Chimps and hippos and crocs, yangu!

Part II - Mutinondo
***Please read Part I, the post below this one, first.***

We stayed for three nights at Chimfunshi, then from Chingola we took a bus to Kapiri Mposhi, because it has the best rest area food in Zambia. Mmm, shwarmas. From Kapiri Mposhi, we were trying to find a ride north to Serenje, about 4 hours away. Hitching is the norm in rural Zambia as not everyone can afford a car, and most drivers will happily pick up hitch hikers to help pay for petrol. One memorable moment sticks out when we asked the only white guy there, in his 40's and driving a nice SUV, where he was going. He said "The other way" without knowing our destination, then blunty told Chris, "I don't pick up people like you." As if we were obnoxious homeless beggars. We ended up getting a fast, comfortable ride with an American-educated Zimbabwean working for the Swedish embassy in Lusaka. Best of all, he wouldn't take our money. "This is my good deed," he said. "Some time, I may be the one on the side of the road needing a ride, and then you can repay me." Chris replied that the best we'd be able to offer him was a ride on the back of our bicycles.


After spending the night at the Peace Corps house in Central province, we traveled to Mutinondo Wilderness Area. The first night, we shared a fire and traded travel tips with an older couple (she was South African, he was from Switzerland) who were living out of their SUV and traveling through Southern Africa.


Mutinondo is several thousands of gorgeous, protected acres, cut by the Mutinondo River and several waterfalls and many small rocky, mountains. The older British couple who run it say they've seen evidence of lions, and they see leopards quite often. In this over-poached, deforested country that is Zambia, that's really amazing. There's a camping area with running water, real hot showers, and clean, longdrop toilets - really, it was hardly camping because we have lesser accomodations and call it 'home.' There's also kilometers of different trails to explore. We mostly stuck to the trails that followed the river, because it was hot, and we'd jump in and swim anytime we found a suitable area. Below the third waterfall, 4 kilometers from our camp, there was a calm pool to swim in. To get there, we had to slip in through the trees and swim hard with the current to avoid being slammed into a large rock. I took off my glasses, reducing the world to a blur, because I've already almost ruined them once when they fell off during a rainstorm on our road, which turns into a fast-moving, deep stream with heavy rainfall. Luckily, Chris found them only minutes before a large truck came barreling by.




Chris and I got out into the calm part of the water and were standing on a rock, when I looked into the reeds around the edge of the river. There was a greenish tan curve slightly above water level, and a pair of glinting eyes on either side staring straight back at me, identical to Willow's eyes shining in the dark. It began to move slowly in our direction. I screamed "CROCODILE" to Chris, then realized I couldn't swim against the current to get back to shore, hysterical at this point and almost in tears. Chris spun around to look, and felt a moment of panic when he couldn't see it, thinking it had submerged itself underwater. He calmly asked me if I could still see it. "Yes, it's there," I screamed, pointing. He then realized that the crocodile I was seeing was actually a thick piece of sideways grass, moving slightly in the current, glinting symmetrically. He tried calming me down, but I still insisted on getting out of the water. I know what they look like, I saw one at a national park in South Africa. And without my glasses to define the blur I was seeing, it still looked very real to me.


They have about ten horses at Mutinondo, so Chris and I were able to go on a morning trail ride. I rode a couple times a week in the U.S. and Chris was learning, but this was our first time being on a horse, or even seeing a horse, in a whole year, since we've been in Zambia.


We just found out the medical staff wants us to go to Lusaka to get a H1N1 vaccination, so we won't be going back to the village as expected. We're going to Zanzibar (island off the coast of Tanzania) in early February, so unfortunately it looks like we'll travel to Lusaka, be in the village for less than a week, then leave for a week and a half in Zanzibar.