Tale guide

Kasungula ferry

A good friend recently sent me some pictures of the newly opened Kazungula bridge that links Botswana to Zambia.

The bridge stretches for 923 meters over the Zambezi river. It cost US$259 million and was co-funded by the regional governments supported by the Japan International Cooperation Agency and the African Development Bank.

It’s an amazing and humungous structure that has opened up the trade routes between South Africa and many of the countries in central Africa and is certain to be a massive boost to the region.

But the news took me back to the days when Kasane, which lies on the Chobe river, the northern border of Botswana, and the home of the Botswana customs post at Kazungula, comprised only the border post, a gravel main street, a small single story hotel on the banks of the Chobe and a trading store a few hundred yards down the road.

Today it is a major tourist destination with a number of ultramodern, five-star hotels along the river, shops, banks and a fabulous local market where we bought fresh bream fish straight out of the river for the camp fire.

It is the gateway to the Chobe National Park to the West, Zimbabwe and Victoria Falls to the East and the river tours on a scale as awe inspiring as anything that the Serengeti has to offer.

We visited northern Botswana on a number of occasions, but the one visit stands out in particular. On this occasion we were accompanied by our good friends Ken and Inge Symmons with whom we had set up camp in a campsite called Toro Lodge.

The following is an excerpt from an article I wrote at the time for a magazine but has since gone missing!

“Two rivers and four countries,” Bogosi, our local guide from Toro Lodge, announced as he deftly maneuvered the motorboat into Zimbabwe waters immediately downstream from the Kazungula ferry, and shut the motor down.

As the boat turned slowly, we could see the easternmost point of Namibia’s Caprivi strip dead ahead. To our right lay Zambia and the mighty Zambezi river. To our left Botswana and the great Chobe river. Behind us Zimbabwe and the Zambezi, now swollen into almost twice its normal size, surged forward towards the world famous Victoria Falls or Mosi oa Tunya, the smoke that thunders, not 70 kilometers down river.”

The four of us had visited the Victoria falls many times in the past so on this occasion we decided to take the ferry across the river and see what the falls looked like from the Zambian side.

The Kazungula crossing has been the main route for freight to and from South Africa into Central Africa for many decades because the more direct route across the Limpopo on South Africa’s northern border at Beit Bridge and through Zimbabwe had been too dangerous for many years during the Rhodesian war. Subsequent to the political hand over that gave birth to Zimbabwe, the journey became progressively impractical and uneconomical as Zimbabwe became an increasingly broken country.

Long lines of heavy duty haulage trucks and trailers could be found queued for kilometers back down the so called ‘elephant road’ that connects Francistown and Kasane, duly waiting their turn to be loaded onto the ferry and carried across the river.

The ferry operators organised two lanes of traffic so as to afford ordinary motor vehicles an opportunity to share each transfer with one of the pantechnicons. In this way tourists like us and other travelers could avoid too long a delay at the ferry.

In addition, many local pedestrians would make use of the ferry to cross over from one country to the other.

So, it was no surprise that we found a hive of activity, hustle and bustle when we pulled up in our 4x4 at the river’s edge at the crack of dawn.

We were second in the queue and after a twenty minute wait for the barge to dock in front of us, we were finally beckoned forward to drive on board. Once on board we were required to get out of the vehicle and stand on the deck next to the railing for the duration of the crossing.

A young, smartly dressed African approached me and produced a business card that announced that he was Mr. Simon Jilele from Jilele and Associates, Immigration agents.

He was warm and friendly and enquired as to whether we were tourists.

“Yes” I replied. “We are on our way to Livingstone for the day from where we want to take a look at the Victoria Falls”.

Mr Jilele asked me to call him Simon and proceeded to deliver a well oiled sales pitch on the difficulties, frustrations and delays we were about to encounter at the Zambia border post and that for a small fee of 500 Kwacha (US$15) he would provide an end to end service in double quick time. He would pay for our visitor’s visa and road taxes out of his own pocket and would require no up-front funding to execute the service.

We would avoid all of the queues and the delays and could just sit patiently in the car until he returned which, he said “would take little time”.

I am an old hand in the ways of Africa and this wasn’t the first time we had to cross a busy border somewhere in Southern Africa.

It wasn’t so much the benefit of being speedily processed that attracted me but rather the inexplicable and inordinately lengthy delays that would almost certainly arise if I declined his kind offer as he was almost certainly in cahoots with the officialdom behind the counters.

We shook hands and we had ourselves an 'agent'!

I turned to my team once back in the vehicle. “Can anyone guess in what manner are we about to be taken?” I asked mischievously, but after mulling it over for a few minutes we were in agreement that while we were unable to work it out, we were certainly going to be taken.

The ferry barge chugged its way across the Zambezi and finally came to crunching halt against the slipway on the Zambia side. Simon directed us to a parking spot near the gate of the border post compound and beckoned me to accompany him with all our documents and we disappeared into the lines of queuing people, many of whom were carrying bags, young children strapped to their mothers’ backs and in some cases a goat or two on a rope.

Simon weaved his way through the crowds and eventually presented us at to the immigration window at the front of the queue, where our visas were promptly issued against the payment made by Simon.

Then we moved directly to another window where we were presented with an invoice for road tax and another for carbon tax, all of which were duly settled by Simon.

Without further delay I returned to the vehicle and waited for Simon to join us.

We watched Simon as he strolled across the road towards us.

He presented his invoice which was accurately made up of the visas, road tax and carbon tax amounts all in US dollar currency. Below the total was a Zambian Kwacha amount to which he had added the 500 kwacha service fee.

It all looked pretty above board and we settled the account, quite thankful that we had escaped the delays and queues and had been processed in no time at all, just as Simon had promised.

The trick, I discovered, was that Simon used an inflated rate of exchange with which to convert the dollar cost to Zambia Kwacha!

Clever and laudable I thought, and not an unreasonable price to pay for the service provided.

I jumped out of the car and gestured to Simon that I wanted Ann to take a photograph of the two of us so I could show my friends back home what a top immigration agent in Zambia looks like and he willingly agreed.

As we stood with our arms around each other’s shoulders, a big guy with the bulging muscles stepped up out of nowhere and with a beaming smile, stood alongside Simon and joined in the photograph.

“Who is this fellow?” I asked.

“Oh”, replied Simon with a wry smile, “He is my Agent!”

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All the best

Richard