Perhaps I should
start with the status of the planned road construction.
Chinese road construction camps have been established at Sesheke
and at Kale about 15 km from here. As far as I know the
construction companies have been awarded 2 year’s contract to
finalize each 70 km of tarmac road starting from Sesheke and
Sioma respectively. A third contractor will start from Senanga
and end on the other side of the river close to Maziba Bay where
a bridge will be constructed linking up with the road on this
side. Everything seems set and ready to go, but apart from a
little bit of ‘reinforcing’ on the bad soft sand stretches
nothing has happened so far. I am an optimist as you probably
know by now (with perhaps a slight bias towards cynicism), but
why don’t they get started then? I really hope they are serious
this time.
The flooding
that seemed to be over by end of March was not really over. The
water started rising again around mid April and continued to
rise until around end April when it finally receded. So we had
to empty two of the chalets twice this year. Great fun! My niece
and her boyfriend visited me from end April to early June and in
the beginning we ferried them to their chalet in the evening.
Sioma Venice Camp. As the water dropped throughout May new pool
areas kept on appearing and we were swimming in small ‘lagunes’
almost every day. It was very nice and quite fun to sit in the
shallow water and watch Tiger Fish passing by. At times I saw
huge groups of Tiger Fish – up to a hundred (small to medium
size)! – cruising through the clear water flowing over the
sandbanks. Yes, we did keep an eye out for crocs!
Having an extended
family visit was – surprisingly - quite nice. Almost every
evening we were playing poker or another game of cards. I am
afraid that I re-discovered, that I am a bad loser.
We went on a trip
to Sinjembela at Kwando River. It was a drive of 115 km. We had
to crisscross a bit as some of the dambos were still a bit too
wet to cross. The last 50 km was through thorny bush and the
canvas of the game drive vehicle and our clothes were torn. We
found a nice camp site on the banks of the Kwando River where
–according to the local people – it is sometimes possible to
watch sitatunga and hippos. There were many birds and the sunset
over the Kwando was fantastic. It looks like a mini Okvango. I
hope the local community will develop the site into a proper
community campsite. I hope to be able to arrange trips for my
guests taking them along the Sioma Ngwezi park boundary via my
bush camp and down to the Kwando.
We were visited by
a Portuguese driving on a mountainbike all the way from Luanda
in Angola and hopefully ending up in Maputo in Mozambique. That
is quite a ride. While I was in Livingstone the camp was also
visited by a crazy elderly South African who stole my cigars
(annoying guy!) and was very rude and aggressive towards my
staff. He stayed for one night, ate and drank (and smoked my
cigars), but left without paying. Luckily this type of guests
is rare.
Otherwise, business
continued to be slow in April and May. Since beginning of June
though I have had a number of guests. It started with Danish
company Missionpharma sponsoring an ‘outreach’ program with
doctors and surgeons (from University Teaching Hospital and
Chainama Hospital in Lusaka visiting the mission clinic in Sioma
for 4 days. I was quite impressed with their performance. Some
of them made more than 20 operations in a day, sometimes working
to after 11 pm. They left a lot of local patients with improved
quality of life. They were good company too, so it was a very
enjoyable stay for all parties. And it appears they will visit
this area again.
We have had several
guests from Peace Park, USAID and WWF, all somehow in relation
to the development of the Kavango Zambezi Transfrontier
Conservation Area. It seems that Peace Park funds are now
available and real implementation activities are about to start.
That will be good. The local people are eagerly waiting to see
something happening. Since beginning of June a lot of holiday
seekers from South Africa have been passing through. Some on the
way to Liuwa Plain NP where they – somewhat to my surprise – saw
a lot of wildebeests. It was my impression that you would only
see wildebeests in huge numbers from October and onwards. In
addition they watched 9 wild dogs kill a young wildebeest. A few
minutes later 13 hyenas chased the wild dogs away. Yes, there
are many hyenas up there. The South African visitors were lucky
and twice saw the lioness (princess Liuwa) and her two imported
‘boyfriends’ from Kafue NP.
