I love this climate. Where in the world can you fairly reliably predict the weather without the need of thousands of pounds worth of expensive meteorological equipment.
Without too much fear of contradiction I can say that after the first week of April the rains will be over. (You might get the odd isolated shower but that’s it.)
In October you will get the next scattered splatterings, then on the tenth of November the first real rains will start. Increasing each month until February, after which they will begin to become less frequent until April.
Even during the rainy season there is a eighty percent chance that the morning will be dry, with the clouds building as the day wears on, until by five o’clock the sky is a mass of huge thunderheads hanging fully laden waiting for the moment when the relinquish their heavy load over the land.
The temperature too is interesting and varied, with the end of the rains in April the temperatures start to fall from daytime temps of about 28 down to July when at night it can drop to below freezing but during the day the norm is around ninteen degrees. August sees the start of spring and temperatures steadily rise till December when they peak to about thirty four degrees. Then with the rains it starts to cool a bit until April when the cycle repeats itself.
My master plan this weekend was to go down to the Zambezi and to have a look over a plot that I have identified there that would make a lovely place to build a house.
I was going down early on Saturday morning meet the owner of the land and to camp on the land to see what the night time noise was like. It’s very easy in Africa to find what you may think is the most beautiful tranquil spot, only to find when you move in that there is an illegal Bar a few hundred yards away that plays ridiculously overly load and distorted rap music all through the night, bending the ears of all living things within a five mile radius.
Unlike most days it had rained all night and was still raining in the morning. Driving through the mountains I was up in the clouds in what can only be described as fog, a rare occurrence in Africa.
As I dropped down into the Valley the rain stopped and the sky began to clear a little, with small patches of blue appearing more and more frequently. By the time I arrived the ground was drying well and as I opened the car door and climbed out of the air conditioned cab I was greeted by the rich and humid smell of damp drying soil.
I met Charles (again immaculately dressed) by the side of the road and we set off in search of the owner of the plot. We picked up the head man of the neighbouring village as he knew the whereabouts of the owner and continued on our journey.
To get to the plot and the owner, we had to cross the Kafue river which flows into the Zambezi, and in itself, is a none to insubstantial body of water. To do this you have to use a pontoon bridge. Basically a raft with two, one hundred and twenty horse power diesel engines that whir, clatter and smoke as they fight against the current to get you over safely. Fortunately they succeeded. Only last year the entire pontoon had turned over whilst carrying a fully loaded fuel tanker across. The river crossing is only about one hundred and fifty metres but costs a staggering ZMK 40,000 this is £5.33 which in Africa is a ship load of money. And that is only one way. I cannot begin to see how the locals can afford it seeing the general basic wage is only ZMK 300,000 to ZMK 400,000 per month.
We eventually found the owner of the land a lovely wizened old man with grey and black hair and beard and a set of teeth that looked like he may have been chewing on a hand grenade when it went off. He spoke a little English and I regaled him with my finest knowledge of Nyanga, unfortunately, as I was informed on the way back in the car, he spoke Shona. Charles, the owner and the headman thought that was hilarious.
The upshot was that he agreed to sell me the plot, he would speak with his family and inform them of his decision and we would meet again next weekend to negotiate the price. (I had hoped to do that this weekend to save another expensive trip.)
We headed back to the plot to measure the area, I had brought a GPS with me so we could get an idea of the size as it is difficult to judge when you are walking through thick bush. When we got there we also found that it is difficult to walk in a straight line in thick bush and when we looked at the map after walking what we thought was the boundary it was more like a dot to dot drawn by someone having a seizure and bore no resemblance to the plot we were looking at.
I had noticed as we had been walking around the plot that the bits of blue in the sky had given way to bits of black, not grey, black. And with a sound that appeared to go straight through me and a flash of light that almost blinded me it seemed that Victoria falls had moved four hundred km downstream. Within seconds we were soaked to the skin and the ground had turned to the surface of a giant bar of soap.
We slithered our way back to the car and decided that camping out was no longer an option. Our sounds of the night would have to wait for another weekend. I dropped Charles (Now looking rather more bedraggled than dapper) and headman, (Still grinning at my linguistic cock up) back to their respective homes and headed back to the City.
The journey back was incredible, punctuated by the most fantastic electrical and torrential downpours I have witnessed in years. Vehicles were coming to a stop on the road as they could see nothing with the rain so heavy. The thunder and lightning were simultaneous. The massive cracks of thunder making you physically jump, even through the insulation of the car and over the sound of of the engine and rain.
By the time I got back to Kalima, the rain had stopped and the sun was out. The smell of freshly mown grass greeted me as I climbed wearily from the car.
The bar was calling me, so I went and had an ice cold Mosi Gold. I sat and gazed out over the dam watching a couple of Purple-crested Louries jumping from branch to branch, up a tree, as the sun lowered itself gently over the horizon.
Not what I had intended this weekend, but still an interesting day out.
Denzil Bark (Back in time for tea.)
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