"Mike Resnick - Between the Sunlight and Thunder (2)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Resnick Mike)

September 27: We drove through the highlands, stopping here and there to take pictures and talk to
the locals, passed through Lilongwe at noon, and headed north to our final destination, the Lifupa
Lodge at Kusungu National Park. Just before reaching it we passed by a fairy-tale palace, a
glistening white building which could easily accomodate a worldcon; it turned out to be Banda's
newest home, which overlooked a few hundred mud huts occupied by his loyal subjects. Kasungu
was sad. The park, which as recently as two years ago possessed a truly magnificent selection of
game, has been almost totally poached out. The elephant population, estimated at 1,800 in 1982, is
less than 100; there are no rhinos left; and while the Zambian poachers were busy collecting ivory
and rhino horns, the hungry hordes of Malawiians who surround the park poached most of the other
animals for meat. The death knell was sounding while we were there: a crew of six international
tsetse
fly abatement experts were busy eradicating the last flies from the park -- at which time nothing
on
earth will stop the local subsistence farmers and cattle herders from encroaching on the park's
boundaries. I'd be surprised if it still exists ten years from now.

September 28: We took two game runs, hiring a local ranger and a four-wheel-drive vehicle (and
making a note to bill Soche Tours for it, since we had already paid for it months earlier, a fact
that no
one except Carol and I seemed aware of). In six hours with a guide who knew the park inside out,
we saw one large herd of buffalo, a few roan antelope, small herds of impala and zebra, and a lone
elephant -- less than we might expect to see five minutes into a game drive in Hwange, Chobe, Mana
Pools, or Moremi. Our rondoval was quite large, and absolutely immaculate -- until we inspected
the



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shower, which was so filthy that we elected to remain dirty until we reached London.

September 29: We spent the morning watching hippos and birds from the porch of our rondoval
(which faced a small lake), then got into the car and drove to Lilongwe, where we had lunch at the
Capital Hotel -- the only world-class accomodation in the country -- and went to the airport,
where
we were (politely) frisked and our luggage was (politely) searched. The airport bookstore had a
huge
display of Santiago and Ivory. I was about to mention that I was the author, and ask the
proprietor if
he wanted any copies autographed; then I remembered where I was, and thought better of it. Still,
for all its problems (or, more likely, because of them), Malawi proved to be more fertile ground
for
story ideas than Zimbabwe and Botswana, and bits and pieces of it will be turning up in my books
and stories for some years to come. Which is not to imply that we didn't both breathe hearty sighs
of
relief as the plane took off.

September 30: We landed at Heathrow, took a bus to Gatwick, and checked into the Gatwick