Day 5, July 29: Kafue National Park

At 5:30 AM outside Mukambi Safari Lodge it was 11°C (52°F). We were all bundled up to an extent for the boat crossing of the Kafue River, and boarding the elevated, open Land-Rovers for the drive, but it rapidly became clear as we started moving that it was indeed very cold out. Fortunately the lodge had supplied each of us with a fur-lined poncho, which covered all but our faces. If you reached for binoculars, your hands froze up pretty quickly, though. The sky was crystal clear, though the smell and haze from burning wood-smoke were eye-watering and throat-hurting. Still, wildlife...

This was the first day I was out, and I was still getting used to my big 200 - 800 mm telephoto, so the phots are not as good as they will subsequently be. Still, there they are....

An impala

A spotted hyena.

A kudu, with an oxpecker grooming him.

Bennett's woodpecker.

A part of little bee-eaters. Pure cuteness. 

A pretty greater blue-eared starling.

An African grey hornbill. Better photos later...

Black-collared barbets

And a great shot of the ubiquitous gray go-away bird.

One of my bucket list birds, the hoopoe (African subspecies).

Another bee-eater, the swallow-tailed...

Red-breasted swallows

Smith's bush squirrel

A male Arnot's chat.

The ever-weird white-crested helmetshrike

And its cousin, Retz's helmetshrike

The gorgeous, or gaudy, lilac-breasted roller

Miombo scrub-robin

A male puku

White-fronted bee-eaters.

A female yellow bishop. Tough ID (lots of females in this family look the same, but another crappier photo picks up the yellow in her shoulder.

Rattling cisticola

A female puku.

And finally, returning after dark, the savannah hare.

Day 4, July 28: Kafue National Park

 An infuriating morning. We were supposed to leave for Kafue National Park at 9 a.m., except only one minivan arrived, instated of the contracted two. The other had gotten a flat and eventually turned up at 11:30.  We piled into it, without lunch, and took off for the 5 hour drive, nourished only by some potato chips we bought at a rest-stop on the way.

On arrival, we had a quick lunch, followed by a sunset boat ride up the Kafue River that was spectacular. The highlights....A hippo....

...a rather small Nile crocodile...

...a white-breasted cormorant...

...and a giant kingfisher.

An African pied wagtail, perched on a stump in the river

A half-collared kingfisher (we also saw a malachite kingfisher) 

And a squacco heron

and a Hadada ibis

African jacana, with its enormous feet, evolved to walk on lily-pads...

...and its smaller cousin, the lesser jacana...

A saddlebill stork and a heron

A grey-headed gull.

Day 3, July 27: Dubai to Lusaka

 Up early to look for bulbuls. And I got both of the local ones!

This one is the white-cheeked bulbul, but I like to call him Abdullah Bulbul Ameer

And this is our old favorite red-vented bulbul, not exposing his red vent. I mean, how would you like to be known by the color of your excretory area?

And the common myna

My wife, of course, insisted we leave far too early for the airport, so we missed the very nice hotel breakfast, and instead squeezed into a cafe in terminal 3 and ate horrible food. And waited for two hours, because, of course, we were indeed far too early. You’d think she'd learn I am always right. Well, so often right it should be a presumption. 

In any case, we got off, eventually, about 10 am, to Lusaka. The usual great Emirates flight. 

Someone from Wild Dogs Lodge was waiting for us at the airport when we arrived at 2:30, and immigration and customs were a whiz, so we completed the ½ hour drive to the lodge at 3:30 pm. Lusaka looked poor but not destitute, and carefully scrubbed school-kids were walking home from school. 

But Wild Dogs camp itself was wonderful.

This was our cabin. A bit spartan, but fine.

After slugging down some coffee, we looked at some birds around the swimming pool.

A red-eyed dove

A copper sunbird

A brown-headed kingfisher

A very shy blue waxbill

A northern grey headed sparrow.

A red-bellied fire finch

A female village weaver

...and the inevitable fork-tailed drongo.

A female village indigo bird

Also variable sunbird, scarlet chested sunbird, yellow-vented bulbul (dark-capped bulbul), little beeeater, housewren, bronze mannikin, brown-hooded kingfisher, African yellow white-eye.

Day 2, July 26: Top of the World

 I dutifully got up at 5:30 am local, body clock totally scrambled, in search of hoopoes at Dubai Creek Park. where the security guard said he couldn't admit me until 8 am. But on the way to the park there were grumpy-looking common mynas,

...as well as red-vented and white cheeked bulbuls and palm doves.

