Letting off steam on the Royal Livingstone Express

The Victoria Falls, a vintage train and fine game viewing – the Royal Livingstone Express has it all, says Kieron Humphrey. Spare a thought for the fireman of the Royal Livingstone Express: the sun is a meltingly hot 35C and he's shovelling coal into a furnace. Meanwhile, the engine driver is keeping an eye out for hazards on the line, particularly elephants. They usually amble out of the way, I'm told, but every now and again a big bull decides to challenge this strange hooting newcomer.

For the passengers, riding the Royal is an unashamed exercise in luxury travel – the perfect end to a day admiring the majestic Victoria Falls. The five-hour excursion is all about attentive service and fine dining, with the chance to view game as a bonus. And vintage rail enthusiasts will find plenty to admire about the train itself – a symphony of steam, steel, polished paintwork, gleaming teak and luxurious leather.

While the experience may feel timeless, the steam safari is quite a recent addition to Livingstone's list of attractions. "I saw an advertisement one day, inviting bids to run a tourist train," says Chris Tett, the man behind the train. "When I was little I used to terrify my mother by telling her I wanted to be a train driver. Suddenly I saw my chance." That was in 2004, when Tett was looking to expand the travel company he had set up in Zambia after six years in the Irish Guards and an unsuccessful experiment with prawn farming in Mozambique.

Tett won the tender and spent three years scouting for rolling stock in marshalling yards all over southern Africa. "Then I got a call from Rohan Vos, of Rovos Rail. 'I've found your train set,' he said."

The "train set" consisted of five carriages in varying states of decay: an observation car, with an open-air deck, elegant lounge car and "Wembley" dining car (named for the 1924 British Empire Exhibition where it was exhibited), a Chesterfield dining car and a club car, which houses the kitchen. Each was given a complete overhaul, blending original fittings and features with modern comforts such as air conditioning units, a humidor and a wine cellar.

The sweaty, sooty interior of the cab, on the other hand, is exactly as it was when the engine first plied this stretch of line, 86 years ago. Built by the North British Locomotive Company in 1922-4, the 10th Class "Princess of Mulobezi" originally hauled timber for Zambezi Sawmills. It was saved from the scrapyard in the Seventies by David Shepherd, the wildlife artist and conservationist, and operated on the Zimbabwean side of the Falls for many years. As the Mugabe regime took its toll on the country's fortunes, so the Princess began to show signs of neglect. She was brought back to Zambia and given the kiss of life by Ben Costa, a veteran railway engineer whose eyes sparkle as he tells how replacement parts had to be scratch-built from the specification sheets.

Even if you're normally left cold by steam, you may well be impressed by a trip on the Express. With vapour from the Victoria Falls hanging above the trees in the distance, the train pays tribute with its own puff of smoke and heads west out of Livingstone, through the teeming suburb of Dambwe. Children cluster at the trackside to wave and tiny fragments of town life can be seen through the window: a stallholder displaying dried fish; a man teetering along on an overburdened bicycle; a young man in sunglasses berating a passing driver for splashing mud onto his trousers.

Soon the corrugated iron roofs of Dambwe are left behind. The train pauses while the guard opens the gate to the Mosi-oa-Tunya National Park, and now it is no longer children staring as we pass, but impala and an unperturbed giraffe. The park has been restocked with white rhino recently and is also home to buffalo, zebra, monkeys and several species of antelope. Opportunities for sighting game vary with the time of year, but if wildlife is seen the train usually makes a halt for photographs.

Ten miles along the track there is a longer halt for dinner. Five courses, with a seemingly never-ending flow of South African wines, come courtesy of the chef and staff at the Royal Livingstone Hotel, flagship of Sun International's Zambian stable. It's hard to fault the food, and there are rumours that the renowned chef Conrad Gallagher has been brought in to improve the menu still further.
But for me, the most magical element of the meal was watching twilight shroud the mopane trees, and hearing bush birds call their goodnights. If Cecil Rhodes's grand vision for a Cape Town-to-Cairo railway had ever been fulfilled, perhaps it would have been like this.

