party, or dance nor are we very social. But for many years I had one huge item on my wish list of travel destinations: the South Pacific. Come with us as we travel there...
Having worked hard for two weeks with The Book Bus, we were ready for our next adventure. The wonderful Book Bus team drove us from Kitwe, where we had spent two weeks, to the nearby airport of Ndola.
From there we flew south to Livingstone, Zambia.
This car had met an elephant. The elephant was fine…
Livingstone is a bit unlike the rest of the country because there are many tourists. We saw restaurants and souvenir/gifts shops like we had not seen elsewhere in the country.
I had booked a small hotel through AirBnB. It turned out to be a wonderful cottage in a green garden on the edge of town, with a pool and a lovely courtyard where breakfast was served. Again, the power was off much of the time but we were provided with great solar powered flashlights. That night, we ate crocodile skewers under wide mango trees.
On our first day in Livingstone we were picked up by a driver we had booked. Evans drove us to the famous Victoria Fall, or Mosi-oa-Tunya as the falls are called in the local language, ‘the smoke that thunders’. Zambia has long suffered a drought and has not seen any rain in over two years. Hence, the water is not as abundant as it has been and the falls are not nearly the width they show in photos of the past. But they are still gorgeous and impressive.
We walked the length of the path along the falls. You can also see the Zimbabwe side of the falls from here.
The boys were most excited to discover a zipline. The only one in the world that goes from one country to another! They ended up zipping across the deep gorge of the Zambezi River from Zambia to Zimbabwe.
Later that day we had a more relaxing way of enjoying the mighty Zambezi: we took a dinner cruise on the colonial African Queen. Sipping drinks and munching on egg rolls, we saw elephants come to the river to drink, as well as a few hippos and lots of birds.
But the real adventure started the next day when we got picked up by two smiling guides in a large safari vehicle. Moses and Malik were wonderful guys. And the best surprise was that there were no other guests on this trip! In essence a private safari for a week! When I had booked it, the company noted that there might be 5 or 6 others in the same group. So it was a treat to be with just the four of us plus the two guides. In fact, the driver is also the official guide while the spotter served also as cook.
Soon we were driving out of Livingstone en route to Kafue National Park. At 22,400 sq km, it is one of the largest national parks in the world and about half the size as the country of The Netherlands. It is a much more isolated and less visited park than for instance South Luanga National Park. There are no lodges inside the park. Lodge safaris are very expensive and I was thrilled to, in my pre-trip research, come across a camping safari in this park. The advertisements said that you help set up tents and help prepare meals. That sounded like a fun, active vacation especially since we had two boys with us.
Picnic lunch.
Even the safari vehicle was wonderful to have to ourselves: we each had a bench to ourselves with the luggage stowed in the back. We towed a trailer that contained our large canvas tents and folding cots and mattresses as well as a lot of food! On the side of the trailer was a fold down kitchen. A large battery operated cool box in the vehicle kept our meats frozen. The guides sometimes shopped at a nearby village for fresh vegetables or fruit. And Moses baked a fresh warm bread whenever we needed it.
A pool!
We stayed at a remote lodge with a campsite for our first night. Gorgeous outdoor showers were lit by a full moon. We ate steak and fresh veggies in a large wooden shelter and slept like a log in our large tents.
The next day we reached Lake Ithezi Thezi were we had a gorgeous campsite looking at this immense hydro lake. We couldn’t go near it though because of the huge number of crocodiles in the water. Monkeys kept us on our toes as they would snatch any food left on a table. The boys were happy that we could use the pool at the lodge.
From the campsite we did several game drives. The lake had almost vanished due to the drought but we were lucky to spot several herds of zebra. We came across a pack of wild dogs that had grabbed an impala minutes before. We watched them tear it apart, bones cracking. Within minutes, vultures arrived in a big circle around the wild dogs, patiently waiting their turn. We watched herds of water buffalo and many different ungulates as they searched for water. Storks were migrating, impalas hid among the trees.
Amazingly, we spotted several leopards - thanks to Moses’ keen eyesight. He’d spot a nearly invisible head, the same colour as the surrounding ground. We’d drive nearer and finally we would recognize the shape of a leopard, too. The leopard would lazily stay or stealthily walk away.
At one point we were driving down a bumpy dirt road among dense forest when we came around a bend and spotted a herd of elephants. Usually we could drive up quite closely and watch the regal animals. This time however, one flared out her ears, raised her trunk and trumpeted. Then, without hesitation, she and another large elephant charged our vehicle. The driver floored it.
The elephants kept coming. He raced down the windy path, around the trees. The herd kept running.
They must have charged us for a good 2 KM…. It was exciting but I was never really scared because our driver kept going. I don’t know what would have happened, though, if our road had been blocked.
At Kafue Elephant Release Facility
We didn’t see many other safari vehicles. Kafue obviously was much wilder than South Luanga. We did come across a herd of elephants wearing collars. These were successfully released elephants from the elephant orphanage I wrote a book about: The Elephant Keeper. It was awesome to see the success of this program. We visited the release facility in the park where the juvenile elephants came to learn to live in the wild before being released into the safety of the park. At the end of our time in Zambia we also managed a visit to the new elephant orphanage in Lusaka National Park, with a wonderful visitors information centre. We were taken on a behind the scenes tour and helped to prepare bottles for the little elephant calves.