Please note
that in order to get to Liuwa Plains – at least for now – you
must take the Western route from Kalongola to Kalabo; not via
Mongu to Kalabo. This road is still flooded. The latest
organization to pay a visit to this area was Open Africa. They
are developing routes in Southern Africa, all with strong links
to local communities, and have so far assisted in establishing
several routes in Zambia, including the Barotse Trail from
Livingstone to Ngonye Falls. This route will be extended to
Mongu thereby allowing it to link up with the routes developed
for the Kafue NP and surrounding areas. Through their
brochures/maps and website they provide comprehensive package
tour proposals complete with options for
accommodation/restaurants/attractions etc.
I got my Nissan
back. On my first trip back to camp the rear brakes clamped
about 20 km from Sesheke and I had to return. The brake was
disengaged and I resumed my trip back to camp. After 46 km the
diff fell off and I was again brought to a standstill. I had to
call my driver (first walking 8 km in darkness to find signal)
so he could come and tow me back to Sesheke…..in the middle of
the cold night. About a week later I could pick up the car again
and this time I made it back to camp. Since then I have been
going from Sioma to Sesheke twice without brakes. Great fun! I
have realized that without too much traffic on the road you
actually do not necessarily need brakes. Small trees and soft
deep sand can make you slow down and even bring your vehicle to
a halt. The only problem is that there are occasionally too many
dark cows on the road and sometimes you do not see them in time.
As a result of a bit of hazardous driving (bloody cows! What are
they doing on the road anyway?) I broke a spring and destroyed a
shock on my Nissan.
Following several
sightings of lions during the last few months we were visited by
Paula White, a lion researcher from the Zambia Lion Project. On
the second day on a trip to Ijobwe Pools she and an accompanying
professional hunter from Kafue saw two young male lions. Paula
managed to dart one of the lions and hopefully the biopsy will
provide some insight as to where the Sioma Ngwezi lions fit into
the genetic landscape of lions in this region. One of my
workers saw a pair of lions close to the ZAWA office in early
May. He had also seen two lions a few weeks before close to the
airstrip just a few km from here.
A few days ago some
of the workers from my bush camp told me that they had seen two
huge male lions and two lionesses at the ‘old airstrip’ close to
my bush camp. They saw them as they were walking along the road,
the lions being less than 25 meters away in the bush…..watching
them as they passed by. The week before they had found a dead
eland killed by lions close to one of the trails that hopefully
will soon serve as bush walk/drive tracks starting from the bush
camp.
We have been on
several bush drives recently and have seen a number of giraffes
(groups of 8 and 7), sables (groups of 8 and 15 and 12 plus
several lone bulls) and kudus (3 groups of 5-7). The wild dogs
(8) visited my bush camp about a week ago (2 had passed by the
camp in mid June). Hyenas and leopards wander through the camp
almost every evening/night apparently having fun scaring my
staff. Elephants also walk though camp every now and then. On a
bush drive today – Sunday 10th July – we saw tracks
of wild dogs and several lions. We also saw fresh tracks of
poachers. That’s the kind of spoors you do not want to see.
About two weeks ago my Bush camp workers had found the remains
of a giraffe killed by poachers. With Peace Parks funds now
available there is hope that law enforcement can be
strengthened. Let me add that funds for anti poaching activities
hopefully will be matched with funds for community development
activities, otherwise law enforcement efforts on its own will
probably not provide sustainable results. Last night we had
jackals and hyenas at the river camp. Last week 15 sables had
been at the river next to our camp site. Vervet monkeys are
getting more accustomed to the camp here at the river. They are
fun to watch, although I prefer that they maintain some distance
to the kitchen. And now there are 4 hippos from here to the
Falls. There used to be only 2, then 3 since December and now 4.
We are getting there!
Please remember
that you can now also find Sioma Camp on facebook. I have tried
to present new photos more frequent than on my website. The
problem is that uploading photos takes almost all my MTN-‘airtime’,
so I have to be a bit selective.
And it is winter
and too cold. I hate it. I did not come to Africa to freeze!
Hans Chr. Aaskov
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