My dearest friend Don, originally from Barbados “escaped” the noisy city life of Lusaka (capital of Zambia) where he lives by visiting us here in the Kafue National Park for a “bit of fresh air” as he rightly put it in the month of July 2020. Well in the olden days way of doing things, I easily could just have assigned any one of my tour guides to take him on a walking safari while l remained behind doing routine office work. Now with so much free time to spare from my usual busy office work schedule due to low volume of tourism traffic as a result of Coronavirus, I decided to take Don on a leisure walking safari myself.
At night before the day of the walk, I tossed with the idea of how best to offer a memorable walking safari for Don. Walking safari inside the Kafue National Park is not permitted because of the many dangerous wild animals such as Lions that ply the park thickets. So the obvious place to do a walking safari is the surrounding Namwala or Nkala Game Management Area (GMA). So I settled for the nearby Namwala Game Management Area where Itezhi Tezhi town is located within. The following day by 07:00 am, I went to pick Don from Native & Natural Food Forest Lodge right here in Itezhi Tezhi (ITT) and found him right by the gate anxiously waiting for me. Despite his anxiety, I still needed to carry out a physical test check on him before undertaking the walk safari tour to see whether he was fit enough to do a rigorous walk. First things first, I requested that he eats full breakfast before embarking on a 2 hour walking safari. In response, he showed me a small bottle of mineral water that he was carrying claiming it would suffice for the walk. I still insisted we return to the lodge so that he eats breakfasts first before I carry out the physical test check on him. From the corner of my eye, I could see his displeasure on this small disruption from his much anticipated walk. Reluctantly, he trailed behind me as we walked back to the lodge. He ordered light snack of a vegetable bugger as he is a Rastafarian who eats only vegetable meals. After eating his breakfast, we both lined up on the edge of the high pavement and carried out a number of routine physical test exercises. Much to my surprise, Don fared much better than me his physical examiner in all aspects of physical tests. In short, Don passed his physical test with flying colours and we were set to commence our much anticipated walking safari from the highest point of mountain Itezhi Tezhi with vigor. He however flattered me by telling me that despite my seemingly advanced in age, I was still fit as a youth in his early thirties. Well this was motivation enough for me to discharge my professional walking safari duties to the best of my abilities with pleasure and delight.
At exactly 09:00 am, after a short briefing we set off using a backside bush path up to the main dusty road connecting the Itezhi Tezhi boarding secondary high school and Itezhi tezhi district hospital. From there we passed by the only commercial bank in Itezhi Tezhi town, the Zambia National Commercial Bank (ZANACO) serving the vast Itezhi Tezhi district including the nearby Kafue National Park lodges. Explaining to Don that the bank was currently temporarily closed after a number of its staff tested positive for COVID19 after serving a customer of Asian origin who had just returned from China. We then made our way through one of the oldest building in ITT, a catholic church and stood on the cliff of ITT Mountain overlooking the magnificent fish harbor. We were able to see many important landmarks such as Lake Itezhi Tezhi and Itezhi Tezhi Power Corporation (ITTPC) power generating plant, the Kafue National Park across Lake Itezhi Tezhi and the world class water spill way gate for ITT Dam from our vintage point of view. From the mountain cliff, we slowly descended following a sharp steep narrow foot path leading to the lake harbor below. We then proceeded through a number of hills by lake ITT harbour onto the spillway water gates. The climax of the walk safari was a special visit to the massively built lake Itezhi Tezhi dam wall which was built by Italian engineers which is an awesome sight to see. We then retreated and diverted our walk for a closer view of the harbour and Don’s interest and knowledge in birds surprised me to say the least. We then sat by the rock near the cool breeze of lake Itezhi Tezhi and heard from Don how strongly opposed he is to Africans being vaccinated with COVID19 vaccine. After almost two hours of walking, it was a day well spent learning from each other many issues of life ranging from life post COVID19, to Rastafarism and life in the Islands in countries such as Jamaica, Belize and the Barbados. Yes now I agree with Don’s compliment that I am still physically fit like a youth in his thirties as l made the two hours walk without much trouble.