The middle of sub-Saharan Africa, about a million square miles, includes the “sand river” big game wildlife parks. We’ve just finished 16 days exploring these less visited areas, and we had a ball and some incredible successes game viewing.
This entire swath of Africa, roughly from mid-Tanzania south to the Zambezi River, is mostly vast, sandy scrubland that reminds many Americans of the midveld near the “Four Corners” where Colorado, Arizona, Utah and New Mexico meet. The big difference with Four Corners and this area is its namesake, the great sand rivers that drain so much of the continent.
Here’s a quick summary of our trip:
Finishing our first extraordinary dinner on the banks of the Luangwa River, the best of South African wines were still pouring into our glasses. Hurricane lamps lit our elegantly set table and the southern cross with a million other twinkling stars bounced off the river like fireflies.
The rains north of the Zambezi were good and normal as they had been the year before. So the wild highveld of the valley was saved from the devastating drought just south. There was nothing unusual that the great Luangwa was slowly drying up, pulling in from its sometimes third-mile wide caked sand banks. This was normal. It was the solstice. Winter was here and all was still well.
Well, we aren’t where we’re supposed to be! We’re supposed to be in Zambia, heading to the great South Luangwa National Park shown in the picture. But our flight from Nairobi was canceled. And the next flight was canceled, and it makes me worry that something bad is happening in Zimbabwe, where both flights were supposed to make a stop, first.
I wish everyone I know could have been with us in Zanzibar. The troubles in the world are like flotsam in a still lake: just when you think you see an object it dissolves into murk. In Zanzibar we experienced one small puddle of clarity: the hatred between the Shia and Suni.
We just ended six days in Tanzania’s remote central game parks of The Selous and Ruaha. Zanzibar is not exactly Manhattan, but flying into here from Ruaha was like returning to civilization from a Jurassic Park time warp.
The Mwagusi and its little tributaries were dry, and this was early. The drought of last season, which had followed a devastating El Nino flooding, had broken but weakly. A major moisture deficit crinkled most of the bush leaves and had turned everything brown early. Only along the Great Ruaha itself, or in slight depressions in the veld, did the sandpaper trees and acacia flitter lively green leaves in the warm breezes.
OnSafari: Going into the bush, again! A wonderful small group of people, and joined for part of the time by the most important person in the world, my wife!