Source: Letting off steam on the Royal Livingstone Express (22/03/09)

Zimbabwe's widespread troubles push visitors - and their money - to neighbouring Zambia.

VICTORIA FALLS, Zimbabwe -- This hamlet is swathed in lush emerald jungle, a serene place that is 500 miles from political turmoil in the nation's capital but seems a galaxy apart.

And then there is the attraction for which the town is named, one of the world's Seven Wonders: the mighty Victoria Falls, a mile-long, 350-foot-high cascade best seen from here in Zimbabwe, residents insist -- not from across the chasm in Zambia.

All of which mattered not a whit to Manhattan resident Michael Marsh on a recent morning. He stood on the Zambian side, his baseball cap damp with waterfall spray, and offered a list of reasons why he passed on the view from Zimbabwe.

"I didn't even consider going across the border," said Marsh, 70, a retired dentist who was staying with his wife, Andrea, 67, in a tony lodge outside the Zambian falls town of Livingstone. "Starvation, cholera, desperation, an irrational dictator. I'd love to be able to support the people, but I can't support the government."

And so it was that once-thriving Victoria Falls lost two more tourists to its once-desolate northern neighbor, a continuation of a trend that illustrates the reverberations of Zimbabwe's boom-to-bust economy and chaotic politics under President Robert Mugabe's 28-year reign and, many in Victoria Falls say, the power of bad press.

Ten years ago, Victoria Falls hotels were often full amid a tourism gold rush, and guidebooks were advising those in search of a less theme-park feel to head across the Zambezi River into Zambia. Livingstone -- named for British explorer David Livingstone, the first European to see the falls -- was an undeveloped nook in a country that had abandoned communism a decade before.

Then Mugabe began seizing white-owned farms, triggering the collapse of Zimbabwe's agricultural economy and widespread international condemnation. The years since have been marked by disputed elections marred by violence and repression, inflation that has skyrocketed past 231 million percent and shortages of food and currency.

Now Zimbabwe, a former tourism mecca, is the subject of many Western nations' travel warnings. Tourism revenue dropped from $777 million in 1999 to $26 million in 2008, according to figures from Zimbabwe's Reserve Bank, which are considered the most reliable. The World Economic Forum, relying on sunnier data from the Zimbabwe Tourism Authority, predicts the industry will contract more than 1 percent annually for the next decade.

"The tourism sector has suffered because of the bad publicity we have received from our enemies," said Karikoga Kaseke, chief executive of the tourism authority, referring to the Western nations that Mugabe's government blames for its problems.

Whatever the reason, Zambia saw an opening and began marketing its side of the falls, sometimes as "Victoria Falls Livingstone." Big hotel chains arrived, and risk-averse corporations moved conferences there. National tourism revenue doubled to $176 million from 1999 to 2006, according to government statistics. The Livingstone Tourism Association says the number of hotel rooms in the town has swelled from 700 to about 1,900 in the past eight years.

"Initially, it was a negative for us," Tanya Stephens, a longtime Livingstone resident who manages the new Livingstone branch of the South African Protea Hotel chain, said of Zimbabwe's slide. "Then Zambia started to go out and say, 'You can still see Victoria Falls. You can come to Zambia, the safe side of the falls.' "

January is in the off-season, and the global recession has slowed tourist traffic, but even now Livingstone feels like a town in the midst of a an oil boom. Footpaths along the waterfall were humming on a recent weekend, and recently opened and in-progress guesthouses marked the landscape.

Across the river in the center of Victoria Falls was a shuttered bar and a lonely square. Tourists must bring cash -- preferably U.S. dollars or South African rand -- to pay for warm sodas at the partially lighted grocery store, because ATMs no longer dispense Zimbabwe's worthless currency.

