Lundazi

Our first Zambian town after crossing the border and so to the bank to get local money. The annoying thing in Africa is fuel stations don't take visa card and diesel is expensive. 7578 ZKW per litre and it is

£1 = 7500, also the ATMs only give small quantities of cash so you have to get money go get fuel and then get more money. In Lundazi we also decided to get a Zambian sim card as cheap to call home and the sim card cost less then £1 and a 20 minute call to the UK costs £4.

Now for somewhere to stay for the night, the only place advertised was the castle hotel. The castle hotel was a mini castle and we thought would be to expensive so we drove to a guest house in town. The guest house said we could camp for free in their car park if we bought dinner from them and the most expensive meal was £3 so we agreed. Little did we realize it was a Saturday night and they had a beer garden. By 7pm music as blaring , the car park was rammed full and we realized maybe not such a good idea. By this point we had ordered food and mine turned up 2 hours later and Jonnys an hour after me. We ate the food, paid and left. Now the problem was our car was blocked in by others who where wasted in the bar. Luckily Jonny found someone to move their car and we drove off down the road at 8pm to the Castle. It turned out the room was not that expensive after all as the largest room with ensuite bathroom was 130 000ZKW which is about £15 for the two of us. So our first night in Zambia and a night out of the tent.

Next day we headed south to Chipata but the road was in an awful way, it was supposed to be tar mac but you had to spot the bits of tar mac in amongst the pot holes and gravel. So a slow going road but the exciting thing was in Chipata there is a supermarket and we had not seen a supermarket since we where in Dares Salam (Tansania) so nearly 2 months ago. First stop was the bank only to find out that both our Visa debit cards had been blocked by our banks at home. This was extreamly annoying as now we had to find top up vouchers for the Zambian sim card of a high enough amount to allow 2 phone calls back to the UK to Lloyds TSB and HSBC. Turns out they had put a frauf flag on our accounts as they had been used abroad in Zambia (you have got to be kidding me). We had been on the road travelling for 6 months by now and 17 countries outside of the UK but now they decided to put a fraud flag on our account. Eventually we got it sorted so we filled up the car with diesel and food shopping and headed out of town to find somewhere to camp. Deans hill camp overlooked Chipata and the surrounding hills and cost £4 per person to stay so we pulled in. Jonny spent the rest of the afternoon underneath the car giving it a service at its 10 000 mile mark and I did clothes washing. That evening a storm was on its way, the winds picked up, there was thunder and lighting all over and the whole of Chipata lost power. Jonny and I sat with our petrol lamp watching it all and it appeared we where the only ones with any lights.

From Chipata we wanted to head to South Luangwa National Park as we had hear great things about the park and good opportunities to see leopard. We had also heard the road heading out there is awful and slow going but we set off giving a lift to Dagmar and Hermen a German couple we met in Malawi. Along the road we past three German bikers one with a puncture so Jonny used our compressor to help him out till he could get to a garage. The road was by no way as bad as some we had travelled through in Africa and the Chinese where there trying to build a tar mac one. The Chinese are everywhere through Africa, we have seen them building roads all the way from Ethiopia down so they must have an interest in Africa resources I think. At South Luangwa we camped at Croc valley which was right on the edge of the river so you could watch elephants, hippos and crocodiles. The swimming pool at the campsite had slopping edges so that hippos could get out if they went in during the night (which they regularly did). One evening at 2am Jonny woke to a noise and quickly woke me up and said quietly look. Outside our roof tent was a large male elephant just peering in. We lay there quietly not sure what one does if said elephant decides it wants in but luckily for us we had no food in our tent. That evening I had drained a tin of sweetcorn in the grass and the smell of it must have attracted the elephant. At South Luangwa we saw hundreds and hundreds of elephant, more elephant then antelopes which was amazing and encouraging as they are so heavily pouched in Africa. One afternoon we just sat for an hour in the car watching a herd of elephant. One our way back to camp a male elephant got angry and wanted to charge, Jonny put his foot down pretty quick and we where out of there.

Zambia is a huge country so to travel between destinations takes time. We left Croc valley travelled 3 hours back to Chipata where we refulled and got more food then we decided to put a dent into our journey to Lusaka (The capital of Zambia and where we were picking my parents up from the airport to spend a week travelling with us).

