Blogs from Chipata, Zambia, Africa

We were up early and relieved to see that Chris’ symptoms had subsided. The nurses thought it was just from falling off the horse, by hitting his back he must have hit his kidneys in the process. Today was quite a long journey on the truck heading to the Zambian border where we would head towards Chipata. Chris took some more strong painkillers which helped him sleep for most of the trip and relieved the pain from his back. We reached the border where Chris and I got a double entry visas as our flights once the overland trip are over are booked out of Livingstone. We got a receipt for the double entry payment just to make sure there wouldn’t be any issues later. After the border crossing we headed towards Chipata. Chris and I ... read more

Leaving Lake Malawi we headed west towards the Zambian border. More roadside scenery for us to enjoy. We are amazed at all the footpaths that lead every which way, and all the people on those footpaths going on about their daily routine. The main method of transportation for all but a few is on foot. There are even well-worn footpaths that parallel the highway. We observe that there are also very few obese people. Could there be a correlation here?  In fact, even though we are traveling by truck, and not walking everywhere, we are both losing weight, and are glad to have brought belts with extra notches. Overlanding is not for the physically unfit. We are lugging all our gear from place to place, putting up a heavy tent, carrying all the camp gear to ... read more

Day 20 - Chipata (Zambia) - 18/8/09 Today, we were crossing the boarder into our 4th country, Zambia. Before this we stopped in Lilongwe, the capital of Malawi, for a few supplies for the journey. Me, Cat, Duncan, Kane, Emma, Erin and Brodie all went for breakfast in a local hotel. It was only 1000 and Duncan and Me were all ready hitting the Carlsberg! A sign perhaps? The staff really messed up the order with parts of everybody’s orders coming out at different times. Having brought our souvenirs and supplies from the supermarket, we all bundled back into the truck for the drive out of Malawi and into Zambia. The border was a ramshackle affair; the building we got stamped out of Malawi was ok looking but the building were we went to get stamped ... read more

Day 54 On waking, we all decided to buy a portion each of Faulty Towers full English Breakfast, which certainly sorted us all out. After that it was back onto the road again in the direction of Lusaka, one of our favourite cities. We were all quite looking forward to going back to Eureka and when we finally reached the lovely little campsite after a drive of about 5 hours, it really did feel like coming home. Sadly our Australian friend wasn’t there any more, he must have begun his epic drive through the rest of Central/Northern Africa and is probably somewhere in the middle of the Congo right now. We bought some beer and sat considering the bizarre feeling of having left somewhere thinking never to see it again, and then some 1 month later ... read more

Awoke early and packed away my tent and helped with the breakfast as it was my cooking day. I felt much better than the day before and it was sunny. Someone put "It's a Beautiful Day" on their IPod and it really was. I slept for a while and read a while (finishing Bill Bryson's Down Under). We went through Lusaka soon after leaving, a curious mix of rural and city, with men in business suits and also some peasents. Ladies everywhere with cargo on their heads - even a chikcen surveying the world from a different persepective! The city was odd - big casinos juxtaposed with extreme poverty - people begging by the gates. The traffic was manic and not helped by pedestrians wandering across 3 lanes of traffic. Soon though we were back into ... read more

Day 12 This was a big driving day - we wanted to go and see South Luangwa park so we drove up to Chipata on the Great East Road, a really attractive road which was almost as good as the Great North Road, that at points followed the course of the Luangwa river. We got stopped a couple of times by policeman apparently just for a chat - both times after pulling us over, asking how we were, where we were going, whether we were enjoying ourselves and making a few comments about the weather they let us go…it seems that the police see such little traffic on the roads that they get bored and need to stop motorists for a bit of entertainment. We had a truck stop supper in Chipata and bought some really ... read more

Today we crossed the boarder to Zambia..... paid $150 each for the pleasure. Not much more to say than that..... 2 more days to go so thats $50 down and nothing to show for it.... read more

We set off from Lilongwe at around midday and headed for the Zambian border. We managed to get our passports stamped by the friendliest of folk to exit Malawi, headed across “no man’s land” up to Zambian border patrol. We were there for about another hour and a half in stifling heat waiting to sort all our paperwork, visas etc, with the authorities deciding to let the Irish in free aklong with the Kiwis, charging the Aussies US$50 to get in then the British US$150! A HUNDRED AND FIFTY!?!?!?! Just to get from one roasting hot country into another where the people are about as friendly as Zanzibar on a Saturday evening (Zanzibar, Derby that is, not Zanzibar, Tanzania). Anyway, we managed to fend off the lucky men selling Zambian currency (after we’d done some wheeling ... read more