A Christmas Journey

It would be nice to think that there is a clear, bubbling spring flowing out strongly between fern draped rocks at the source of the Zambezi River, but it is not so at all. In the gloom of the high forest, water seeps out from numerous localities between the roots of the great trees and from under a carpet of leaf litter to gather here and there in little boggy pools, which coalesce in time to form a meandering stream overhung by vines and tangled vegetation. In pouring rain, wet boots and soaked to the skin we briefly examined this dismal place before setting off downstream on our Christmas journey. The date was December 13th, 1965 and I was home in Zambia on vacation from university.

A few months earlier I had managed to persuade a like-minded friend at university, Mike Kennedy, that it would be an interesting trip - to follow the course of the Zambezi from its source to its mouth. It wasn't exactly a novel idea; there were a number of expeditions around that time of which I was aware. However, I was pretty sure from our impecunious state that it might qualify as the lowest budget expedition ever attempted. Because we were so poor, there was no need for any fancy planning either. I knew from experience that expeditions with big plans also had big budgets. In fact, our plan was simplicity itself - we would live off the land, and progress down river by whatever means presented itself. If there was any plan at all it was that we would split the river into two parts - the source to Victoria Falls one year, and from the Falls to the mouth the next. We chose the worst possible time of year to do it, the rainy season, because the university Christmas vacation was the longest of the three vacations and we estimated we would need at least two months for each of the two sections.

Dave and I both carried a rucksack with a few personal effects, a sleeping bag and as much food as we could carry. Mike, being the biggest and strongest, also carried the tent. The third member of our expedition, Uci (pronounced Oochi and meaning honey), my Yellow Labrador, had her rock climbing harness modified to carry two saddlebags in which were stowed her blanket, plate, dried meat and a bit of maize meal. This was the motley crew that set off through the dripping forest following the line of the river. The going was simply appalling - rain dribbled down all day, the path was soft and muddy, and often overhung with wet grass and drooping branches. Despite these obstacles, however, we were fresh on the trail that first day and made reasonably good progress. Occasionally during the course of the day we heard the river we were following when it gurgled through a tangle of fallen trees or splashed against some other obstacle, but we never saw it - the bush around it was too thick and wet for that. In fact, it was not until the next morning, after a miserably wet night in the tent, that we saw the Zambezi for the first time when we went down to fill our water bottles. It was already a very impressive stream.

Before the fledgling river swings south-west to cross into Angola it disconcertingly flows due north from its source for the first thirty miles or so, as if on its way to the Congo. And when we discovered that the going was easier if we were well away from the river, we decided half way through the second day to cut across the great northern loop by heading due west away from the river. We camped on the second night a little north of Kaleni Hill, the site of one of the oldest mission stations in Zambia, and the following morning, picked up the little track that runs from Kaleni Hill to the Angola border. This we followed to the point where it crosses the Zambezi, now heading south-west. Had we continued along the track we would have come to the official Angola border post at Jimbe Bridge. However, since we had no intention of passing through any border posts, we turned off the track and followed the Zambezi westward into Angola.

In applying for Angola visas we had noted that we would be on foot following the general course of the Zambezi and may inadvertently enter Angola without passing a border post. The only requirement of our visas was to report to the Chief of Police in Cazombo, the principal town of the region. The war of independence was then in progress in Angola and the country was in turmoil, although we saw nothing of it. We feared that if we had arrived at a very minor border post, we may have been turned back by overzealous officials. On the other hand, if we reported to the Chief of Police in Cazombo some 100 miles further on down river and he didn't like our presence there, he could do little about it except send us packing down river into Zambia again, exactly where we wanted to go. That's why we used a bit of skulduggery to sneak unnoticed into Angola.

On the evening of the very long fourth day's march, we camped on the bank in a lovely setting overlooking a long sweep of the river. By now the river was broad and swift with huge trees crowding the banks - an amazing transformation in such a short distance. There were hippos in the river here and crocodiles, too. While we were cooking our supper, a fisherman came past in his dugout canoe and I hailed him. He came ashore and to our great relief confirmed that we were in Angola. Speaking in English I asked him if it would be possible to hire a canoe to take us down river. He was a little hesitant until I held out a 12 bore shot-gun cartridge. As I expected, he changed his mind immediately and said he would personally take us two days down river for two cartridges. Cheerfully, he took his leave saying he would be back early in the morning, and we got on with our cooking.