Source: Zimbabwe's widespread troubles push visitors - and their money - to neighbouring Zambia (29/01/09)

Captive Elephant Used In Tourism Safaris Kills Handler In Victoria Falls

Representatives of Wild Horizons have confirmed that earlier this week Gavin Best, an experienced and well respected handler of captive elephants used in their tourist elephant-back safari rides, was killed in a horrific and tragic incident by one of the elephants in his care. They have suspended their elephant tourism interactions whilst the incident is investigated. 

Source: Captive Elephant Used In Tourism Safaris Kills Handler In Victoria Falls (18/12/08)

Helipad endangers tourism

Ethel Mlalazi, director of the Victoria Falls Department of Physical Planning, said something needed to be done urgently to save the rainforest.

“This comes as a result of some helicopter operators doing business along the Zambezi River from the Zambian side. The construction of hotels and lodges is another factor. But there has been a joint heritage management plan agreed to by Zimbabwe and Zambia to stop major developments that go against the rules of UNESCO,” said Mlalazi.

Developments on the Zambian side have been stalled as the two countries work together on a joint plan to avoid the de-listing of the site as one of the seven natural wonders of the world.

This has resulted in pressure mounting on one of the leading tour operators in the region – Shearwater Adventures – to relocate their helipad to a nearby site in Chamabondo, in line with UNESCO.
The helipad is used to launch flights over the rainforest.

“Since time immemorial, planners outlined that the site near Elephant Hills Resort was temporary, as it was not suitable for such operations. That site, even from old and outdated plans, was not, and is still not, suitable for helicopter flights. The activity is not in harmony with development,” said Mlalazi.

The Victoria Falls is Zimbabwe’s biggest tourist attraction due to an eclectic composition of the wildlife and the mighty Falls which have attracted international celebrities: Michael Jackson, American musician Joe Thomas and Russian tycoon and Chelsea Football Club owner Roman Abromovich. – CAJ News

Source: Helipad endangers tourism (14/06/08)

Read More:

Victoria Falls Falls Bits and Blogs (15th June 2008) Helipad endangers tourism.

Victoria Falls Falls Bits and Blogs (17th June 2009) Noise pollution concerns at Victoria Falls (BBC NEWS).

Victoria Falls Falls Bits and Blogs (19th June 2009) Vic Falls Heritage Status Threatened.

Victoria Falls Falls Bits and Blogs (20th June 2009) Noise pollution impact fears for Vic Falls elephants.

Victoria Falls Falls Bits and Blogs (24th June 2009b) Victoria Falls under serious environmental threat.

Victoria Falls Falls Bits and Blogs (24th June 2009a) Noise pollution concerns over helicopter flights at Victoria Falls (AFRIKNEWS).

Victoria Falls: An Elephant's Watery Death

They say an elephant never forgets. But the one who tried to cross the Zambezi on Good Friday would have had to be very old to remember the last time he saw the river running this high. And as he picked his way across from Zimbabwe, swimming from island to island along an ancient elephant corridor, a changed world was waiting on the Zambia side of the border as well: a sprawling five-star hotel along the banks in the national park.  With poachers and hunters at his back, and tourists sipping sundowners ahead, the elephant foundered and was washed downstream, plunging over the 130-meter-high (about 430 feet) Victoria Falls, Africa's mightiest cataract.  He wouldn't have had a chance of survival.

Word soon spread around this town upstream, named for David Livingstone, the white Scottish missionary who discovered the falls during his exploration of Africa. And the talk soon took on a political dimension. In recent years, as tourists with social consciences have spurned Zimbabwe under Robert Mugabe's harsh authoritarian rule, visitors have headed for the Zambian side of the falls instead. That's been a blessing for the tourist industry in this southern African nation, prompting a boom in small hotels and game lodges along the Zambezi. But not all the locals appreciate the visitors. The Royal Livingstone, a Sun International property built six years ago in the Victoria Falls National Park at the top of the falls, is the only five-star establishment here, and "it would be fair to say, widely resented," said a tour guide. When the story of the elephant became known, residents said they'd heard that the doomed creature had been shooed from the grounds by guards firing in the air—and pointed out that a single drink on the hotel's riverside sundeck could feed a family of five for a week. They also heard, they said, that tourists were laughing as the pachyderm was swept over the falls.

