Mike Resnick - Between the Sunlight and Thunder

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between the sunlight and the thunder

express permission of the author.

Like all my safari diaries, this one appeared originally in the Hugo-winning fanzine Lan's

Lantern.

by Mike Resnick

August 28, 1990: Between the bright sunlight of East Africa's safari countries, and the ominous

thunder coming out of the Republic of South Africa, there exist four nations: Zimbabwe,

Mozambique, Malawi, and Botswana. We had originally hoped to visit all four on this extended

safari, but Mozambique is in the throes of a brutal civil war, so we confined ourselves to the

other

three countries, where I would be researching Purgatory and Ophir, a pair of novels I'll be

writing in

the next couple of years, and hopefully coming up with some more ideas. This was a unique safari

for

us, in that we did not arrange to go with a single guide, as we always do in Kenya, nor did we

care to

join a package tour. Instead, we made a list of all the locations we wanted to see in all three

countries, then hunted up a travel agency (we found it, finally, in York, England) that was able

arrange our itinerary. The first step, as always, was the 8-hour flight to London, during which

time I

did my best not to feel bitter over losing the Hugo after leading for the first five ballots. I

didn't quite

pull it off.

August 29, 1990: We landed at Gatwick at seven in the morning, took a bus to Heathrow after

clearing customs, and waited around the airport for almost 12 hours for our 10-hour flight to

Zimbabwe to take off. I love Africa; it's the process of getting there that I hate.

August 30, 1990: We landed in Harare (formerly Salisbury), the capital of Zimbabwe (formerly

Rhodesia), and dragged our exhausted (formerly energetic) bodies to Meikles Hotel, a large, luxury

hotel in the city center right across from Cecil Square. While Carol took a nap, I went out

walking,

and found that there is an enormous difference between Harare and its Kenyan counterpart, Nairobi.

One gets the feeling that if the tourist industry vanished, 98% of the people you see in Nairobi

would

find themselves out of work; whereas if it vanished from Harare, no one would know the difference.

Which is a roundabout way of saying that Harare is a working city, with very little to interest

the

casual tourist. In fact, we soon came to realize that Zimbabwe is a working country. President

Robert

Mugabe continually gives lip service to communism, but it's a capitalist country from top to

bottom...and unlike most African countries, it works. The roads are all paved, the electricity

works

around the clock, the water is safe to drink, there are schools every couple of miles throughout

the

countryside, poachers have made almost no inroads in most of the game parks, and unemployment

doesn't seem to be much of a problem. In fact, I would say that Zimbabwe is as well-developed, and

runs as smoothly, as most Eastern European nations. I realize that doesn't sound like much, but

when

you compare it to Kenya or Tanzania or Zambia, it's a quantum leap forward. I signed copies of

Ivory and Paradise in a local bookstore, then returned to Meikles and changed for dinner. We ate

the Bagatelle, a 5-star dining room in the hotel, where, in a delightful twist, the proprietors

were black

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and the piano player was white.

August 31: When I checked out in the morning, I presented Meikles with a paid voucher -- which

they refused to accept. Evidently they had been paid in Zimbabwean dollars, and because the

country is so starved for hard currency, they have a law stating that all foreign travelers must

pay in

their own currency. So I very begrudgingly paid for my room for a second time, and made a mental

note to bill the travel agency. We had decided to begin our safari in Botswana (formerly

Bechuanaland)...but, because we would be flying around the country in 5-seaters with severe weight

limitations, we first flew to the Victoria Falls Hotel, where we left some of our luggage. The

hotel

itself is an old colonial structure that reminded me of some of the better British hotels in the

Brighton

area. We had seen a sign in the Victoria Falls airport telling us that we must report at least an

hour

early for international flights or run the risk of having our seats sold. Our flight to Botswana

was due

to leave at 2:30 in the afternoon, and the bus from the hotel didn't leave until 1:30. A number of

people who were taking the flight panicked, and began offering up to $100 to anyone who would

drive them to the airport and get them there by 1:30. Since the flight is scheduled three times a

week,

we figured that the hotel hadn't received any complaints about it, and waited for the bus. It got

there at about 2:00, and the Botswana plane didn't show up for another two hours (par for the

course, the flight attendant later admitted.) The flight to Maun, Botswana took perhaps an hour,

and

shortly thereafter we were ensconced in Riley's Hotel, which has a long and colorful history from

colonial times, but has become a rather dull hostelry in the middle of a rather dull town.

September 1: When I stopped by the desk to hand in my voucher, they announced that they had no

record of a previous payment, and I would have to pay for the room. At this point I hit the roof,

FAXed the travel agency in York, and raised bloody hell. They assured me that we would have no

further problems with our vouchers, and they were right (which is not to say that we had no

further

problems in other areas.) We went to the airport -- Maun consists of nothing but the airport,

three

gift shops, a few houses, a few huts, and Riley's -- and took our chartered 5-seater to Jedibe

Island

Camp, in the heart of the Okavango Delta, where, after more than 4 days, we finally stopped

traveling and started vacationing. Jedibe is a small island, with ten tents, two ablution blocks

euphemism for bathrooms, which consist of a toilet and a shower, surrounded by a rather shakey

reed fence and no roof), a bar, and a dining tent. It's run by Tony and Pam, a second- generation

Kenyan and Zambian, respectively, who migrated down to Okavango when their own countries got

too civilized, and there was only one other guest there when we arrived. If there is a better way

decompress after a long trip than riding in a mokoro, I don't know what it is. The mokoro is a

dugout

canoe, and while you sit up front and watch the Okavango go by, a strong young man stands at the

back and poles you along. We went out in mokoros in mid-morning, and stayed out until dinnertime.

Carol, the bird expert in the family, tells me it was the best single day of bird-watching she's

ever

experienced. The Okavango Delta is some 1,600 square miles of swamp, with about 200,000 miles

of very narrow, winding channels. By the time we were twenty minutes out from camp, I figured

that,

left to my own devices, I might, with luck, be able to find my way back in something less than

eight

months...yet our polers always seemed to know exactly where they were, and you got the feeling you

could set them down anywhere in the Okavango and they'd be able to find their way home with no

problem. I remarked about that to Pam, who agreed that they were death and taxes in the

Okavango, but added that three of them went to Johannesburg for Christmas and got hopelessly lost

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Mike Resnick - Between the Sunlight and Thunder

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