I had learned in Zambia that in the bush, shot-gun cartridges were worth far more than their face value. Guns were strictly controlled in the colonial period, although a few of the older village hunters were allowed to keep shot guns. Cartridges could only be purchased from designated outlets and then only with a licence, conditions that could seldom be met by those living hundreds of miles away from major centres. Thinking, correctly as it turned out, that conditions in remote parts of Angola would be the same as in remote parts of Zambia, I had packed a box of 24 cartridges in my rucksack.

For the first time, we were able to sleep out in the open that night because it wasn't raining. We were already sick of the soggy tent and its wet dog smell - sleeping out was a luxury. From then on, we always put the tent up at night, but slept outside round the fire. If it rained during the night, which it often did, we quickly piled up the fire and dived for cover in the tent. When the storm was over we were out again in a flash to sleep around the fire. The white-ants (termites) in those high rainfall areas were the most veracious I have ever come across. After only three nights out, the tarpaulin on which the tent stood was badly damaged and the din of their gnawing, and the strange shivering noise they make when disturbed, kept us awake at night. Henceforth we laid down a thick carpet of branches and grass on which to pitch the tent and lay our sleeping bags and rucksacks.

When we settled down to sleep that night under a clear and starry sky after a hearty supper, we were completely unaware that the worst of our Christmas journey was already behind us. We were less than a hundred miles from the source of the Zambezi. In a relay of dugout canoes, paid for by shot-gun cartridges and speeded by the swiftly flowing current, we arrived in Cazombo three days later. On the way, there were numerous rapids and small falls, but none presented any serious problems to our navigators - they knew exactly the right line to take through each negotiable rapid. And when an impossible rapid showed up, and there were at least two of them, a well-oiled and time-honoured drill clicked into place. The skipper would pull into the bank and start shouting at the wall of trees lining the river. Within minutes people arrived on the bank from an unseen village. There followed a babble of introductions and negotiations. A new skipper was quickly identified and our rucksacks, and even Uci's saddlebags, were heaved out of the dugout and fought over by little boys. The squabbling boys set off at once with our baggage down the footpath that skirted the un-navigable cataract, we said goodbye to our old skipper, introduced ourselves to our new skipper and followed him in single file to a new dugout moored below the fall. No money ever changed hands during these transfers. Our one cartridge payment for a day's ride was always honoured and a day's ride was always interpreted as non-stop, dawn to dusk.

On a few occasions we tried to use cartridges to buy provisions like fresh tomatoes, maize cobs, fish and chickens from the villagers along the way, but it was like walking into a flee-market with a wallet full of five hundred pound notes. Nobody had ever seen that much money, nor did anybody have enough change for such a transaction. We were forced to dip into our meagre cash reserves and the price we paid in cash was often more than the face value of a single cartridge. The currency we used was the English pound, or at least its colonial equivalent - Zambia was only 14 months into its independence and had not yet changed its currency. Because of the remoteness of eastern Angola from its maritime heartland on the Atlantic coast and its proximity to Zambia in the heart of the continent, the pound was the preferred currency and English, not Portuguese, was the preferred language of business in the area through which we travelled.

In our rucksacks we carried little bags of 'coppers' and 'tickeys'. The 'copper' or penny was traded far and wide over the whole of central Africa. It had a hole in the middle, so you could wear it as jewellery round your neck if you were that way inclined. The 'tickey' was a small silver coin worth three 'coppers'. On one face of the 'tickey' were three, vertically pointed, parallel spears (the Queen was on the other). These two coins were the main currency for minor transactions in the upper Zambezi basin of Angola. As we progressed southward towards Cazombo, however, there was a gradual and mysterious transformation in both the currency of trade and the language of its transaction. The South African Rand and cent replaced the 'copper' and 'tickey' and 'chilapalapa', the language of the Witwatersrand gold mines, replaced English as the language of trade. It transpired that this vast region of Angola was an important catchment area for Wenela, the Witwatersrand Native Labour Association, and the Zambezi and its tributaries formed the highways along which contract labour was transported to and from the mines in distant South Africa. Unknown to us, we had stumbled into this amazing transport web the moment we entered Angola.

Cazombo, set on a high bluff on the east bank of the Zambezi, was a pretty little Portuguese settlement. The British built colonial settlements, were uniquely British, but resembled nothing in Britain. The Portuguese, on the other hand, built settlements in their colonies that architecturally resembled the rural towns in Portugal. Cazombo, the centre of a small coffee growing district, was one of them. For us the most important attribute of Cazombo was the discovery that it was home to the most northerly Wenela office on the Zambezi. The Wenela manager in Cazombo was an Englishman. We were fortunate enough to meet him in town on the afternoon we arrived by canoe from the north and he invited us to stay with him. He arranged for us to travel down river the next day in one of his diesel boats.