The reality was different, to a point. "None of the rangers are armed," says the hotel's public relations officer, Jackye Nsovo. "Nobody's allowed to carry firearms.  Basically with elephants, they will come toward the hotel but they don't harm anyone."  Nor did anyone shoo the animal away," said Nsovo. "Elephants never come on the hotel grounds."

Zambian Wildlife Authority (ZAWA) Ranger Kenneth Nyambe, who is stationed on the grounds of the Royal Livingstone to keep guests from wandering into the hindquarters of zebras and to protect them from mugging by troops of baboons, said he heard a commotion from the hotel's riverfront sundeck about 4.20 p.m. last Friday. A crowd had gathered to watch what witnesses described as a 6-ton bull elephant (medium large, as they go) leading two smaller elephants, a male and a female, across the river.  Elephants are good swimmers, but as the river cascades toward the falls, the current goes at almost 25 miles per hour. The elephant got as far as the last islet in front of the hotel and then swam the channel, making it almost to the hotel side, according to accounts from several eyewitnesses. "He almost made it and we were all cheering," said senior waiter Kelvin Ng'andu, who was on duty that evening. The site is a popular place to watch the sunset, and the falls are close enough to see mist forming above the precipice, rising directly into cloud formations. But in front of the elephant was a bank of sharp rocks, topped by the hotel’s electrified fence; the elephant turned back and tried to swim the channel a second time, but was swept downstream, constantly trying to swim back against the current.

As Nyambe and Ng'andu described it, a hush descended over the scores of spectators. "It was a very sad struggle, we could all put ourselves in the boots of that animal," Ng'andu said. "Some people were crying, no one was laughing." Occasionally the animal would get a grip on the rocks or a spit of island, then lose it. The struggle went on for half an hour, with the elephant screaming piteously whenever it could blow the water from its throat, through the trunk. Its companions returned the calls, but remained on the island on the other side. "Tons and tons of flesh and bones, and exhaustion just occurs," said Isaac Kanguya of the Zambian National Heritage Conservation Commission. "We just watched helplessly as it went over," Nsovu said.

At 4:55pm, ranger Nyambe said, the elephant disappeared over the main part of the falls, tumbling more than 400 feet into the Boiling Pot, as it's called, at the bottom. "I swear we could see the splash a moment later," Ng'andu said. "It's an endangered animal and if we lose one we never get it back."

The Good Friday elephant wasn't the first to perish that way this year.  Officials at the local warden's office of ZAWA, who asked not to be named because they were not authorized to speak to the press, said they had three confirmed cases of live elephants being washed over Victoria Falls this year, all since the recent rainy season ended. Their carcasses were found by ZAWA rangers and stripped of their valuable ivory, in one of the gorges many miles below the falls.  "This has never happened before this year that anyone can remember," one said. The ZAWA officials say the presence of the Royal Livingstone on an established elephant corridor, plus the high water, and increased movement from Zimbabwe, were all to blame. The Livingstone hotel spokesman disputed that the hotel was on a corridor, saying the main elephant crossing in the area is more than three miles farther upstream. But elephants are often seen in the dry season crossing even at the lip of the falls in front of the hotel. Many more elephants are making the Zimbabwe-to-Zambia crossing now, as well, as Zimbabwe's economic collapse has led to widespread poaching on that side, and Mugabe's government has thrown open the doors to big-game hunters in a desperate search for hard currency from those prepared to pay as much as $50,000 for an elephant trophy.  Such hunting is banned in Zambia. "In the dry season we'll have 300 elephants now, where we used to have five or six," said Doug Evans, who runs the Chundukwa River Lodge about 15 miles upstream from the falls, and last week had his gardens and ponds trampled by elephants. His lodge is also on an elephant corridor. "We just put up with it. But over the long term, we can't handle 300 animals, it's just too many. But five kilometers [three miles] inland, there's a big human population, so where can they go? It's a problem. As always, the wildlife seems to get the short end of the stick." Evans is often called on to run capture and cull teams for elephants when locals complain that they're ravaging farms, or endangering populated areas. "Every time we go out on the river, we hear gunshots from the Zimbabwe side. I call friends who work with wildlife over there, and they say, there's nothing we can do, it's political."

