ZAMBIA
Lusaka
The bus was a pretty easy journey into Lusaka. We travelled
along the Great East Road where there was NOTHING for a few hundred kilometres
apart from a few thatched huts along the way.
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| Dry fish stalls |
We arrived at night in Lusaka and teamed up with a couple
other travellers to make it to the hostel. After a short night camping, we were
up early and heading on another bus to Livingstone for Vic falls.
Livingstone
At Livingstone, we hooked up with Dotes and Lauren (the
Canadians we met in Kenya and Uganda), Will (the Brit we met in Kenya) and Neil
(the cyclist going from Taiwan to Cape Town we met in Uganda). Shosho was in
Zimbabwe sorting out a visa for Namibia.
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| Street sellers |
And it looks like we’re driving the rest of the way to Cape
Town now! It couldn’t come at a better time- there’s barely any transport, we
wouldn’t have been able to go to the national parks without our own vehicle (or
pay extortionate safari prices), there aren’t any local restaurants to eat at
as it’s getting more and more developed, and things are just less accessible.
We chilled out for a few days at the hostel and went to a
really expensive hotel for an over priced beer (£1.80 – what a rip off!!), but
the view was worth it. The sun was setting over the top of Vic Falls and the
sky was a bright orange glow. The sunsets in Africa are just incredible.
The next day we went white water rafting. About 24 rapids
along the Zambezi river with Zimbabwe on our right, and Zambia on our left. All
of us were in one boat, and another group of people filled the other. We were
flying down along Grade 4 and 5 rapids and didn’t flip once. It was so much
fun. The other boat had a few people fly out at one point, and flipped on
another rapid. Our guide decided he’d flip us on the last grade 5 rapid- full
of whirlpools and sideways crashing waves.
We were told to hold on and grab the rope, with our paddles
in our hands. We flipped, and at first I thought it was only me who had gone
in. I was turned around in the river a few times, then WHACK…the handle of a
paddle hit me on my forehead and I went dizzy. At that point, I thought…I’ll
come up at some point, I have no breath left but I’ve got a lifejacket on. You’re
told not to panic, and I wasn’t, but mostly because I felt like I’d be hit in
the face with a baseball bat, so was pretty mellow!
I finally surfaced, and Will grabbed me to hold on to the
upturned boat. I was about to look round for the others and Luke before we hit
some more rapids and I got pulled under the boat, I hung on to the rope around
the side for dear life whilst running out of breath- the current just dragged
me under. I knew if I let go that I’d be dragged under the boat and held there
because of my lifejacket so strained with white knuckles to keep hold.
Eventually bobbing up, I was þe only person holding on to this raft. But
slowly, the others started to appear- Lauren was panicked, Luke was gasping for
breath and the guide was freaked out too!
We eventually all clambered on after flipping the boat back
and we couldn’t spot Neil. But after a while, we realised he was safely on the
other boat having had quite an easy time of it.
Everyone was freaked…Lauren had pretty much run out of
breath and held under, Dotes and Will had been turned around numerous times,
Luke had been caught under the boat and held there by the guide’s feet and the
guide had also been held under the boat.
Our guide Stan said that was a bad flip and was actually
really worried for all of us. It doesn’t help after that when he told us of
another bad flip he had had where he was dragged under for 45 seconds and when
he finally surfaced, was bleeding from his ears, nose and eyes and had to be
airlifted to hospital.
Having said all of that, I had so much fun up until that
point. And given that it was a bad flip and most of the time it’s quite easy
going, I would still consider rafting again! ADRENALINE JUNKY!!
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| The gorge |
It was from Zambia and the rest of our trip going down that
we were going to see a lot more white Africans. One of the guys working for the
rafting company, around our age, (whose family is the biggest coffee exporter
to Starbucks), remembers when he got told to leave Zimbabwe within 24 hours,
pack up all their belongings and abandon their house and the 2000 workers who
depended on them for a living. Mugabe was insane, and didn’t even want the land
for farming, it just sits there- just rid of white people. Unfortunately, these
things are usually always linked to Western influence…guess who put him in
power in the first place?? The Brits of course!
Luke, Will and I went to see Vic Falls from the Zambia side
that afternoon and it was pretty spectacular. Especially when you pay half
price because both you and the guard knows he’s pocketing the money anyway.
Rainbows everywhere, such powerful sounds as you heard it hit the water below,
mist everywhere and the gorge down below.
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| Vic falls from Zambia side |
ZIMBABWE
Victoria Falls Town
Not part of our original plan, we all decided to head into
Zimbabwe. The border official was obviously on his period as he was pretty
grumpy. Or maybe just hangry (that’s angry from being hungry, Mum). Get this
for African logic…the Zimbabwe visa is $55, but if you want a Kaza visa (which
allows you multiple entry between Zambia and Zimbabwe for a month), it’s only
$50. So we all decided to get the Kaza visa…but he wanted to know why we wanted
to go back into Zambia, what we were doing, when we were planning on going and
all the rest! We lied and said we were probably going back for rafting but were
asked which company, so we told him the name of the one we were just on and he
started looking through his phone to see if he could call them! He asked when
we might come back into Zambia and we said 4 days and he wrote that on our
visa! When we decided to give it 7 days, he was a dick (sorry mum) about changing
it and pretty much yelled at us ‘DON’T MESS WITH THE SYSTEM, YOU’LL HAVE
TROUBLE WHEN YOU LEAVE.’
We drove over that afternoon to the Zim side of the falls
and set up camp. It was a really easy going town, and very small and quaint.
We spent a few days here and went to see Vic Falls from this
side. The others nearly got charged by an elephant crossing the road on their
way over, and Luke and I went to go find the elephants afterwards on the rail
tracks.  |
| Ele railway |
The falls were pretty cool, but because the water levels
were high, there was so much mist that you could barely see them at points.
Thank god we hung on to our ponchos!
It’s surprisingly cold at night considering how hot it is
during the day, especially when camping, but it is winter after all! Plus, I’m
sure you all feel really sorry for me back in Britain when I’m complaining
about 15 degrees at night.
We set off for Botswana, driving through Zambezi National
Park, but after being warned of elephants and buffalo, we were just a little disappointed
to not spot any.
Border crossing was quick and easy (no trouble for messing with the system at all). Goodbye Zimbabwe, it's been brief!
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| Zambezi drive |
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