Blogs from Lake Kariba, Zambia, Africa

Lake Kariba At the busy Central Market, we hopped on a minibus to Siavonga that the taxi driver herded us into! Someone was yelling “Siavonga” out of the window so we were glad to be on the right bus….and he continued to shout Siavonga the entire way there, picking up new passengers! We drove down very dusty roads, and with windows open, I felt the layer of road dust build up on my skin. Sunglasses were not only for the sun, but for protection from dusty clouds! We thought the journey would be 2-3 hours, but we were quite wrong! With stops and starts, luggage on and off, it was around 5 hours! We saw the turn off to Siavonga, but the driver wanted us to drive to the border town (Zimbabwe border) to collect some ... read more

House Boat Fun So we had journied through Malawi and had rubbish weather, but as we crossed the border into Zambia, quite literally the sun was shinning on the other side. We did have an awful journey to get to Lake Kariba- our truck sunk into loose stones and ruble near a building site and had to be towed out by a JCB and then the road that followed was only like 60k but took us 4 hours along all the pot holes and bumps in the road. We arrived just in time to watch the stuning sun set over the Lake, orange and pink colours scattered across the sky and then the full moon coming out in the dark. The house boat was a bit like a floating hotel only compacted onto a boat ... read more

Up before first light for a 6am departure - waving goodbye to Sammy as we left. We crossed the Zambezi bridge after a few miles, getting an excellent view of the gorge and yesterday’s starting point for the rafting. We spent ages in the boling sun waiting for our passports to be processed at the Zambian border post. There was another punitive $US 55 each in visa fees. We stopped in a busy little Zambian town for Kwacha, the Zambian currency. The Zambian currency is quite strong because of their main export being copper which is at a high price. Things are therefore noticeably more expensive. I did however buy a cheap watch from a street trader (I accidentally left behind my one pound watch bought in Poundsaver in Norwich with the guide on our ... read more