Kanguya of the Heritage Commission acknowledged that hotels like the Royal Livingstone were built on elephant corridors, but says that measures such as fold-down fences have managed to alter their routes so they could safely cross.  But with the river as high as it is now, the electrified fences of the hotel grounds are right at river's edge. Some wildlife officials have called for expanding the national parkland along the river to protect them better, while at the same time major hotel operators have proposed building golf courses and sprawling complexes in existing parkland. "It's something we can manage by striking a balance," he said. "No overdevelopment at the expense of conservation, and no overconservation at the expense of tourism."

Finding that balance won't be easy, especially if more and more elephants vote against Mugabe with their feet.  The Easter drama didn't end with the bull's plunge.  His companions turned back, but one was stuck on another island until Easter Day. "That same day that our Lord Jesus died for us," said Ng'andu, "that elephant sacrificed for his friends to live.” Elephants never forget. I'm sure when they come back this way another year, they'll have a moment of silence for him." Elephant lovers might add a prayer.

Source: Victoria Falls: An Elephant's Watery Death (04/12/07)

Irregular Issue of Title Deeds in Mosi-O-Tunya National Park

Reposted from Victoria Falls Heritage Blogspot 

The recent Auditor-General's report on parastatals for 2005 is required reading where the Zambia Wildlife Authority is concerned. Government should now require that the Anti-Corruption Commission investigates fully. I quote part of the A-G report:

Irregular Issue of Title Deeds in Mosi-O-Tunya National Parks

29. According to the provisions of the Act, ZAWA allocates sites in National Parks and
Wildlife /Bird sanctuaries to successful bidders. The successful bidders are awarded
a Tourism Concession Agreement (TCA). The TCA is a commercial agreement that
regulates the conduct of the operators. It confers the rights and obligations of the
concessionaire and grantor (ZAWA). An Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA)
is prepared and approved by Environmental Council of Zambia (ECZ) before the
operator would proceed with the development of operations.

However, it was observed that two operators namely Waterfront lodge and
Maramba River lodge had been issued with title deeds in the Mosi-O-Tunya
National Park. The title deeds for Waterfront have since been cancelled and a
Tourism Concession Agreement was signed on 8th February 2005 for a period of
twenty five (25) years. As of August 2006, the title deed for Maramba River lodge
had not been cancelled and the Authority was not receiving any money from the
lodge, as there was no agreement though the lodge operated in the National Park.

Furthermore, there was no evidence of an Environmental Impact Assessment
having been done for the above-mentioned lodges by the ECZ.

Source: Irregular Issue of Title Deeds in Mosi-O-Tunya National Park (24/07/07)

Major plans for Vic Falls Park

 WILD HORIZONS has won the tender for a 1 900-hectare piece of the Victoria Falls Safari Park, leased by Zimbabwe National Parks and Wildlife Authority. Wild Horizons has committed to rehabilitating the area and introducing game scout patrols to keep illegal activities out of the area. The second phase of the operation will see the reintroduction of species that originally occurred in the area, including waterbuck, white rhino, zebra and giraffe. Wild Horizons will also relocate the bulk of its existing elephant-back safari operation to the area. Plans are also in place to introduce a cheetah breeding programme to the property. “Our plan is to utilise the offspring from our breeding programme to restock viable areas within the country, in collaboration with our wildlife authority,” says Shane White, sales and marketing director for Wild Horizons. Work is already under way, with the first stage and the new elephant stables due for completion by July 2007. The translocation of the elephant herd will be complete by September. The cheetah breeding will be phased in early in 2008, with viable breeding stock being imported from South Africa. The final phase of the project will be the construction of an 18-bed tented safari lodge on the Zambezi Gorge. 

Source: Major plans for Vic Falls Park (25/05/2007)