1976: Africa Pictures
Botswana
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While in Zambia we seized an opportunity to visit Parker Borg, who was the consul at the American Consulate in Lubumbashi in what was then Zaire. I had met Parker when he was attached to the American Consulate for Malaysia in the capital city, Kuala Lumpur, where I was a Peace Corps volunteer teaching in the local high school (in fact, we dated sisters there!).
There wasn't much to see in Lubumbashi, the second largest city in Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo), except the zoo, the finest in the country, which had a bird I had been hoping to see, a shoebill):
We arranged with Parker to go to the Okavango Delta, 5,800 square miles of swamps in Botswana, one of the few interior delta systems that does not flow into a sea or ocean. We traveled by canoe, and camped on the small islets scattered about. We saw lots of wildlife (including spiders, which our canoes constantly picked up).
Parker taking photos of hippos.
The biggest thrill of the trip was an encounter with a hippo. As we were canoeing along, we surprised a hippo about 50 yards ahead of us. It spotted us, dove under, and started charging after us, running along the shallow bottom - we could see its approach from the bow of water it raised. Our guide immediately turned our canoe towards the bank, and told us to row lile hell. We watched as the hippo roared past us, passing close by our stern. He missed us, but not by much. A close call. Did you know that hippos cause more human deaths than any other African animal?
From Okavango Delta we hitched to Victoria Falls, on the border between Zambia and Zimbabwe, on the Zambezi River:
the Victoria Falls is classified the largest, based on its combined width of 1,708 metres (5,604 ft) and height of 108 metres (354 ft), resulting in the world's largest sheet of falling water. The Victoria Falls are roughly twice the height of North America's Niagara Falls and well over twice its width.
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