Delicate Sound of Thunder

Laundry Camp

Rainbow

 Livingstone 02.03.2012

Zambia! Zambia is a nice place to be. The once who said that the Malawians were the most friendly people of Africa missed by some kilometers. My time in Zambia has been filled with mainly rain and “boredom” seen from an attractions-aspect, but I’ve met nice people wherever I have been. Zambia has two big attractions, the game and the Victoria Falls. The game is no good in the rainy season, because you don’t see it, and you don’t even get to the parks because roads are of the bad kind, so that leaves the falls, which you don’t watch forever. But Zambia has so nice people that you can spend some time here really on the cheap, and have good time.

Situation one: You’re tired. You’ve been driving a couple of hours, and then been searching for tires in Lusaka, a city of 1.3 million people. Now you’re looking for a place to sleep, and because you live on the cheap, and want to meet people (not tourists) you don’t want to go to a hostel. So you cruise around town to see if you find a place that looks appealing, but haven’t seen anything good the 20 minutes you’ve been looking. About to give up you drive into a compound that looks a bit official and has an open gate and park the car. Straight after you, another car enters the compound, and a smiling man comes out and says “good evening, how are you”. You answer that you’re good, ask the other the same, and then you say you’re looking for a safe place to camp for the night, if you could stay. The answer is a big smile and “sure” (in beautiful African English).

You get shown around and meet the young man (20) who sleeps there as a kind of guard. You decide to make a campfire with the wet (because of heavy rain) wood you’ve brought, and after some time and help from the young man you get it burning nicely, so you take out your pots, and make macaroni and meat for the two of you. During dinner a second young man (23) comes with a guitar and joins you. He happens to have an amazing voice, fair skills on the guitar and also a talent for writing songs, not so unlike the writer of this blog, so you start playing. He plays his songs, and you add backing vocals and picking on the guitar (or you surprise with your melodica or harmonicas), and you play your songs and he joins in. Like this goes the evening around the fire (with the night sky and stars as a ceiling) until it is late and time to go to bed. That’s just not what you’d imagine would happen when you were out there driving, looking for a place.

Situation two: You have yet again been driving some hours, and you are sleepy behind the wheel, so you decide to stop for the night at a quite nice place along the road. You park, take out your chair, and sit down to enjoy the beautiful sunset (see picture). You’ve put on Eva Cassidy’s “songbird” and smoke your pipe while the African sky turns red.

It’s a bit later and you have retreated into your car to write an e-mail when motorbike comes and a friendly Zambian man greets you. He asks politely if you have planned to sleep here, and you say yes. He then sais that you are free to stay where you are, but if you want to you can come to the gate of the farm only 500 from the place in which you are, to be more safe. You accept and drive there. Without being more bothered you finish your writing and sleep well. The next morning you are offered a shower and a good talk before you set off to a blue sky (something that I have learned is not to be taken for granted in the rainy season).

Put shortly, Zambians are stunningly welcoming. What I’ve been doing since I came from Malawi is as follows. From Chipata (near the Malawian border) I went north for 250 kilometers to find game for free. The only thing I found was mud and rain, so I returned. From there I went slowly toward Lusaka where I did some shopping of food supplies and got myself a pair of new back tiers. The old once were really finished, with the metal looking out at some places already, but still, I did not get a single puncture on them. The new once are called Pirelli scorpion mud. They are real Pirelli, but produced in South-Africa, so unlike the real real Pirelli that last 60000 km, these should last between 30 and 40 thousand, but that’s the best you get it seems. From Lusaka I have cruised down here to Livingstone and the famous Victoria falls.

The Victoria Falls did not disappoint. The pictures are not that good, because of all the water, and thus smoke, but the falls were the more impressing. I’ve made some friends, so I actually sleep at the tourist village; for free! I also had to cross the bridge to Zimbabwe, so even if I haven’t been there officially, I have at least been on Zimbabwean soil.

Now the question is where to go. There are three options. I can go directly to Botswana via that terrible ferry. I can go to Botswana via Zimbabwe, which would be exciting for the stamp in the passport but expensive because of Visa and carbon-tax for the car. I could also go via Namibia to Botswana. What I’ll do is still open, but being shirt on USD, the only currency working in Zimbabwe at the moment, I think the route via Namibia is the most likely.  

So that’s this week. Rain, sun, nice people, long emails, muddy roads, guitar, a big waterfall and Wombosi with new boots. 

Dirt-Camp

Delicate Sound

Of Thunder

River

Grasshopper

Smiley

Over the Rainbow