I had a dream in Africa

Maximum temperature: 32 degrees Celsius

Rainfall: Cats and dogs

Highlight of the week: Despite our flight being delayed by an hour out of Paris, we miraculously connect in Nairobi. The schedule had planned an implausible 45-minute lay-over in Nairobi. Air Kenya get full marks for holding the plane. All of our bags bridged the time-shift at warp speed too.

Lowlight of the week: Flooding in the park curtails our normal safari routes.

Our Valley has taken us back. Like a loyal parent. Unquestioning. Loving and full of joy.

We left a dry, brown featureless savannah in January last year. Water was scarce. The great Luangwa River reduced to a narrow streak. Hippos were fighting for ever-diminishing territory. Predators and predated drank warily together. Dehydration or predation a constant tension. Anxiety appropriate and protective for all except the apex predator. Our own navigation of the park was guided by familiar landmarks. A half dead tree here. The vast dried-out lagoon of Wamilombe there. Lucy and Olimba’s home ranges familiar to us. We became honorary leopards. Subtle cues that gave order to apparent wilderness.

Fast forward 15 months. A different vista greets us. A confusing landscape. Parched brown no longer South Luangwa’s hue. Verdant green now dominant. Many shades of green. Amongst them emerald. Welcome to Emerald Season. But brown water cuts through. A balance that is starkly different to us. We are assured that the roads and the river have not moved. But our bearings are out of kilter. Wamilombe lagoon now owns its wet season moniker. A flooded expanse. The roads submerged. Boats can carve the waters over historic sandy tracks. But our Landcruiser creeps around Walilombe’s edges. Stymied by newly carved and uncharted gullies. Water all around. Our guides wise to turn back. A boat might have helped.

Thick bush blankets the park. Impassable to all but 4-legged mammals. We feel excluded. Inadequate. Birds are in paradise. Singing. Flirting. Courting.

We seek Lucy in the park, despite our limitations. Feline. Alluring. Capable. Lucy, a leopard who has not changed her spots. Distinctive. Our quest for Lucy successful on successive days. She has sought refuge on higher ground. The floods have pushed her into new territory. A new cub remains concealed and unnamed. Little Linus, her older son has been ousted. A half-sibling reins and suckles.

By good fortune a dryish Mfuwe lodge hosted us for our first 3 days. We reset our biorhythms. A solitary time zone leapt, but we jump back to before time existed. Clocks are yet to be invented. Dawn triggers hippos to belch and laugh. Baboons announce a leopard’s prowl. Drums beat for meals and our days revolve around driving around in the search for game. Then, as the sun sets, we retreat to avoid becoming second dinner. Gleeful anopheles whine and wait. Pesky plasmodium our potential plight.

Seven thousand and five hundred miles away from real life - alternate reality takes shape. We rest on the hard shoulder. Suspended. Detached. What you will. Briefly, without responsibilities. We wait to re-join a very different rat race. We don’t aspire to get back into the fast lane. Rather to meander around the sleepy backwaters. Meanwhile, Doc Leopold yearns to be free of his Valley duties. To roam elsewhere. We seize the baton. Take the doc phone once more. We yearn to run with it. To see where it will lead.

On our first night, I had a dream. A premonition perhaps? It was vivid. The images are etched in my mind. On a game drive, we reached a wide expanse of water. The road entered the lagoon on one side. And could be clearly seen to exit on the other. Our vehicle, unusually, enclosed. Windows, doors, a roof. Our guide, unfamiliar to us, told us to hold on. And followed the road into the water. Water reached the wheels, and then the engine. And in a matter of seconds, we were completely submerged. The guide drove on regardless. I squirmed in my sleep, expecting death. But the car drove on. And in moments the water level receded. Although we regained terra firma, and life seemed secure, the dream looped around. A never-ending form of water torture. The loop persisted. Possibly for hours. Life and death in the balance.

Unrefreshed by sleep, I climb into an open Landcruiser. Uneasy. I had regaled our companions with details of my wet dream over breakfast. Thomas, our guide chortles. Each approach to water is accompanied by a chorus of: It’s your dream come true Ginny! But just as I begin to relax, the denouement arrives. We pause to greet another vehicle across a seemingly innocuous puddle. Doctor Leopold is being driven in the opposite direction. His guide assures Thomas that our route holds no menace. Nevertheless, Leopold diverts across country. And we foolishly take the plunge.

Deep water laps my feet. One wheel finds a submerged trench or perhaps a ravine. Without purchase we flounder. Our wheels spin useless. Water sprays everywhere. The dreamy loop replays. Thomas unphased, engages the diff-lock and puts the submarine into reverse and then low first. We lurch and yaw. Our wheels find anchorage and pull us free. The dream broken. If my future night-time premonitions forecast my demise by lion, I’m telling no one.

This weather is unusual. The rains came in November as expected. The river rose and many areas flooded. Come February, the water level began to drop. The roads improved. The lagoons shrank. Farmers sowed. Our friend Adrian planted his rice. A popular variety in the Valley. But then strange forces played unfair. The rains returned. Typhoon Freddy made land fall twice over Mozambique in February. Our seasonal ebbs and flows fell asunder. Rain was dumped unceremoniously in the North. With nowhere else to go, it came South. Efferent watercourses became inundated. Floods filled South Luangwa. The camps and the roads became lakes and rivers. Adrian’s rice was washed away. Tourism all washed up.

Resilient Valley folk are used to floods. We get over 6 metres of rain per year. Mostly between November and February. The camps close. Hatches are battened. Many leave the area. A chance to travel. Often back from whence they came. A family visit or a foray elsewhere. March sees their return, as the seasons rotate. But 2023 mirrors 2020. Tribulations follow trials. Adrian cannot replant. Drowned camps decant to dry ones. Essential access to homes and businesses is maintained by ingenuity and determination. Car, canoe and wellington boot. Crocs lay in wait. Biding their time.

Global warming a global player. South Luangwa a pawn moved on the checkerboard. Our eco system sacrificed by the Kings and Queens. Thunder rumbles. Flashes penetrate our eyelids in our dreamy sleep. Rain still falls in bursts, but our bursts now rank lower than Yorkshire torrents. A WhatsApp video from Andy arrives on our screens. Yorkshire under siege. A deluge forced Andy and Sue, our house-sitters, to take refuge in a Ganthorpe Dutch barn. Yorkshire competes and outranks South Luangwa today. Topsy turvy. Unpredictable.

Winter is coming. And our game of thrones will play out. Cool dry nights are expected. But the plot is now expected to twist and grip. We have 3 months of weekly episodes ahead. Binge in retrospect if you wish. Or subscribe to be the first on message. Quip if you will.

My dream in Africa

April 2023. Kapani lagoon

December 2021. Kapani lagoon

Gid and Mapalo give us a lift in their amphibious vehicle

Lucy shows her spots

Who let the dogs out. Photo courtesy of Janelle Ewing

Getting all of our ducks lined up