Livingstone, Sept 9th

By Jain

We start out today with a nice breakfast, a specially cooked omelette made to order. Eating here is a bit of challenge for you can never put down your fork or they will take your plate away immediately. Jay was in between bites and poof his plate was gone and he was left chewing. Nevertheless you can't fault their intentions.

Today we went into town to stroll through the craft market and then to visit the museum. The market is supposed to be hassle free, but it wasn't. So many countries we have been in it's almost impossible just to look at their goods because the vendors are overly aggressive or should I politely say overly enthusiastic.  This is one of those countries. They will hound you to death if you let them. They start with harmless questions like "Where are you from?" and if you answer that you are dead meat.  The other problem with these markets is every vendor is selling the same stuff so a stroll through the market that goes on for blocks is pointless.

The town of Livingstone is about 125,000 population, it is fairly clean for Atrica, (which isn't saying much), not very attractive and not really much for the tourist to see or do. In fact we only saw about 5 tourists the entire time we were in town. The unemployment rate must be fairly high here because we notice many just loitering about. We spent time going through a local produce market, (which was kinda slim pickens) but they did have beautiful bright red tomatoes and huge cabbages. Many stalls are selling corn on the cob roasted over some charcoal.

The majority of the time we spent at the Livingstone Museum. Pretty good but this place hasn't been updated in 30 years. There were some re-creations of some ethnic group villages to give you a sense of their traditional life. There is one room devoted to British rule and one section on witchcraft. Witchcraft is very much in the news because they want to strengthen penalties for use of any sort of witchcraft. Some Africans still believe in witchcraft at an extreme level. Of course one room was devoted to Dr. Livingstone himself with a collection of letters written by the good Dr. to his family and friends.

In the afternoon, we take a boat cruise on the Livingstone Lady, our hotel rather "fancy pants" river boat. With your cruise fee you get drinks and appetizers cruising by local wildlife. Boat ride was nice, but unfortunately  we saw very few animals. But we but did get some great pictures of Hippos.  Every boat or game tour is different. They can't promise you will see animals unless of course you drink too much; then you see those pink elephants!  We were looking forward to seeing the great white rhino but he was nowhere in sight. The boat ride was nice and sunset was beautiful as always.

After our cruise it's off to the bar for an Ice cream. We order a ice cream sundae with two spoons.  We both hold on to our spoons tightly and I notice Jay has a death grip on our dish until we are done.

Good night and sleep tight.

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