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Published: January 11th 2008
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Chipata
Immediately struck by a lot greener, more farm land and more westernised in Zambia Ok really can't be ar$ed to write this blog so will just upload the photos as am sooooooooo far behind on my blogs/pictures now...
Crossed over the border from Malawi into Zambia and got pick up to Chipata to "Deans HIll Lodge"
Immediately, Zambia is completely different from E Africa...much more westernised feel to it, loads of focus on HIV/Aids (which is a good thing), extremely religious, and sooo many people speak English (due to the fact that there are over 80 different tribal languages here...apparently).
Chipata is much more green and has lots of arable farm land unlike Malawi and Tanz...the town kinda looked like something out of the wild west. Also has a westernised kinda feel, aside from there being no electricity and also there was no water as there was a problem with the dam...so yeah, no showers and only bottled water to brush teeth...nice!
Made a pretty swift exit from there to Lusaka, based on the no amenities thing and the fact i was on a race against time in order to make my flight to Singapore...the bus journey there, and all the way through Zambia was pretty amusing...lots of religious sh!t being spouted
for the entire journey but all good as the bus made it there in one piece, pretty impressive given the state of the bus and the roads combined...
Made it to Lusaka and that was completely westernised, loved it, was even able to buy a hot chocolate and pastry- felt soooooo civilised...i know it sounds ridiculous but having a pastry and hot choc is sooooo amazing when its been that long since you had something that good... it really was Good 😊)
Anyways, apart from the extremely good access to food/pastries/alcohol etc... Lusaka had little else to offer in terms of culture so then moved onto Livingstone, another religious sermon (spelling???) en route on the bus.
Ok, so now's the part where i bore you with lots of photos of vic falls, but i think its pretty spectacular (one of the 7 wonders don't you know!!) although my camera is only 2 megapixels so really doesn't do it justice...
Went white water rafting which was awesome, apart from the fact i was on a raft with annoying american teenagers, one of whom tried to drown me when our raft flipped, resulting in given me a cut
lip, chipped tooth and a big black bruise right down to my chin (yes, I am being serious- bloody americans!)....mmm attractive, but honestly it was amazing fun and i would definitely do it again...rafting on the zambezi is supposed to be the best stretch in the world (unless you go to Uganda, where they also say that!)...it was hard work and my arms killed the next day from all the paddling but proper good fun. we flipped a fair few times towards the end which was mostly cool except for the part where the american girl tried to drown me at which point i did what you're told not to do, ie get as far away from the raft as possible (you supposed to hold onto the oh sh!t rope at all times) being drowned by the rapids was preferable to having some big lug on top of me! 😊...didn't take my camera out with me for obvious reasons, quite lucky considering the number of times we flipped but means no photos 😞...less for you to look at!
Then did another crazy thing combined with tough walk over to Devils pool. The walk through the falls was pretty hard
work, through jungle like parts, over rocks and obviously fast flowing water...had to do quite a lot just walking bare foot, struggling to stand up and balance whilst walking on narrow walkways...(no idea how i used to do gymnastics as was hard enough just walking along the beam like bit, let alone doing flips or anything...blame it on the age combined with the fact that water was pushing against me)...managed to not fall in once though so all good!
After about an hour we made it to the Devils pool...this is the really cool bit...basically you get to hang over the edge of the falls while someone else holds onto your feet to avoid you plummeting to you death...we had to jump in at a precise point to make sure that we didn't get swept over the edge by the current and then trust others to hold tight!! Wasn't entirely relaxed but it was amazing, and would definitely do it again, take a look at the views!
Tried to do the microlighting as well but given rainy season was just starting each day it got called off as it needs to be pretty good weather conditions for it to
not be too risky so guess i'll just have to come back...after that headed for my flgiht to Singapore...timing all pretty good given that the rain had just started although sad end of African experience- its been awesome (yes, i've picked up some pretty bad words whilst travelling) but it really has been, i've done the worlds highest bungee jump, mini safari, taught english to primary school kids, netball to unruly Tanzanian teenagers, and just given attention to kids at an orphanage...then had some really lazy times on beautiful beaches like Zanzibar and Malawi, and finished off white water rafting some of the hardest commercial rapids going and hanging off the edge of Vic Falls...Africa has been amazing...so much to do, so little time!
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