It was an uncomfortable and cramped two day journey to the Zambian border. The boats travelled for ten hours a day with very few stops. And because they had no canopies in Angola, we were repeatedly drenched in the rain or cooked in the sun. From Cazombo to the border the river grows rapidly in stature as many major tributaries join the Zambezi in this region. At Camboe, half way to the border, we passed under the last bridge on the Zambezi before the Victoria Falls. It was a lovely old, six span, stone arch, structure. With our fellow travellers we walked across the border at Chepena and immediately joined another Wenela barge which took us past the mission at Chavuma, the first Zambian town of any substance, and on to a point above the Chavuma falls where Wenela maintained a major staging camp. The falls are, in fact, no more than a rocky narrowing of the river causing the river to back up and shoot down dramatically, without significant turbulence, through the narrows. Below the falls, Wenela maintained a harbour where all manner of craft were tied up. For the next 250 miles the Zambezi was navigable as it snaked its way across the vast Barotse floodplain.

In Zambia, the Wenela boats were very large Barotse barges driven by an inboard diesel engine. There were bench seats at intervals along the barge with a canvas roof stretched over a hardwood frame to protect the passengers from the worst of the sun and rain; otherwise they were open to the elements. Some of the luggage was stowed on the roof; other parcels, bicycles and suitcases were lashed to the roof supports along both sides. Southbound barges went at a terrific clip steering down the centre of the river in the main current. Northbound barges, by contrast, crawled slowly along the reed-fringed bank in a cloud of black diesel fumes, seeking out the slacker currents.

On our way down the river to Mongu, we passed dozens and dozens of craft similar to our own, heading north. The northbound barges were loaded down with new goods like bicycles, radios, beds and other paraphernalia, the very purpose for which the men had gone south on contract in the first place. Those going north laughed out loud and shouted jokes and obscenities in 'chilapalapa', to the silent, south bound, rookies with whom we travelled. At our night stops, we talked at length to the recruiting agents and some of the recruits and were amazed at the incredible organisation. Whilst contracted to the mines, half the miner's monthly salary was returned via the Wenela network to his family. This was an enormous source of foreign currency for the country as well as being by far the biggest contributor to the GDP of these otherwise very poor regions. Only a few years after our visit, Wenela ceased operating in Zambia because the Government claimed it was degrading for the workers to have to take contract work in a foreign country. To this day the people lament the loss of Wenela and despise the Government that took it from them.

Three days after leaving Chavuma, we found ourselves nosing into the busy little harbour below the bluff at Mongu. It was mid afternoon on Christmas eve. The harbour was as much a market as a safe mooring for boats. Every imaginable type of water craft from elegant white launches to dugout canoes were jammed into the bowl of the harbour and all around the bowl in a seething mass of humanity were flimsy grass market stalls, bales of fish, sacks of maize, herds of goats, cattle and cooking fires. With no space available for our barge to moor on the bank, we were forced to disembark by clambering over two similar craft lying alongside our own, humping our back packs behind us.

Approaching Mongu along the canal that connects it to the main river, we had noticed a large, prominent, white house on the bluff high above the harbour and decided that, because Wenela were not running barges over the Christmas holiday, we would throw ourselves on the mercy of the occupants. In the clamour of the churning market I clipped on Uci's saddle bags before we hefted our rucksacks onto our backs and set off up the steep incline through the trees. At the top of the bluff, we hopped over a little, white, wicker fence that separated the bush on the steep slope of the bluff from a sweep of manicured lawns and flowerbeds that lay beyond. Mike, who was always rather shy, hesitated and began to hang back when he saw the dozens of people gathered on the verandah of the imposing white house and under the trees nearby. Uci, who was anything but shy, pressed on ahead of me.

I whispered words of encouragement to Mike, judging it to be too late to bolt down the hill again now that we had made such a dramatic entry and so many eyes were fixed upon us. In an ever extending, straggling line led by Uci, we advanced across the lawns with my mouth opening wider in astonishment as I went. We were walking, uninvited and looking like tramps, straight into an English, summer, garden party. Everybody was dressed casually, but not too casually, if you see what I mean? Waiters in white uniforms passed easily amongst the guests who were seated at tables scattered around the garden wherever there was sufficient shade. A police band played soft music from a stand under an isolated jacaranda tree. It was pure Empire.

