Chirundu District

After 5 weeks of Tanzania I'm finally in a new country (nevermind that I'm writing this from two countries ahead)! Zambia made an impression from the start as we had a 3 hour bus journey from the train terminus to Lusaka, the capital. Our on-board entertainment on this journey included a man selling toiletries, cosmetics, and other snake-oil type products as if it were Splott market, and a preacher that seemed possessed at times.
Unable to face another 8-hour bus journey after being on a train for 2 & a half days, myself and 3 guys I made friends with on the train decided to hire a vehicle and go for a bit of a road trip to a camping ground on the Zambezi for a couple of nights. A bit of a navigation error meant that we ended up taking a road that we had no business taking! A perfectly good tarmac road clearly marked as a main road on google maps just suddenly descended into a road worse than any farm track that I'd been on, with huge pot holes, river crossings, fallen trees, and stretches of mud that had claimed other vehicles. With the excellent driving skills of Simon, the guiding skills of Marco & Ivan, the help of some friendly locals, and some straight rum for stress relief, we finally made what should have been a 2-3 hour journey in 7 hours (if you want to know what I did - it was mostly moral support, offering of food & snacks, and the occasional lugging of rocks and pushing the truck). We arrived at our campsite at around 11.30pm and threw a celebratory party that we made it!
The next day after nursing our hangovers, we went for a walk into the bush to hunt for elephants, which had apparently been in our campsite 2 nights previously. All we found were footprints and dung. Then we went on a boat trip (in the pouring rain) and saw loads of hippos plus a few crocs. The next day it was back to Lusaka, making sure to get the truck cleaned to hide the evidence of our expeditions from the rental company, and then one final bus journey together from Lusaka to Livingstone, where we were off to see Victoria Falls!Read more