Blogs from Livingstone, Zambia, Africa - page 15

Jumping into the front seat of a taxi in Livingstone town centre I offered the driver 30,000 kwatcha for a ride to the waterfront. “40,000” was his reply, as I knew it would be. I spied a Lionel Richie cassette tape sat on the dashboard. “40,000, but we listen to Lionel Richie all the way” “Deal!” Two minutes later we were hurtling through town, the mist of Victoria Falls hanging across the horizon. The driver was bellowing into his cell phone as we approached a police road block. Spotting the minor offence and the opportunity for a quick side of the road bribe, the officer waved his red flag and moved the road block into our path. My driver simply accelerated towards the policeman, whose AK47 hung idly from his shoulder, swerving around the road ... read more

Trying to describe Lusaka, Zambia's capital city is difficult. It is a city with a bit of and edge to it in terms of grime but definitely pleasant enough. The guidebooks were quite right that it isn't really designed for tourism which explains why few people stay there. With hardly any museums and a few shopping centers as the highlights, I made quick work of Lusaka. Although I truly enjoyed the National Museum it seemed as if it was put together as a middle school project. Things were haphazardly strewn about presentation boards. Tacky Tape was used to hold the printed material at odd angles. All at once you are filled with sadness for the lack of funds available within the country to produce a museum worthy of Zambia's history, grateful for all of the historical ... read more

sooooo, this is gonna be a long time sat in this seat i reckon. the English may get a bit iffy towards the end too! (and prob the middle!). My last entry ended with the arrival at Cape Town for New Year. allow me to summarise events... stayed in a place called Muizenburg with ze 2 Germans girls again (same as Christmas). went out to a club called La Med, met some people, got a lil tipsy, watched sunset on Camps Bay beach with a bottle of Bubbly, went to a bar in Kalk Bay called Polana's, slept. The Next couple of weeks after this have been spent seeing the sights and sounds of Cape Town, notably Table Mountain, Robben Island, and the museums and galleries. After all of this sight seeing, i found myself on ... read more

Heellloooo All, As you've probably gathered by the title of this blog I have been to Victoria Falls thus giving the reason of my again late blog entry. As always I will start where I left off last week. We spent a couple of days visiting two projects (I say projects, they are pretty well established at this stage) including a school called Chililalila - get your tongue around that - and a childrens centre attached to the Hospice which Alice's cousin works in. Chililalila was a great place to go for a few days to see what a general school format was like in Zambia. It was very well equipped with lots of staff including nurses, teachers, cooks, gardeners, social workers, councillers etc etc. We didn't do much aside from playing or being chased around ... read more

It is a long time (at least in miles) since I was last on this site! I am writing retrospectively since we haven't had access to the internet for some time, we are now actually in Rundu in Namibia having hotfooted it hear today. We left the rundown backpackers site (Mubuya), not recommended, very early in the morning and headed off towards Lusaka. Malawi is a vey beautiful country with a lot of poverty but very neat and organised people. Everyone smiles and, the poverty, illness and not to mention rain the lifestyle looks idylic!! Sitting in your dugout canoe floating out on the lake or relaxing under a fruiting mango tree, nice.... However, I would also aprreciate access to a proper loo, shower and clean water when I needed it. Leaving Malawi was relatively straight ... read more