19 November 2018-halfway Livingstone

Today I’m celebrating my birthday. Thank you for your congratulations via Whatsapp, email and via this website.

Although we planned to stay another day in Eagles Rest we left this morning and now stand at a campground, The Moorings Farm & Campsite, at about 300 km northeast of Livingstone. The plan is to go there tomorrow and then to stay a few days, very decadent, in a lodge.

We found Eagles Rest nice but very hot. It was there 40 degrees with a tremendously high humidity. By the evening the wind was lying down and it was not actually unbearable. Before we could sleep we were 1-2 hours sweating. Last night there was a big thunderstorm storm with gusts and little rain. I had to leave the tent to put everything away; fortunately we were well sheltered.

We have surprised about our fellow guests at the campsite as well as the owners. Here was another form of colonialism that you only know from the booklets. For example, the dog of two, Southafricans, was called “Kaffer”. Also there were two men (locals) all day, in the burning sun, busy to wash the speedboats after which, the owners, sailed an hour. Then the cloths were put over it. After the storm, the campsite owner came to look at his, very old and rusty, boat that was skewed in the water, probably because of a leak. One of the local workers got shouted at that he had not seen this during the heavy storm last night and had to go bailing immediately, despite my input that there was hardly any rain (and he could not have done anything about it). No word whether we had endured the storm well….

The road to Livingstone is just moderate to bad with lots of potholes and freight traffic. Tomorrow it will be an hour or 5 drive but that’s OK. The campground is fine. We came across two, older, Swiss couples who have been pulling Africa for 30 months so stories to tell.