I’m starting these notes on a different river, the Zambezi, it is at a higher elevation with more lush vegetation then the Letaba River in Kruger Park noticeably fewer animals. I’m about 8 miles upstream from the Victoria Falls and the town of Livingston (Zambia).

I flew into Livingston, Zambia from Johannesburg and was met at the airport by Nick, a very outback kind of Afrikaner guy. Nick has recently returned from London with Amanda, his very British bride. Amanda is still trying to figure out where she is and what’s the attraction to this place.

As we walked out of the airport terminal Nick offered two options for getting to our destination, Thorntree Riverside Resort, a drive through the town of Livingston in an air-conditioned van or a short cut through the game park in the back of a Land Rover modified for safaring.

Having spent the better part of the day sitting on a plane I opted for the bush ride. Nick’s rye tone let on this option would be some sort of rights-of-passage, and it was, including a motorized form of Rolfing. Nick and Amanda sat up front. I sat on a narrow bench cantilevered off the back of the Land Rover.

There was some wild life as we entered the savanna but by now impalas, elephants and water buck are pretty ho hum. I’m now the jaded (photographic) hunter who requires large cats with a kill in paw or charging rhino’s to hold my attention or perhaps stumbling upon a sleeping lion under a bush.

Nick drove like a teenager on a first date, fast and distracted. Suddenly, he brings the Land Rover to a stop throwing up a cloud of dust in front of a shantytown. “Welcome to the “Throntree Riverside Resort, mates”. Which it wasn’t. Ha Ha…

Wonderful, a multi skilled guide: F1 driver, docent, entertainer and as to be discovered later an excellent cook. We continued on to the real Thorntree which consists of 8 thatched huts on the banks of the Zambezi River.

Nick described the huts as, “One notch up from a tent”. I was shown to my hut by Amanda, Nick had to start dinner. At first I was impressed with the hut. There were large French doors opening onto a terrace cantilevered over the river. It was facing west so potentially great sunsets.

The sitting area and sleeping room walls were mostly glass with a 10 inch gap running the length between the wall and the roof. Hold on, what keeps the mosquitoes out? I began to unpack and settle in, occasionally glancing at the gap.

Shortly, a dozen monkeys jump from “my” roof onto a tree outside the window. They hung from the tree watching me unpack. Now isn’t that cute. My attention returned to the gap. There’s a gap around the entire hut between the walls and the thatched roof.

Forget the mosquitoes, what keeps the monkeys out? I had already unpacked and had my things scattered all over the hut. So I decided to stretch out on the bed to watch the monkeys watch me; a virtual primate stare off. They quickly conceded defeat to the staring contest and within minutes were through the gap and in the hut.

I never saw Planet of the Apes, but I began to image what it must have been like as I was living it. They went right for the instant coffee, sugar and powered cream, knocking over the coffee pot and anything else not secured. I did a false charge with a raised pillow. They retreated through the gap glancing over their shoulders bearing their teeth.

When I was in Amboseli, Kenya last year, I had heard about the damage monkeys do to guest’s suitcases and the interior of the huts looking for toothpaste. Well I can’t keep this up all night. I gathered everything up and locked it in the closet and went looking for Amanda and Nick.

They said the monkeys were uninvited guests and only recently arrived, like today. As only a Brit could say, “They are a very naughty lot”. I was moved to a different hut with full height walls and no gaps to mind. All the huts sit on the bank of the river so nothing lost only my uninvited friends.

The next night a group of us took a cruise on the river and visited some of the nearby islands. There were crocks and hippos playing around in the river with lots of birds. We had sundowners on an unnamed Zimbabwean island with the sound of the rapids in the background. An occasional bat dive-bombed us.

The following morning I rode an elephant through the game park. Thorntree is located within a national park. Riding the elephant was a change of pace and offered a different perspective. The highlight of the journey was time spend at the end of the ride with a two month old elephant calf.

The calf’s mother; one of the adopted elephants who had been trained to accept riders had run off two years ago. She ran off with a herd of 18 wild young bull elephants. She returned about 18 months later very pregnant. (The little tramp.)

There are six riding elephants, all orphans from Zimbabwe. There was a huge flood in 2000 that killed many animals. In fact, as I toured around both here and in Botswana there were numerous markers showing the level the water had rose to in 2000; hard to imagine what it must have been like.

The orphaned elephants were sold off by the Zimbabwe government as the elephants cannot fend for themselves in the wild. As I rode through the jungle the enfant elephant went from curious to insecure, exploring the trail alone to running back and looping its trunk around its mother’s tail. When I climbed off mom, the enfant playfully charged and butted her head against my side, much like being broadsided by a Buick.