Just before dark we got to the Luangwa river and there was a campsite called bridge camp so we stopped for the night. From the bar there was a beautiful view over the river so we had a beer until it went dark. There was just us and a Swiss biker in the campsite so I cooked spaghetti bolognaise and invited him to join us.

The next day we set off for Lusaka passing many poor villages (80% of Zambians live in poverty and families have to survive on less then $1 per day). It does break your heart as you drive past and many people shout water or food. November was mango season so there where millions of mangoes being sold at the side of the roads. I pulled over and bought some mangos off a young girl and also gave her a pair of flip flops and some sugar we did not need. Arriving in Lusaka you could have been anywhere in the world as it was a big commercial city with all the mod cons. We headed to a hardwear store so jonny could get some fibre glass to reattach our right rear fender that had come off during a mud slide in Mozambique and a close encounter with a small tree. We then headed to a shopping mall which was all a bit daunting after being out in the bush for a long time so we bought nothing but treated ourselves to a Nandos. We camped just outside of town down a dirt track to a lodge called Pioneer camp. A local asked to wash our car which was caked in mud and he did a great job all for £2. We now had 4 days in Lusaka before my parents arrived which was going to be spent cleaning, changing car oil, food and beer shopping so car full for parents and chilling out.

Picked my parents up from the tiny international airport in Lusaka, it had cost them $1000 return for the two of them from Johannesburg so not cheap. We headed back to Pioneer camp where we had been camping and the parents got a great deal with a lovely bungalow for cheap. We tucked into a rump steak dinner while some small black scorpions ran round the place.

The next morning we packed up (left a lot of our stuff in Lusaka to make room for my parents in the car) and we headed out of town and south to Lake Kariba (the largest artificial lake in Africa bordering Zambia and Zimbabwe). It was a long drive due to Lusaka always having terrible traffic at all times of the day and we had to go through the capital and out the otherside. It also took time as the main road had many large trucks on it and then for the last 2 hours we where off road on washed out gravel. We arrived at Bushcamp Lake Kariba and it turned out they had double booked so they upgraded us to the big house overlooking the lake. It was a private house, double story with kitchen, bathroom and lounge all for $20 per person per night.

Some cold beers where drunk and the braai (BBQ for my English friends) was started. The next day mom decided a lounge round the pool over looking the lake was in order while Dad, Jonny and I headed off to the crocodile farm. The crocodile farm had 100 000 crocodiles from babies up to the breeders which are about 65 years old. We drove round the breeders enclosure and one of the large crocs went for the truck tires.

Some cool crocodile fats

1. Each crocodile lays about 90 eggs once a year

2. Eggs are incubated for 60 days

3. Temperature determines what sex the croc babies will be but the temperature around Lake Kariba means 80 % will be a male which apparently is good as the skins of male crocs are better.

4. Majority of crocodile meat comes from the tail

5. Crocodiles can live to be 150 years and have no other enemies other then humans and other crocodiles

Back at camp a few beers where drunk over looking the lake (are you sensing a theme here) and then we where off out at 3.30 for the sunset boat cruise. The boat well wood on top of floats and an engine will describe it and out captain was called Bonny and he had one tooth. Included on the trip is 5 drinks per person, mom did not want to drink hers in case she needed to pee, I was not bothered so Dad and Jonny got merry. The trip out on the lake was fantastic we saw hippo, elephant, wildebeast, impala and warthog. On route back to camp a great sunset over the lake and then dinner waiting for us back at camp.

The next stop was Victoria falls and we headed to the waterfront campsite. They had no rooms so mom and dad where in a tent for two nights (ha ha). The bar looked right over the Zambezi river upstream from the falls and there was a nice cold swimmingpool.

As it was the end of the dry season just as the rains were due to start the falls were not in flood (sadly as this would have been good to see). However it was still very impressive to see the huge gorge, some of the falls, many baboons and the rapids down by the river.

Sadly the best view of the falls is in my opinion from the Zimbabwean side but if you would like to walk there you have to pay $20 for a 24 hour visa (Magabe hay what a con). More cold beers bought and more meat for a braai and it was back to camp.

On route back to Lusaka (the parents just visited for one week and had to get them back to the airport) we decided to break our journey at the moorings campsite which was out in the African bush and lovely and quiet. The only problem is he bar had just 2 Savanhas and 2 Reds cider luckily for us we had a cooler box full or I would not have been popular. We chilled out for the afternoon then had a lovely braai (again are you sensing the theme) but we were surrounded by hundreds of Christmas beetles.