After a pretty decent breakfast at the hotel, which lacked only bacon, we headed out on the metro, two changes and 8 stops to the Dubai Mall and Burj Khalifa.

The metro itself was clean, cool, fast, and driverless.

We walked about ½ mile through air-conditioned walkways to the Dubai Mall, which was absolutely stunning. At least 5 levels, and so huge one could spend one's life there. One never even had to break the 40°C air outside. I even found a store that carried the Canon EH-R adaptor I'd forgotten to bring. It was 6 times the online price, but beggars can't be choosers.

The Burj itself was, well, very tall, and quite vertiginous. The view over Dubai and the Persian Gulf from the 153rd floor was limited only by the haze.

After lunch, and a short but searing walk to a pharmacy to get Marjorie more bandages, we took a time-zone induced nap, then went to the roof of the hotel to enjoy the view and the sunset.

The Burj is off in the distance, center left.

And this is the Dubai Frame, framing the docks and the Gulf in the sunset.

Another day!

Day 1, July 25: Limbo

 Emirates treat you pretty well in business class. The food is good, the attendants thoughtful. But, alas, the pilot controls the window shades, and he rolled them down at take off and 11 hours later hasn't rolled them back up. When you have my degree of claustrophobia, this is unpleasant, even on a big airplane like this 777.

But our delightful flight-attendant unlocked our windows, and we've been flying over Syria and Iraq, a big salt lake, and I wonder, what fool would go to war over that shite?

Most of the proximal part of our journey was over Iran, so we just hoped it wasn't a good time for the mullahs to do anything geopolitical. But we landed after crossing the gulf, got some dirhams at Dubai's huge glitzy airport, and found a taxi to take us to the Hyatt Regency Dubai Creek Heights. Very nice.

Except Marjorie had sliced open her hand with a mandoline, just before we left, and it started to bleed, so we found the emergency room at the American Hospital, maybe 150 m from our hotel, where an obliging Canadian doctor stitched her up and gave her antibiotics, for a price of course, but as the cashier said, a price less than we would have paid in the US. excerpt we have insurance in the US. 

It was midnight before we hit the sack.

Day 0, July 24: Orlando Airport

 I mapped out the Great Circle route from Orlando to Abu Dhabi. Disappointingly, it's not over Africa, but over the British Isles, Northern and Eastern Europe, Turkey, Iraq, and down the Gulf.

Day 0 was not inordinately grim. Our cheap off-airport parking came with an overcrowded shuttle (14 people in a minivan). The security lines at Terminal C in Orlando were moderate (25 minutes) and we got to use the airline lounge, with free rot-gut liquor.

Indians being annoying on airplanes.

I’ve never had recourse to a wheelchair to board an airplane. Once, American Airlines sent a wheelchair to meet me, in London I think it was, but that was because they had misread my wish for a vegetarian meal ("v") for a wheelchair (“w”). The British gate agents thought it was hilarious, but that was likely because they didn’t like American Airlines very much. AA also tried to feed me Salisbury steak, which looked like cheap steak stomped on by someone wearing football cleats. Did not eat.

So, waiting for our Emirates flight to Dubai, this evening, we couldn’t help noticing that phalanxes of wheelchairs were lined up, each carrying a dusky citizen of the sub-continent. We’d previously seen many of said citizens gadding about the terminal, apparently sound of mind and body, but they expected to be conducted on board in a wheelchair. There were at least 24 of them. Here’s a picture.

What is this? I wondered. A sad explosion of polio among our Hindu friends? No. Apparently, it’s a new trend down there south of the Himalaya. Having discovered that it costs nothing to have one’s booty and baggage loaded on one’s flight by an attendant, dozens of them now opt for wheelchair-assisted embarkation. I suppose the scam is harmless, except that the rest of us pay for the cost of said assistance, and it takes forever to load them all on board. 

And it’s just one more recent instance of Indians being gratuitously annoying, though not, I suppose, as bad as that nasty little religious fanatic Narendra Modi ordering assassinations of his political enemies on our soil, or calling me up three times a day, trying to sell erection drugs. But annoying nonetheless. 

Stop being so annoying, Indians. There are a billion of you, I understand, so even if each of you is only a little annoying, the sum total is overwhelming. 

Africa: an overview

Well, of course it's an overambitious trip. First leg is to Dubai via Emirates Airlines. We stay 36 hours, mostly to see the Burj Khalifa and the Great Mosque. 

Then it's onto Lusaka, and various Zambian National Parks. 

Then to Harare, and Zimbabwean National Parks. 

Then to Victoria Falls, Cape Town, and home via Newark.