We immediately bonded. The calf acted more like a puppy then an elephant, She was very playful, continuously butting into me. After butting me to the ground she rolled over and wanted her tummy scratched. She wrapped her leg and trunk around my legs once I started scratching and wouldn’t let go. She’d make a great house pet if it weren’t for the loaves of bread she leaves behind and her eventual size. So there was a teary departure and onto the town of Dr Livingston and Victoria Falls.

In the late morning I walked around Victoria Falls. The falls are unusual in that they are linear; it is like the river spills sideways. The power of the water is humbling. It is also a very wet experience. Close to the edge, the mist, more like rain, is flying up. Although prepared with a slicker I left soaked.

That afternoon I hired a helicopter and flew over the falls for a full view. It turns out the only way to really appreciate the falls is from the air. After circling the falls three times we headed down river to look at the rapids below the falls and then up the Zambezi River. A couple of the islands had rhinos, giraffes and elephants grazing. As the copter swooped in over the elephants they raised their trunks sniffing the air for danger. They have poor eyesight and rely on their sense of smell to determine danger. When the entire herd does this in unison it becomes a dance.

As I was leaving for Botswana the next day I went into town after landing to have a look at the town of Livingston. The unemployment rate is 80% in Zambia and the HIV/AIDS rate is 50% so Livingston is dismal.

There is a wide dusty road through the center of town with mostly one story shops. All windows and doors are covered with irin bars. I went into a couple of shops. It was very dark as the lights were all turned off. There is hardly any merchandise on the shelves. The shops are empty of customers.

After a quick check of e-mail at a Cyber café, I went across the street to walk around an open air market. Most of the vendors in the open market are Zimbabweans fleeing the Robert Mugabe regime.

The open market is strictly for tourists not for the locals. All the items were handicrafts and curios. The shops were nothing but lean-tos covered with burlap and sheets of plastic roofs facing onto a narrow passageway barely wide enough for one person to pass. It is surprisingly dark even in the middle of the day.

They employ a unique form of marketing where the most fragile items are placed closest to the aisle. This makes it extremely difficult not to knock merchandise over. “You broke it, you bought it”.

It was the most aggressive selling I’ve ever experienced. If I made it through the gauntlet without breaking anything then the vendors would grab my arm and pleaded with me to buy anything or tried to barter for my pen or watch. Part of the problem is a lack of variety in merchandise. There are too many identical items. Most of the shops had the same carved stone and wood animals, masks and naïve paintings.

It’s only fair to mention there were more than a couple of polite vendors extending an invitation to inspect their wares or artwork, but they were in the minority. The vendors are’t greedy, they were poor and hungry.

There are a lot of very talented craftsman and artist but due to the extreme poverty there is a lack of raw material for their crafts. An example of their creativity is the ubiquitous bent wire animal sculptures sold throughout the region. The story is the sculptures are made from stolen telephone lines.

After the sunset cruise on the river the guests gathered on the Thorntree terrace for whatever sundowners are called well after the sun sets. The discussion turned to AIDS.

There was some alcohol induced banter of misinformation about the cause of AIDS and then some very judgmental opinions on how to solve the problem. After the exchange of opinions had run dry and glasses were being refilled a distinguished gentleman (he must have been European he was wearing black socks and sandals.) who had been listing but not participating gave what amounted to a fifteen minute lecture on the AIDS problem. He is a heath consultant on an extended weekend escape from work. His specialty is affordable healthcare for the poor.

We had breakfast the next morning and I learned he operates two research projects developing affordable healthcare in South Africa and India while teaching at a European university. He was full of fascinating facts but one that gave me a start was when he claimed if the wealth of the top 600 people in the world was confiscated, it could feed half the staving people in the world. “Confiscated?!”

He was very pessimistic about Africa’s future in light of the AIDS pandemic as he thinks an entire generation will disappear. He was surprisingly nonjudgmental and very sympathetic to the problem. This subject wasn’t on my itinerary but it should have been. It is so much a part of Africa.

The other character at Thorntree was Oliver, a retired feral cat. Precious, the assistant manager, with a great head of corn rolled hair told me all about Oliver. Oliver showed up one morning about five years ago. He looks very Persian. His parents may have been former refugee’s fleeing the Shah of Iran. (Sorry about that.) He looks like an ordinary house cat until you try to pet him, not recommended. It is amazing with all the wild animals around Oliver has survived this long. His bulging eyes and twitching tail are an indication of his alertness. I didn’t try to bond with him but he certainly earned my respect.

After breakfast I said my goodbyes to Amanda and Nick and took a van to the banks of the Zambezi, cleared Customs and then caught a ferry across to Kasane, Botswana.

© Copyright Michael Morrissey, All Rights Reserved.

Article by Michael Morrissey is considered one of the new generation of adventure and travel photographers. Based in Bangkok, Thailand with a passion for travel, Michael got hooked on photography while driving a bus from Istanbul to Katmandu in the 70’s; an obsession briefly interrupted with a twenty year career in business. You can view his photography at: www.mjmorrissey.com

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