A matronly lady detached herself from a nearby group and advanced quickly towards me as if determined to keep me at arms lengths from the rest of the guests. Uci, looking idiotic in her climbing harness and saddlebags and lacking human reserve, veered off to the nearest table seeking sustenance. Mike stopped short ten yards behind me.

'Can I help you?' she asked, coldly.

'I'm awfully sorry to barge in like this,' I replied. 'We're university students on a trip down the Zambezi. We've just been dropped off in the harbour. We're looking for a place where we can camp over the Christmas holiday.'

'Have you just come through Angola?' she asked, warming to my explanation.

'Yes,' I said. 'We arrived in Chavuma three days ago.'

'Good grief,' she exclaimed. 'You must meet my husband. And, yes, of course we can find somewhere for you to camp.'

Momentarily she was confused, trapped in the dilemma of wanting to help, but not wanting tramps amongst her guests. However, she quickly recovered and said, 'Come and meet my daughters.'

We were led across the lawn to a table where there were no less than four young ladies of our own generation, accompanied by a single man. This would have been an astonishing sight in the capital let alone in Mongu. 'Emily,' said our hostess as we arrived at the table. 'These young men are university students on a trip down the Zambezi and looking for a place to camp. Can you look after them with tea and food while I call Daddy.'

There were introductions all round, our rucksacks were thrown down onto the grass, Uci was brought under control and divested of her load, servants brought chairs and we sat down. Within minutes we had established that Emily and her sister were the daughters of the Provincial Commissioner, occupier of the white house, who were at university in England and who had come out to visit their parents for Christmas bringing two girl friends with them. The only gentleman at the table was the local police officer who had never had it so good and was grinning from ear to ear like a Cheshire cat. The Christmas eve garden party was a traditional affair to which all members of the government were invited. The fact that most were white people was because independence was only a year old and it took many years to replace the colonial administrators with local ones.

Mike Kennedy was a big, strong and shy man; virtues that attracted women to him like flies, even if he did sometimes look like a tramp. These were saving attributes for us on the Zambezi journey, but never more so than in Mongu.

'There's no way you're going to camp,' said Emily, eyeing Mike. 'Our guest cottage is free and we've got all sorts of parties planned. You're staying as my guests.'

That was that. We were taken to the sumptuous guest cottage where we washed and brushed up as best we could before returning to the lawns. There we met the PC and told him of our journey down river. He was particularly interested in Uci.

'I know she's a walking dog,' he said, attempting a joke. 'But is she a working dog?'

'Oh, yes, she's very much a working dog.'

'Would she be able to accompany us on our annual Boxing Day duck shoot?'

'Sure,' I said. 'I'd love to bring her along.'

That immediately earned us promotion from Emily's guests to guests of the family and we embarked on a two-day Christmas binge, which will remain in my memory for ever. There were fancy dress parties, dances, picnics, duck shoots and barbecues in a seemingly endless succession, too numerous and eventful to do justice to here.

We had very nearly been persuaded to stay over until New Year when at a Boxing day barbecue we learned that our police officer friend was planning to visit Senanga one hundred miles down-river the next day in the police launch. It was too good an opportunity to miss and we reluctantly took leave of all our new friends in Mongu and set off early in the morning for Senanga. Emily and her friends came along for the ride, clutching baskets of left-over Christmas fare.

And what a ride it was. In the early morning mist we burbled slowly down the winding canal to prevent wake damage, but once out into the main stream our launch flew down the river, slowing only to pass fishing canoes and Wenela barges. On deck we drank champagne and nibbled cheese biscuits and mince pies. At midday we arrived in Senanga a little tipsy, and reluctantly bade farewell to the boat party before plodding off along the muddy street in search of the local Wenela agent. We found him without too much difficulty and arranged a passage the next day to Sioma Falls, which marked the end of the river journey for Wenela recruits who were trucked from Sioma to Katima Mulilo before flying to Johannesburg.

Throughout Angola and all the way through the Barotse floodplain we had seen very little game other than the ubiquitous hippos and crocodiles. After Senanga, however, game became increasingly abundant along the banks of the river. We saw herds of buffalo, impala, waterbuck and zebra. The journey from Senanga to Sioma Falls was completed in a single long day and ended just above the falls on the west bank of the river where Wenela maintained another very impressive transit camp. We said goodbye to our Wenela friends and walked round to the foot of the falls where we found a beautiful, white sand bank to camp on.

