Kafue to Vic Falls

---

After leaving Luangwa we drove to Lusaka-another long day through rolling Miombo and Mopane woodland which was starting to get slightly monotonous. Lusaka is a strange place. The city centre consists of 3 high-rise buildings! It was a shock to be in such a built up place after being out in the bush for 3 weeks. There is a huge South African influence there and one starts to see lots of big Afrikaners wandering around in tiny shorts and two-tan shirts covering their huge beer bellies! They are hilarious characters and we are all investing in a pair of tight shorts and two tan shirts so that we can fit in. We had two nights there before moving on. The nightlife was dead although we made the best of it!

We then drove on to a huge National Park called Kafue in the western part of Zambia. It is centred around the Kafue river which has a huge flood plain that is saturated in the wet season but which was very dry at this time of year. The river is huge and is lined by small mopane trees that lend it the appearance of a mangrove creek. Being a flood plain the terrain is very flat and featureless which doesn’t make for spectacular scenery. It was sweltering in the sun and you have never seen so many tsetse flies in your life. The car was continually inundated by waves of the things and we were all bitten countless times. We camped two nights by the river at a place called Lufupa lodge. We were hoping to do some serious fishing for tilapia and African Pike (lots of teeth and looks just like a mini baraccuda) but unfortunately the fishing wasn’t great and you need a boat to access the best spots. We did have a little bit of luck from the shore and caught a few small pike. We had a huge ele come into camp on the first evening to eat palm nuts. He would shake the palm trees with his trunk, showering himself with the hard nuts which he then picked up meticulously. Binks and I crawled under a car next to one of the trees to take some photos and he actually walked right up to the car while we were under it. His trunk was not more than about 3 feet from us as we lay concealed from him which was really cool. We did a long drive up to some flood plains in the North of the park and saw lots of game there including Sable and Roan antelope, 2 cheetah and a huge pride of lions eating on the most revolting rotting hippo carcase. The lions were all covered in blood and gore and the carcase was literally alive with a seething mass of maggots. We made the mistake of getting down wind and we were all retching as I tried to get the car started!

We had a long 12 hour day from Kafue to Livingstone to get to Vic Falls. Our fuel gauge doesn’t work so we have to calculate how much fuel we have in the tank based on the mileage we have done since last filling up and our estimated fuel efficiency. It is not fool proof as we have found out repeatedly and we have now run out on about 5 occasions! On the day to Livingstone we were banking on getting fuel from a station in the middle of nowhere but they had run out! We had no fuel to get to the next station so we had to hunt around the back streets of a small town until we found a guy with 20L of diesel in a jerry can. He was quite a character and was getting pissed in the heat of the day and was sucking down sachets of rancid cane spirit as he poured the jerry can into the tank. We took a wrong turn on the tarmac later in the day and had to come back about 20kms which cost us some time (not quite as bad as our friend Quent who had a similar experience on the same turning only he drove 200km before realising!) and we then ran out of diesel 1km from the Hostel we were going to stay in in Livingstone. We ended up pushing the car the last km into the Hostel much to the amusement of the management!

We checked out the falls and the bridge over the gorge although none of us bungy jumped because we are saving ourselves for the big one at Bloukrans in SA. The nightlife was once again dead in Livingstone-it has been the theme of the trip so far-we are travelling at a quiet time of year and there just aren’t many other people around. Nevertheless we still had a bit too much cane spirit on our first night! One of the highlights on the trip thus far was the white water rafting trip that we did below the falls. It was spectacular and we had a great time. We had a bit of a shocker in the very first rapid when we misunderstood the very unclear instructions from our guide and ended up side ways on in a huge standing wave. Dames was catapaulted out of the boat and Rich and I forgot to hold on the ‘oh shit’ line around the edge of the boat. We were all tossed around for a good few seconds before finally getting back to the surface. It was slightly disconcerting particularly when the guide then told us that he had once been pulled under in a similar spot and had not come up for about 45 seconds! People die in the gorge every year but that is normally at times of high water during the rains. The rapids, particularly at the top end, are huge! We went in another 2 times and all generally had a great time emerging none the worse from our experiences.

We spent our last 2 nights in Zambia upstream of the falls at a place Jungle Junction which is a bizarre place on an island in the Zambezi and is run by this crazy old white Zambian hippy. There is quite heavy fishing pressure from the local people but the other side of the river there is a National Park in Zim so there is a fair amount of wildlife about. The river is very scenic with stretches of rapids in between huge pools and little reed-covered islands. We fished in the rapids for tigers and although we didn’t catch anything particularly big we caught quite a few including a couple on fly. All the fishing was done from these incredibly wobbly little canoes called Makoros. Thankfully no one went in the river although there were a few close shaves particularly when the masters of balance-Nick and Rich-were put in a makoro together.

We crossed into Botswana at the Kazungula ferry across the Zambezi. Our reflections on Zambia were mixed. It is a vast country with stacks of untouched bush country and a small population. The people are all very friendly and we largely avoided any problems with the notoriously difficult police. It is quite backwards, particularly Lusaka, and the countryside does lack a little bit of variety with the Zambezi valley and Lake Tanganyika as notable exceptions. Much of it is very flat and monotonous. I think we were all in agreement that it was not the kind of place we would want to live but was a thoroughly enjoyable and interesting country to visit. I would definitely go back!

Will try to put some photos up when the internet connection is faster.

---