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Luangwa Valley Dispatch
By Jake da Motta
By the time this goes to press the Luangwa Valley mopping-up
operation will be almost over and the tour operators will have
stiff-upper-lipped their way forward, shouldering aside any talk of
disaster, ruin and deluge and rising above the flood waters and silt
with the same stoicism they have evolved in response to the constant
ravages of VAT inspections and shifting ZAWA goalposts. Last year it
was the ZMK that threatened to extinguish the industry, this year
the weather and next year perhaps locusts or a plague of boils, but
on they go cheerfully producing hospitality, once-in-a-lifetime
wildlife encounters and ever more sophisticated nouvelle cuisine
versions of nshima based cocktail snacks.
 In
early February the scene was Biblical and it was hard to believe the
industry would ever recover, let alone be ready for Easter. Dropping
out of the low cloud at 600 feet the old familiar sight of the
Valley was transformed into the Everglades. The normal course of the
river was clearly marked by the absence of trees but there were no
banks visible with the Luangwa 3km or more in width along much of
its course. Perennial grumblings that the riverine strip has been
developed at the exclusion of the local community were silent as
“The Flood” is a largely private sector affair. There was some
damage inland especially near the airport where the Msendele and
Lupande rivers broke their banks, joining across the flood plain and
displacing a few dozen families from their villages to temporary
grass huts on the road verges. The real drama for these people will
unfold as time goes by and the crops in the fields rot from rain and
standing water. Coupled with poor sanitation and wells being flooded
with the overflow from long-drop toilets, cholera has become a very
real threat. Some relief has already started and Mambwe district has
reportedly received K20 million, 22.5 tonnes of roller meal and 199
mosquito nets, so at least the beer brewing and fishing industries
will soon be back in action.
From the aircraft we struggled to pick out familiar landmarks in the
strange new landscape. Many of the rivers flowing in from the
western escarpment such as the Kapamba and Mansi were oddly benign,
with sandbars still showing whilst the main river and the eastern
tributaries were all over the place engulfing areas that one had
always imagined to be well above the danger zone. Chichele Lodge sat
safely on the hill looking down at the waters lapping around its
petticoats and Puku Ridge was for a spell a riverside venue where
the infinity pool really did go on for ever. As we approached
the bridge and main entrance to the park, it was a mind-boggling
water world below. The upstairs of Robin Pope’s house became the
camp HQ and powered by a pontoon mounted genset, was accessible only
by boat. Nearby termite mounds harboured small mixed bags of game
drawn into close confines to escape the rising waters. Kapani Lodge
finally answered the question of “location…why?” posed so often to
Norman Carr and sitting relatively high and dry on the banks of a
lagoon became a luxury refugee camp for beleaguered operators.
Norman’s former house also remained vital inches above the high tide
mark……..further evidence of his wisdom in understanding that the
best place for water to be was in a tin cup with his whisky and not
his bedroom.
 Flatdogs
Camp looked like a scene from Hurricane Katrina, but for the absence
of a family of Cajuns and a couple of hogs sitting on the tin roofs.
The fleet of Cruisers, many stripped down to the chassis for annual
servicing, was submerged and nowhere to be seen and the 3 tonne
truck placed on a scrap of high turf, and moored to a chalet by
ropes bobbed forlornly in the current. Shareholder-managers Ade and
Jess, like most Luangwa residents, put everything in the office and
houses up at chest height when they thought the water had almost
spent itself reaching the slabs of the buildings. Twenty four hours
later they had to remove the air-conditioner and swim in through the
hole in the wall to rescue the computers!
There were no cell or radio-phone comms at this end of the Valley
for weeks as the switching gear in the climate controlled
air-conditioned room at the foot of the mast became part of Mfuwe
Lagoon. ZAWA broke through sections of the road that runs past Mfuwe
Lodge which acted as a dam and though this equalised the water level
and prevented it rising above the chalets’ eaves. It also
added a month to the date at which the park roads were serviceable
again. During the height of the floods, the off-ramp of the bridge
disappeared into a small Niagara by the NPWS Monument 300m from the
span. On this island a herd of impala and other assorted buck were
whittled away by the crocodiles.
The wildlife losses are literally incalculable but over the whole
Luangwa basin will run into the thousands for creatures great and
much higher for creatures small. In 1959, Operation Noah saved some
7000 animals from the manmade flood caused by the building of Kariba
Dam and if the figures for species rescued reflect their
susceptibility to being cut off by rising waters and subsequent
drowning then the antelope will have been hardest hit in the Luangwa
floods with Impala (many of which were only 4 months old)
territorial Puku and Bushbuck taking heavy losses. Warthog, Aardvark
and Hyena (all burrow dwellers) will have been caught by the fast
rising waters and young elephant and hippo will also have been less
likely to navigate escape with their parents who are stronger
swimmers.
Whilst scaremongering and sensationalism are never responsible
reporting, the true picture lies somewhere between high-drama tales
of trees festooned with deadly snakes and crocodiles snatching
marooned buck from termite mounds …..and the “Jolly-Hockey-Sticks
-Oh Wot a Luvverly Flood” spin to be found on some operators’
websites; the inland equivalent of reporting the Tsunami as a
“Super surfing opportunity not to be missed!!” Perhaps the
season formerly known as “Wet” which was euphemistically renamed
“Emerald” to make it more palatable to punters should temporarily be
called the Beige Season whilst everything is still covered in s**t?
The private operators have a long history of “making do” with
limited resources and little infrastructure and the lodges are
almost back on their feet, despite a scare on March 3rd a
month after the first flood, when the waters threatened to engulf
the camps for a second time and expunge all the cleanup work that
had been achieved. Nevertheless they beat on and before too many
more weeks have passed “The Flood” will be etched in campfire
folklore and a source of many entertaining tales of derring-do….a
high water mark on the psyche of an industry weaned on adversity.
The real question mark for tourism now is how ZAWA and GRZ
Ministries clean up their act. Whilst the private sector
haggles with insurance claims adjustors, ZAWA has to go back to the
negotiating table with donors and persuade them that they did in
fact spend the money they were given last year on building all
weather roads (of which little evidence was seen) and now need it
all over again as the roads and budgets have conveniently
disappeared. China Geo, the company that made such a great job of
reinventing the Chipata-Mfuwe road last year, are sitting idle a
mere 120 kms away with enough plant and know-how to restore and
improve the Park road network for a few hundred thousand USD.
Meanwhile ZAWA try to convince the donors to hand over the funds to
do it “in-house” with a fleet of machines that are mostly
unserviceable. The donor money and the private expertise are out
there; putting the two together and getting the job done fast
without the bureaucrats brokering the deal and constipating the
whole process, is what will make the difference between recovery, or
a season of lost tax revenue for GRZ.
DO NOT write off the Luangwa Valley as a holiday destination this
year!
The operators will make the season happen. The wildlife is already
re-colonising the rich new pastures and the transformation in the
course of the river, the myriad new lagoons and the results of
Mother Nature’s clean sweep with a large wet mop will be well worth
the visit.
Photos by
Jake da Motta |
April
2007