And so the journey which will eventually lead to Livingstone begins. First class on the Tazara Express is not to be mistaken with Virgin pendolino trains first class, but it is ok!

The train is three hours late departing. No explanation is proffered, but it is very puzzling as the train only runs twice a week, commences from Dar and has its own special station. Still, spirits are high as I and five other travellers. After a respectable period of some 50 minutes we converge on the drinks carriage and proceed to party until gone midnight, we are all in separate sleeping compartments so it wouldn't have been fair on our fellow passengers to have stayed in one carriage. The combination of beer, Amarula, Tanzanian brandy(!!) and cigars has the desired effect and I'm out like a light come bedtime, able to sleep easily despite the rickety train and erratic driving.

Next morning it's a less happy experience as the prospect of a day on the train with a hangover looms large. The other travellers leave the train at the Zambian border to pursue their own journeys. This isn't a disaster as I chat to the various Africans who come and go during the day.

I decide to lay off the grog for the second night of the trip but this too is a mistake as I can only surmise that the train driver has had an argument with his wife and has decide to vent his fury on us poor passengers. We stop and start, tortuously jarring throughout the night and sleep is impossible.

The train is late to its destination of Kampiri Mposhi and I've spent some 54 hours solid travelling through Africa. Kampiri Mposhi is in the middle of nowhere and I need a bus to Lusaka (a mere three hours away) quickly before sunset. I realize at this point that my perception of what a long journey is has changed markedly over the last month.

I'm exhausted by my recent bus journey to Mwanza and the Tazara Express and decide to spend an unscheduled day in Lusaka to recover. It is much more of a westernised and modern city than those in Tanzania, but there is little tourism. It has massive wide boulevards, congested traffic and just the slowest internet connections. I visit the national museum and discover that Witchcraft was such a problem in Zambia that they have a Witchcraft Act at Chapter 14 of the Laws of Zambia (which is sill in force!) outlawing the practice of being a witchcraft, hiring a witch and practising witchcraft. Google it if you don't believe me!