The New Bridge Across the Zambezi

In 1890 Germany negotiated the acquisition from the British Empire of the strange tongue of, now, Namibian land which is known as the Caprivi Strip that caps Botswana's northern border, separating it from Angola. Apart from this Namibia’s only border with Botswana is on Botswana’s western side. The Germans wanted a corridor to link German West Africa with German East Africa by means of the Zambezi river. Unfortunately, the singular fact of Victoria Falls further down the Zambezi put paid to this project. Today the muscular and game-thronged Chobe river defines Botswana's northern border with the Strip. Around 600m wide, it ceases to be at its confluence with the Zambezi. Here, for less than a kilometre Botswana faces Zambia across that river. It is in this small space that a magnificent, new, cable-stayed bridge between the two countries is taking shape. A low temporary bridge spans the whole crossing and three towering mobile cranes, each painted in a different primary colour are positioned on it to be able to service the massive, rising stanchions of the new bridge. They are not far from completion. The first third of the bridge beginning on the Zambian side is all but complete with the tension hawsers already in place. The whole edifice coated in coloured sacking and scaffolding looks hi tech and modern. It is designed by the Japanese and funded by the Japanese in combination with the African Central Bank. The actual construction is being executed with South Korean involvement as there is a rule that says the same nation cannot design and build the bridge. Originally the plan was to build a much shorter bridge a little downstream from Zambia to Zimbabwe but this plan was abandoned due to the temporising of Mugabe.

Sitting on five, unsecured white plastic chairs, we travel on Kubu Lodge's small motorised raft piloted by a typically amiable and talkative Botswanan employee of the lodge who has simplified his name to 'Pineapple' for the benefit of guests. He steers us, sitting at the front of the raft, out of the Chobe into the Zambezi and under the temporary bridge and the new structure close to the Zambian shore. Emerging on the other side we see the large powered metal raft ferries which have acted as the means of crossing between Botswana and Zambia until now. The pilots of the ferries sit in small raised conning towers above the vehicles on the deck. Two Zambian ferries and one Botswanan form the Kazangula Ferry Company. Once the Kanzangula Bridge opens in April 2020 this company will become defunct no doubt. The economies of the two countires will also, no doubt, be transformed. For now, as the ferries cross, typically, the figures of colourfully dressed female Zambian foot passengers wearing bright, turban-style head-dresses stand out against the backdrop of the one juggernaut each ferry can carry. Tailbacks of 2 miles on either side are customary and lorry drivers can wait for up to two weeks for their turn to cross.

Hard against the Eastern edge of the ferry-port apron is a pylon connected across the river by wires to a similar pylon on the Zambian side. Through the wires flows electricity from a Zambian power station into Botswana. Immediately at the base of the Botswanan pylon is where Zimbabwe begins and the southern bank of the Zambezi is Zimbabwean from here on. In fact, at the confluence of the Chobe and the Zambezi and clearly visible undoubtedly from the new bridge is where four countries meet; Namibia, Botswana, Zambia and Zimbabwe.

As the plastic-hatted construction workers on the bridge knock off and begin their walk to the river banks we putter back under the the temporary bridge close to the Botswanan side and then cross the Chobe to follow closely the edge of a Namibian island on our way back to the lodge. On the way Pineapple points out monitor lizards and small crocodiles (the river is, to quote another guide 'infested' with plenty of large ones) sunning themselves on dead tree branches overhanging the flood. We see small waterside trees festooned with last season's weaver-bird nests which hang from the branches like Christmas baubles. The exposed ruin of a Namibian lodge on the bank are explained by Pineapple as being due to the rising of the waters of the Chobe at one point in recent years.

Arriving back on the South bank of the Chobe we notice two white-crowned night herons huddled together and looking directly and nervously down on us from a tree just above the landing stage. We step back onto Botswanan dry land. The lavishly watered gardens of the lodge spill down to the water's edge. As we dash between the spray of the many rotating sprinklers on the sloping lawns we pass three warthogs kneeling on their fore-elbows to chew the grass and catch sight of yellow-bellied greenbuls and spectacled weaver-birds. A Trumpeter Hornbill, with its improbable double-decker bill whirrs noisily and high up from a tree to join another bird in a facing tree.