2011.11.6-9 SE Africa (part 4/8) - Zambia

Visa: US$50. US$1 ~= ZMK 5000. UK outlet.
Devil's Pool — Livingstone — Lusaka — Chipata

Day 13, Nov.6, Sunday. ~35°C, sunny - rain.
Walked to Zambia with my luggage. Took a taxi ¹ to Waterfront Camp ², $6 , in order to join my next packaged tour up to Nairobi.

Taxi again to Royal Livingstone Hotel ³ for the 10:30am Livingstone Island tour ⁴. A short boat ride over to the island: 6 passengers per guide/boat. Leave clothes/bags at one open hut, change in the "Loo with a view", swim across a short stretch of running river, walk on volcanic rocks (yes, footwear!), jump in Devil's Pool ⁵ at the edge of the waterfall. You can stick your head over the edge to admire the gorge and the double rainbow, while the guide is pulling your leg. It didn't feel dangerous. Was fun. At the end of the tour, a breakfast of beautifully presented egg and bacon biscuit is served with a scone or muffin and a small glass of juice/water. It was very hot: my clothes were dry before the end of the meal.

Zambezi River's waterfront is carved up and fenced by various lodges and activity centers. Impossible to walk along the river. Rained at 3:30pm for an hour. Temperature finally dropped to tolerable level.

~7:30pm, Vernon, our Gap guided, collected the group ⁶ to the truck and tents for a long introduction (to the tour and each other). Almost all of us had trouble finding our tents afterwards in the dark. Why so late?

Day 14, Nov.7, Monday. Sunny ~38°C.
8am breakfast, bacon and egg! Nothing is planned in the tour.
Took the 10am shuttle to downtown Livingstone. Quite ugly. Many street vendors on the ground, in front of other shops. Many stalls sell thick blankets, unfathomable. Visited long distance bus depot ⁶. Changed some Kwacha. Bought food/water.

Livingstone Museum: history of Zambia. Birds, fish, insects, reptile in the area. Major tribes and their ceremonies. Broken Hill Man is the prized collection: in between Neanderthal and Homo Sapiens. Of course, a significant part is devoted to David Livingstone. The museum looks like a church (maybe was one). Its simple cloister hangs paintings for sale.

Hitched a ride back in our GAP truck.

Day 15, Nov.8, Tuesday. Sunny, ~35°C.
Uneventful 2 days: on the way to Malawi, passing Lusaka and Chipata.

6am breakfast. Everyone was by now assigned a task with a team (5 rotating teams with 4 duties: kitchen, truck, cool-box, packing). Toilet break from now on means by the road, "girls to the left, boys to the right". Often times, it was hard to find enough bushes to hide. Dry leaves sometime got into my underpants!

Lunch is always the boring "make your own" sandwiches. Same ingredient everyday: lousy bread, unripe tomatoes, ugly cucumbers, bologna, factory cheese. We pack them with condiments. GAP does emphasize hygiene: 2 basins to wash hands with soap, 3 bigger ones to wash dishes. Veggies are rinsed. These overland trucks are immense. They carry 600 liter petroleum (diesel?)! Our driver always filled 2 large jugs with tap water at the camp ground before departure. To make a claim of "sustainable" tourism, we were instructed to collect plastic wastes around the lunch area by the road. It didn't take long before we filled a large garbage bag of waste. A nice gesture, but, we only did this once.

Arrived at Lusaka, the capital city, ~2:45pm for grocery shopping. Very busy and sprawling. The cool-box team had to buy ice to fill the 2 foam boxes, where we stored our purchased drinks.

Eureka Camp ⁷ has large ground with impala, zebra and other wild animals. ~5:30pm, Vernon took us for a walk, happily shared with us bits of facts about animals we were hoping to see. At one point, we had a shit spitting contest using duiker poop, which are numerous.

Dinner ~8pm, minced beef curry. Cooked marshmallow over fire afterwards. ~9pm, the temperature went down to about 20°C. Many blue waxbill finches in the campground.

Day 16, Nov.9, Wednesday. Sunny, ~35°C.
6am depart. Saw 2 ostrich on the way out of the campground.

Through Lusaka downtown, we proceeded east. Before reaching Luwanga Bridge ~9:30am, there is a major road junction with D145 close to the border with Mozambique. Shops lined up the road selling dried fish, oranges, and crafts made of straw. We were advised to hide our cameras due to the high security measure of the bridge. The scenery next to the river is much better than earlier.

After a shopping stop at Chipata, we camped at Mama Rula's B&B.

~7:30pm dinner: BBQ beef steak, butternut squash, creamy mushroom, potato salad. Happy tummy.

Ang gave me some drop for my eye infection.

Day 17, Nov.10, Thursday. Sunny, ~32°C.
6am breakfast. Depart to Malawi.

North Zambia has more cultivated fields. Hence less opportunity to find a spot by the road for toilet break.

Notes

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1. Taxis have no meters. Price is set before you get into the car. Taxi drivers ask for $20 from the border, or a nice hotel, $10 from a cheaper hotel. Usually $5 is sufficient to go to and from the city center.

2. Zambezi Waterfront: nice setting but not convenient (in and out by taxi only), lots of monkeys. 2 Swimming pools, activity center, Internet $5/hr. Quite crowded: many overland companies stop here. GAP alone had 3 groups at this time.

3. It's worth some time to walk around Royal Livingstone Hotel's immaculate ground. Lots of monkeys, benches, and excellent view by the river. Saw 4 zebras on my way out. More zebras if you come earlier in the morning. One drawback, taxi asks for $20 to destination, no matter how close. I shared a taxi out with Stephanie from Missouri to her hotel: Zigag B&B, then walked to a supermarket for some food and beer. Drank my beer while sitting in the taxi back to camp, so it was still cold. Prices are higher than in Zimbabwe.

3. The Devil's Pool tour runs several times a day. Breakfast tour $65 at 7:30, 9:00 and 10:30. Lunch tour $120 at 12:30pm, and afternoon tour $95 at 3:30pm. The guided tour doesn't include any verbal part, i.e. no historical information is given. However, the guides are diligent in taking photos for every client, and ensuring safety.

4. Devil's Pool can be visited independently (probably only during the low water season). Get to the park gate (close to the border), pay $20 admission, hire a guide ($35/pp), and walk over. It's a much longer walk. Livingstone Island is privately owned, so no admission fee needed if go with the above tour.

5. 13 people in my third group: David and Anjum from Toronto, Don from Victoria BC, Mike (29), Alister (24), Cristina (21), Steph and Erin (21) from Australia, Alexandra from Salzburg, Caroline and Tina from Germany, Giovanni (Johnny) from Italy. Driver: Peterson.

6. Long distance bus depot is separate from other buses. ~$20 to Lusaka.

7. Eureka Camp: (+260 211)272351/278110, eurekacamp.zm@gmail.com. Quite a few individual trucks. One of the lady was doing laundry with a portable washing machine.

8. Mama Rula's: +260 (0)977 790226 /965 790225, mamarula@iwayafrica.com. Internet was dead, electricity went out from 7 to 8pm, small pool, friendly people and dogs.