In the early hours of the morning, when it is still dark and the cock begins to crow I slowly surfaced to hear the rural sounds of Mwani, the place we were camping. I could also hear the cockerel; and the ducks quacking, geese honking; dogs barking and howling; the sounds of repetitive singing by women; a lone cow mooing and in the distance the cries of wild birds. There was one indiscernible sound that sounded part donkey and part engine starting up; we would only get an explanation later about what it was. It was the hippo.

The night before we had managed to put some food together; previously cooked mince and rice which we warmed up over gas as we thought we could not make fires here. I managed to get everything done while Derek set up the tent. We nicknamed Derek the weaver bird because he gets the ‘nest’ ready and hopes it is to my liking. We had been very tired from the long stressful day in many respects: loosing contact with Derek, the border crossing and finding somewhere to stay.

It turned out that we were staying with the chief’s firstborn son who was Prince Sibeso. He was impressively tall compared to the many that we had met so far. We think he had been educated in a foreign land as many of his family before him. We were very grateful to the kindness he showed us in taking us in so late. He struck us as a gentle and humble person.

As it got light we could see that it was a beautiful place. Before we left we explored the surroundings.

We were right on the banks of the Zambezi river.

The view across was stunning.

There were men on the river in boats.

The houses Sibeso was building were really big and right on the river bank. There were many insects and other life; spiders, wasps, miggies and mosquitoes, flies, and geckos. The spiders nests were huge. In the morning as we walked around we could see that the palm trees were host to many spider nests and were covered in cobwebs to such an extent that it looked like mold growing on the trees. There were three spiders in the bathroom! But I had come to appreciate that spiders are my friends and that they catch the thousands of mosquitoes and miggies.

I would have liked to get to know Sibeso better but we were off to an early start. We hoped to find Cubu cabins. The road was truly awful and it took us much longer to get there than it should have. About half way there we noticed two cars with South African registrations pass us at 120km/hour. Derek commented that they were driving like cowboys. We then figured out that we could follow behind them at that same speed as we could see when they dodged potholes and slowed down. I mentioned that the stretch that they drove was ‘pot-hole-less’. So we were lucky to follow them. It was actually less stressful.

We were saying that they either knew the road well or were totally reckless. We got to meet them at the end of the day at Cubu cabins. They said they were first timers like us but they came from Lady Smith in Natal. I decided that maybe they were used to roads like that there. I was happy to find Cubu Cabins. Soon I will tell you about Cubu Cabins and Victoria Falls.

Take care – and enjoy life.

If you want to read the other posts from this series you can check them out here:

 

If you want to know more about our first part of the journey through the Northern Cape before we left South Africa you can find all the links here:

Scenes of the North Western Cape, en-route.

Here is where you can find all the links for the tip through Namibia
An African Road Trip: Namibia 2013

Southern Zambia:

An eventful day in the Africa, 2013

Prince Sibeso at Zambezi River.

Visiting Victoria Falls.

Camping with Crocodiles

From Livingstone to Monze

Traveling Sucks! Is what I said.

Malawi Border-crossing.