In the morning we explored the Sioma falls. Although not nearly as well known as Victoria Falls, they are, nevertheless, equally spectacular, mainly because of the manner of their formation. In a by-gone era a vast slab of hard basalt was laid down over an underlying softer rock and over this bed of basalt the Zambezi now flows. Immediately above the falls the river is very similar to the river above the Victoria Falls, miles wide and dotted with verdant islands, but there the similarity ends. Whereas at Victoria falls the water plunges into chasms created by fault lines in a great depth of basalt, at Sioma the depth of basalt is not great and the water pouring over the edge undermines the soft rock below causing slabs to overhang and eventually break off and fall.

The mechanics of this process have created an enormous horseshoe fall pouring water into a single, dashing gorge below. Around the periphery of the great outer horseshoe, the same processes have contrived to create lesser horseshoes and within the lesser horseshoes, lesser ones again, and so on. Because these lesser horseshoe falls are imbedded in larger falls, it is impossible to stand anywhere at Sioma and see the wonder of the whole fall. Far from it, you will be lucky to see one full horseshoe and get a tantalising glimpse of parts of one or two others from one place. No, the beauty of Sioma is that no horseshoe is similar to any other and each is a unique gem in itself. By moving about between vantage points, which is not at all easy, it is possible get breath-taking views of probably the most exquisite sight on the whole of the Zambezi.

After our inspection of the falls, Mike and I tramped along the road that followed the west bank to get round the gorge below the falls and once clear of it, took to the water again in hired dugout canoes plus one or two short marches round rapid sections. Four days after leaving Mongu we were in Katima Mulilo. And what a splendid little place it was in those days. Unlike now, Katima was all one town with the border (Namibia/Zambia) bisecting it, marked only by concrete bollards on either side of the one and only street. Shops, stores and warehouses lined only one side of the street, the one looking out over the river. The border bisecting the town was of no consequence then; people came and went as they pleased. The part of town in Namibia, extended along the riverbank a great deal further than the part in Zambia.

Led by Uci, we walked along the full length of the Katima street in search of the headquarters of the local logging company and found it at the far end. The buildings are still standing there today, including the world famous flush loo in the baobab tree, which was then located in the grounds of the local police officer's house. Beyond and behind the loo, where the modern Katima sprawls, there was nothing.

In Mongu we had heard that there were frequent barges carrying timber from Katima to Mambova rapids, a mere 50 miles from our destination, Victoria Falls. Dusk was gathering when we found the house of the timber company manager and explained our cause. Once again, presumably because we were such an unusual trio, we were treated royally. The barge, he explained, travelled at night and was now readying to leave. He dispatched a runner to delay its departure and insisted that we have a bath, beer and supper with him before he personally escorted us on board.

On the barge, we laid out our sleeping bags and Uci's blanket on top of the balks of timber. Moments later, the huge craft pushed out into the current and we were off. Later in the evening, talking to the skipper at the helm, we heard why they preferred to run at night. During the day time, he explained, there was normally a contrary wind which, apart from creating steering difficulties with such a large and ungainly craft, ruffled the water and obscured the tell-tale signs of shifting sand banks that revealed themselves only by the tiniest little ripples and eddies on the water surface. At night with his powerful spotlight and no wind, he could 'read' the river a lot easier than he could in the daylight hours. Looking down the beam of his spotlight it was easy to see what he meant because, not only were there ripples over the sand banks, which became doubly pronounced in the reflected light, but the proximity of the white sand below the ripples resulted in much more light being reflected back from shallow areas than from the deep.

We slept soundly that night despite the roar of the diesel engines and woke to the shouts and laughter of the offloading crews scampering around us at Mambova in the early dawn. Taking the barge skipper's advice from the night before, we sought out a certain gentleman in Mambova who provided canoe services from below Mambova rapids, in relays between other rapids, to Victoria Falls. His prices were outrageous in comparison to those we were accustomed to paying higher up the river, but we paid anyway because we were so far inside budget it made no difference. We spent a day at the Victoria Falls and hitchhiked home to Lusaka on New Years eve. That night at the annual New Years eve dance at the club, Mike and I could hardly believe what had happened. Our planned eight-week ordeal had been completed in a mere 17 days and, apart from the first four grim days tramping in the rain, had been an easy and comfortable ride, including an unforgettable two-day Christmas stopover in Mongu.

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to finish the journey with Mike the following Christmas, but finished it partly with the help of others and partly alone in the dry season of '67 – but that’s another story.