Currency in Zambia

Thought it might be worth commenting on the currency in Zambia, as
paying for things has proven to often be a royal pain in the ass. Visa
is dicey at best. They dont even know of other credit/debit cards. The
cash economy is a multi-currency system in that they accept the
Zambian Kwatcha (of course), but they also accept South African Rand,
British Pound, & US Dollars. The Kwatcha is only good in Zambia. No
bank outside Zambia will change it, so you don't want to leave Zambia
with a lot of it. $1 is worth $5000K, so if you changed $100US you
would end up with a huge stack of Zambian bills much bigger than a
$100 stack of US singles (there are no coins). A hamburger might cost
$30,000K ($6US). I try not to hold more than $20 worth of Kwatcha at a
time. Paying for things often involves using a combination of
currencies and the use of a calculator to convert. No one ever has
very much change and using even a $20 bill is too much. I wish I had
brought smaller bills. They need to figure this out for their economy
to improve or evolve I think. Zimbabwe money is even more reduculous
(& worthless). Guys on the street will try to sell you actual 100
Trillion Dollar Zimbabwe notes as a souvenir. This is coming from a
place, though, where everything is useful and nothing is thrown away.

Victoria Falls

Julia and I are at a lodge along the Zambezi river outside
Livingstone, Zambia. I call Zambia "the Vegas of Africa" because they
aim to please and you can do it all here. Bungee, hele rides, game
drives, you name it. None of it us cheap either. The currency is do
devalued they take dollars. 1$ = $5000Kwatcha so changing even $20
leaves you with a wad of bills. We went on a hekecopter ride over the
falls to ensure we saw them because the mist is so intense that if you
walk the falls you may not be able to see them. (You can see the mist
in the pic which is from the top of the falls. The mist can be seen
from 50k away) Later, we walked the falls and were fortunate enough to
see them, but got drenched. It is an amazing place. We also went on a
Rhino walk in the Mosi-O-Tunya park and were brought by armed guard to
within 15 yards of a wild Rhino. It was a priviledge to be so close to
such a mighty animal. The armed guards are not only for our
protection- they guard the Rhinos from poachers 24/7. They are
military with AK-47s. Today we ate doing a lion walk with lion cubs
who are being raised to ve reintroduced into the wild. We met up with
our overland tour and are headed down the Zambezi river toward Lusaka,
Zambia (the capital) tomorrow. Internet may get even less.

4 Corners

We arrived in Zambia from Botswana. The border we crossed is actually
a meeting point of 4 countries: Botswana, Zambia, Namibia and
Zimbabwe. The border is a river and is crowded with trucks (and
people) needing to cross, but there are only two ferrys that take
trucks across and each only carry two trucks. The truck line was very
long and we heard that some truckers could wait as long as a week to
cross. It is much easier to cross without a vehicle. We paid a fee for
"fixers" to arrange our crossing. They helped coordinate a combination
of cars on both sides and a boat in between to take us across, and
they also ushered us through immigration. It was chaotic and not well
marked, so having a guy to tell you exactly which building to walk to
and who to talk to was worth the money. We got across in a few hours
whereas without them it may have taken all day plus much stress. We
arrived in Livingstone, Zambia; which I have dubbed "the Vegas of
Africa"- more on that in the next post.

Flickr update: still no reliable open Internet access so my camera is
not uploading pics. A few from Cape Town did upload though, & I'm
still uploading the odd iPhone pic.

Mabele Primary School

While in Botswana, we visited a primary school in a remote village
near Chobe park. The school had up to 7th grade and we got to visit a
5th grade class. The teacher showed us a bit about the curriculum and
the kids sang us a song. The kids all wear uniforms and everyone had
their hair cut short so it is hard to tell boy fr girl except that
girls wear skirts. Afterwards, we got to socialize with the kids.
Julia made a friend, named Precious who was a very cute and friendly
5th grade girl. The kids were all very interested in meeting us and I
think they enjoyed having visitors. For some reason, no one in
Botswana wears sunglasses. They saw Julia's glasses and my camera (I
brought the point & shoot thus day so it was less pretentious), and
all of them wanted to have their picture taken with the glasses on. It
was quite a fun time for them to have their photos taken and to
immediately see it on the camera. Although the school looked fairly
well supplied, I got the impression that a digital camera was a
luxury. We have some fantastic photos that I hope to share soon, but
open wireless connections to the Internet have been rare so I've had
trouble uploading photos from the camera. We asked if there is
anything we could give the school, and learned that they really want a
Santa Claus suit so they can celebrate Christmas (which they do on
November 25th instead of December 25th). We plan to send one to them.

Chobe

We have been in Chobe National Park in northern Botswana for the past
3 nights. We stayed at a safari lodge just adjacent to the park. I
realized we weren't in Kansas anymore when our prop plane landed at
the sleepy airport in Kasane, Botswana. The days have been filled with
game drives through the park. The park is a truly amazing place,
absolutely abundant with wildlife. The government of Botswana (using
their army) has done a good job protecting the park from poachers and
enforcing strict rules for tourists. It is afterall a valuable
resource for tourism and a natural wonder. On our game drives and boat
rides we have seen the gammit of animals: zebra, giraffe, antelope,
elephants, buffalo, and much more. There is also an abundance of
baobab trees- huge trees and my favorite in the world. The only thing
we missed were cats (lions, leopards) who are very elusive. Perhaps at
our next destination. I'll try my best to get some photos up on
flickr. Tomorrow we are heading to Livingstone, Zambia and Victoria
Falls.