After we said goodbye to the parents which was quiet sad we headed into Lusaka for some western world living and went to the cinema which was a first since we left home. That evening we had a huge rain storm with hours of thunder, lightning and the roads where flooded. We had planned to leave Lusaka and head for western Zambia towards Angola the next day but we got a message from Biker Bert.

We Met Bert, a biker from Belgium in Istanbul and he was also driving his motorbike all the way to Cape Town. We then bumped into him again for a few days in Nairobi Kenya and he was now in Lusaka but with Bike problems and was hoping he could get Jonnys help. So we decided to stay an extra day in Lusaka and we took Bert to a motorbike Garage and Jonny took the bike for a spin (now he wants a motorbike again). We all had lunch together and camped together that evening and then said our goodbyes the next day as he headed for Lake Kariba and then Zimbabwe and we headed West to Kafue National park.

We aimed for Mayukuyuku campsite which was a 6 hour drive and I thought it was on the outskirts of the national park but it turned out to be in the park and so there for expensive to camp. We then moved on to check out a lodge which was lovely but at £100 each we moved on even quicker. We drove through the national park seeing elephants and warthog and then out the otherside to a town called Kaoma. By now we had driven 8 hours and we needed to find somewhere to sleep. In Kaoma there was not a lot except a petrol station where we filled up, a small shop and a local guest lodge. We asked if we could camp for the night and they said no problem and it was only £6 for the two of us. Not sure many of the locals staying there had seen white people as we definitely got some attention and then the thought of us living out of our car is a foreign concept to them. The place and people where lovely so long as you did not want to use the facilities, it was better to wait and go behind a tree in the wild.

At our next campspot in Mongu (which is next to the Luiwa plains and the Angolan border) one of the locals introduced us to the cashew apple. I have eaten and love cashew nuts but did not realize they came from a cashew tree attached to a cashew apple. Apprently the local Africans eat them as they give a lot of juice and sugars, Jonny and I were not sure what to make of it. The route down the west side of Zambia towards the Zambian Namibian border was interesting as the tarmac ended and we were suddenly driving on single car sand tracks along the Zambezi river. As by now the rainy season had started the tracks where in places under water and the land cruiser was put through its 4 x 4 skills. It was a stunning route though and well worth it. After 2 hours we arrived at the edge of the Zambezi and a small car ferry (it took us one other car and a tractor) was there and lucky in operation or we would have had atleast a weeks backtracking to do. The ferry not surprising cost us $30 while the locals pay next to nothing at all but this route along the Zambezi was worth it.

Our next stop was Ngonye/Sonio falls which we walked down to with a local and they were a series of falls and all very beautiful to see. We wanted to camp but they would not take dollars and we had run out of local money by now (petrol stations only take cash and not mant ATMs around). We headed down the road to a well signposted camp called Sonio falls camp. It was quiet a chock once we turned off at the sign advertising bar, restaurant ect ect to find it deserted and no one there but the remains of the camp. We wondered round having a look and many of the old ornaments where still out and the tents still erected. After an hour a guy appeared who spoke little to no English but we established he was the guard and we said we were looking for camping. He said nothing but there was a lovely spot right next to the river were they used to launch a boat from so we decided this would do and we gave the guard a beer so he was happy for us to stop the night.

There was no shade where we had camped and so by 6am the sun was on the tent and it was unbearably hot. We got up packed up and hit the road for the town of Shesheke which was on the border with Namibia. As we arrived at 11am we decided to cross into Namibia and we have to say this border crossing was the quickest, easiest and most efficient border crossing we have experienced on our whole trip. Neither South African or British need a visa for Namibia which saved some money and we just had to purchase a cross border permit for the car which was N$220 (£18) which lasts for 3 months.

We were now in Namibia which was country number 19 for us and one we where looking forward to as a lot of people had said so many good things. We decided to head for the western side of the Caprivi strip and camp on the Okavango river with the hippos.

The trip is going so well

Jonny, Terri and the truck are all in good shape and my next blog will be our Namibian adventures were we plan to spend Christmas and New Year.

Hope all our friends and family are well and we wish you all a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

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