Today we're supposed to drive back to Lusaka, except one (privileged) member of our party had a fit because we hadn't seen a roan antelope. Marjorie and I were damned if we were going off on a wild antelope chase, and we were tired anyway, so we hung around the lodge, where I got nice pictures of a collared sunbird and arrow-marked babblers.
When they returned, roan antelope still unobserved, amazingly, we still weren't ready to drive back to Lusaka. Instead, we drove back across the Kafue river, in the wrong direction, still looking for the roan antelope, which we (of course) didn't find. Did Her Highness ask if the rest of us wanted to do this? Did she ask if any of us cared any more than slightly about the roan antelope? Of course not. We were only her paying clients.
I did get a picture of warthogs, a cute picture, though I say so myself.
And spur-winged geese.
And a brown snake eagle.
And a wattled crane on her nest.
But still, it was after noon before we finally set off. The road was hazy from woodsmoke, which had me coughing like a consumptive. We stopped at the usual gas-station, hung around desultorily and aimlessly eating potato chips, and then back on the road.
By the time we hit the outskirts of Lusaka, about 5 pm, the traffic was heavy, but not impassable. How unexpected! So our genius guide, who apparently hates city traffic, decided to route around it. Way around it. He turned a 45 minute direct route (green track below) into a 3 hour by-pass (red track below), not avoiding traffic at all, of course, just making sure we endured a lot more of it, on crappier roads, in the dark. Since I had the GPS open, I gave our van a somewhat incredulous running commentary on this folly. One of the nastier members of the group, I'll call here Anna Bolix, said I was 'mansplaining'. She was very attached to our guide. I pointed out that the driver is a man, the guide is a man, so it's hardly mansplaining. Just geography-splaining.