For two nights we camped on the banks of the Kafue River at Kasabushi Lodge. From this gorgeous campsite we watched herds of elephants crossed the river, often with tiny ones in tow. To hear a wild elephant trumpet in dense forest is probably one of the most wonderful sounds in the world.
On our second last day in Kafue, we found lions. Two full grown males were napping under a tree. When we approached they merely raised their heads, stretched a bit and went back to sleep. After a while, they got up and lumbered away - showing us how large lions are!
That night, we enjoyed games and a steak dinner around our campfire. Suddenly, at 9 PM, our guide raised his finger. “Listen, Listen “ he said, “lions!”. I had to really strain to hear a rumbling roar in the distance. “Two or three kilometers away,” he commented, “we might see their footprints in the morning on the road.” I did not give it another thought as we went to sleep: Nico and I in one tent, Hannah and Aidan in the other and our two guides in their tent a few feet away.
It was 2 AM when I woke up because the wall of the tent bulged in over me. Still half asleep, I wondered if it was the wind and pushed the canvas out. It felt too solid to be wind. That’s when I heard the rumbling roar that made my heart stop… deep belly rumbles, continues very loud growls… more rumble than roar. I fleetingly thought, “elephants?” but quickly realized it was the same sound we had heard earlier. Except now it was just outside our tent… “Holy s@&%!” My heart pounded so loudly I thought they would hear it. I tried not to breathe and hoped the others would sleep through it. But soon Nico was stirring.
Wild Dog Breakfast.
“Don’t move,” I whispered, “don’t make a sound… the lions are here.” In my mind’s eye I saw those two large male lions we had seen earlier. I also remembered that our guides had no fire arms - no guns allowed in the national park. What should we do?
I just tried not to move and not to breathe while my heart kept pounding away and the roars grew louder. They sniffed around our tents. I knew only a canvas tent flap separated us from wild lions.
Finally they seemed to walk away a bit further but then Hannah unzipped her tent! ‘She’s not going outside, is she?’ I thought. But later she said she had to pee so badly she couldn’t wait. Plus she thought it was hippos… Our guide whispered “Stay in the tent! Lions in camp!” Soon the lions came back and spent quite a bit of time right around our tents again. We didn’t get any more sleep that night.
Would I ever book another camping safari? I’m really not sure. It WAS a wonderful week but I could have done without this excitement…
After a long online search, using Google maps for close-ups of the area where The Book Bus is located, I booked our accommodations in Kitwe where we would volunteer for two weeks. Kitwe is a mining city in northern Zambia, located in the Copperbelt, not far south from the border with Congo.
Going on a trip into the back country of Africa is not for the faint of heart. After reading
The Library Tree by Deborah Cowley,
I decided that I would love to take our grandsons, aged 12 and 14, to do volunteer work with
The Book Bus, a non profit organization that works for literacy in Zambia...
Sometimes we plan trips to faraway places, only to realize that we live in a most beautiful place ourselves. Often when Kees and I return home after a trip, we say “We do live in one of the most gorgeous places anywhere!”. And that is why people from faraway, and not so far away, flock to Salt Spring Island as a tourist destination. So, let me tell you about my home.
Trains.
Planes will get you there faster. Cars are more personal. But trains? Trains have some mythical blend of the promise of adventure and a hint of nostalgia… What is it that makes train travel so different? You can get up and stretch your legs… You can eat and drink while zooming along. We have enjoyed train trips in many countries. And when I hear the ting-ting-ting of a railroad crossing, I want to hop on and see the view from a train window.
Usually I share with you a story about one particular trip, or one specific place. This time, I’d like to share some stories about music we have encountered around the world. Music seems to be both a universal language as well as a unique expression in each culture or country. Be sure to click all links to hear the similar and and yet distinct sounds of each country.
In this blog post, I’d like to tell you about an exciting, upcoming trip rather than one we already took. Several years ago, Kees and I traveled to Zambia and volunteer with The Book Bus, a British not for profit organization that brings books to children across Zambia. This time, I’ll be taking my grandchildren to help spread to joy of reading.
I love how much I learn when I travel. Almost every day there’s something else that surprises me, something I didn’t know or had never done before.
I just learned that ‘plankton’ means ‘those who wander’ in Greek! I guess we are plankton - and plankton must be smart to be so smart to survive and thrive while being so vulnerable. Much like tourists.
We almost never go back to a place we have visited before. But we did make an exception for our beloved island of Langkawi in Malaysia. Years ago, when I did author visits to international schools in Kuala Lumpur, we asked teachers what their favourite holiday destination was. And we were told ‘Langkawi!’ It took us years to actually get there but it was love at first sight. Langkawi is gorgeous, with friendly people, and inexpensive enough to spend a good part of winter on the beach.
When you grow up in a city, everything is ‘normal’ to you when you live there. You tend to take the place for granted. That’s how it was for us - riding our bikes to school, exploring every street and alley, going to the shops, the weekly market. And later exploring beyond our own neighborhood, joining youth groups, taking the train. And, of course, meeting each other in that city!
