Two days in Zambia

We are staying near Livingstone, Zambia in Sanctuary Sussi Chuma which is named for the two natives (Sussi and Chuma) who attended David Livingstone during his explorations in Africa.  When Livingstone died in modern day Zambia, Sussi and Chuma carried his body hundreds of miles to the coast in Tanganyika to turn it over to British authorities who then brought it back to England for burial.  The Sanctuary is located in Mosi-oa-tunya National Park about ten miles upstream from Mosi-oa-tunya which means Smoke that Thunders.  Livingstone could not pronounce Mosi-oa-tunya, so he named the falls after his queen; hence Victoria Falls.

Our first game drive yesterday was through the park which houses most of the surviving white rhinos in Zambia.  Another fun fact:  white rhinos are not white and black rhinos are not black; they are all grayish.  White rhinos have a wide mouth, but people heard "wide" rhino as "white" rhino.  Then they named the other subspecies "black" rhinos to distinguish them.  Viewing a rhino mother and baby with our guards:

This morning we got our first look at Victoria Falls which lies on the border of Zambia and Zimbabwe.  There is a bridge over the river connecting the two countries that was completed in 1905, three years after Cecil Rhodes died.  Rhodes had ordered the construction of the bridge as part of his plan to conquer all of Africa for Britain and build a railroad from Capetown to Cairo.  For miles as we approached the falls we saw large trucks carrying copper parked by the side of the road.  Only one truck at a time is allowed over the bridge, so they line up for days to get across.  It reminded me of the boats lined up outside the Panama Canal waiting to cross.  At the time the bridge was built, it was the highest bridge in the world.


It is the end of the dry season, so the falls are a fraction of the wet season peak.  We stayed on the Zambian side which is mostly dry now.  At the height of the rainy season, you cannot see the falls because the spray rises over four hundred feet and you need to wear a raincoat just to get close.

Dry season

Rainy season

After viewing the falls, we visited the local village of Nakatindi, where we were given a tour of the school, the health clinic, and a local women's business - refurbishing and selling bicycles donated from America and England.  The children followed us through the village, holding our hands.

Someone on my Kenya safari had told me that the helicopter ride over the Falls was the highlight of her visit, so off I went.  She did not steer me wrong.  It was amazing.  First we flew into the gorge and "rode" the rapids.  That was the coolest thing.  I swear we were in the water at times and crashed into the rocks.  The pilot angled the helicopter as we made turns so it really felt like we were riding the rapids.

Then we flew over the Falls for an excellent view of the "dry" falls and the land that would be flooded in rainy season.

Finally, we did a quick game ride, spotting elephants and hippos from the air.  It was an incredible experience.

On the way to the helicopter center, I had noticed a sign pointing to the Jewish Museum.  Really? I asked my guide.  There is a Jewish Museum here?  Yes, he said.  It is part of the Railroad Museum.  Of course.  So after the helicopter ride, I asked him to take me to the Jewish Museum.   This tiny museum in the middle of nowhere was just fascinating.  Most of the Jews who got out of eastern Europe in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century went to the United States when it had open immigration, and some went to Palestine.  It is fascinating to me how others who could not get visas ended up in the oddest places.  Like the Jews of Capetown, the first Jews in Zambia (then Northern Rhodesia) came from Lithuania - more of my landsmen.  Many were peddlers who later became shopkeepers, and a few established some of the largest chains of stores in Zambia.

South Africa and Southern Rhodesia (modern day Zimbabwe) were anti-British for a long time and philosophically were German sympathizers, so in the 1930's they, like the US, passed anti-immigration laws.  But Zambia was one of the few countries in the world that had open immigration for the Jews escaping Germany and Eastern Europe.  So Zambia had a small but vibrant Jewish community from approximately 1880 until the 1960's when Zambia won its independence and all of the whites left.  Who knew?

The guide at the museum insisted on walking me through the railroad museum although I had no interest in it.  (Sorry, Joe.)  I finally got the connection, however.  Two prominent Jewish families owned the sawmill that prospered when they were building all those railway cars, and eventually, they bought shares in the railroad company itself.

When I signed the guestbook upon leaving the museum, I saw that I was the first visitor that day.  (It was after 2 pm) and there had been five visitors the previous days.  A Jewish museum in the middle of nowhere in Livingstone, Zambia is not a hot attraction?  Go figure.

Our afternoon activity was a game boat ride down the Zambezi River.  We rode a few rapids but stopped well short of the falls.  Oh, darn.  We saw a lot of hippos and a crocodile in the river.  Then we stopped for cocktails and appetizers set up for us on the riverbank.  We were having a delightful time watching the peaceful river when we were visited by a heard of elephants.  At first we watched them through our binoculars.  Then without binoculars.  Then our guides started getting very nervous and told us to return to the boats.  The lead male elephant was flapping his ears at us which apparently is not a good thing.  So we rode the boats back up the rapids for sundowners and dinner at the Sanctuary.  The walkways are raised at the Sanctuary to accommodate the warthogs, antelopes, and occasional elephants that stroll by.  But we share the grounds with dozens of baboons.

This has been a lovely beginning to the Botswana safari.