Camping with the animals in Zambia

After a painless crossing from Malawi we spent our first night in Zambia in a very unremarkable campsite in Chipata (we thought it was called Chippatti at first, probably the most interesting thing about the place!). From there it was a 4 hour drive along a particularly dusty, bumpy road (although nowhere near as bad as the one in North Kenya) to South Luangwa National Park. Tris had already told me that this was her favourite park in Africa (which is a pretty good achievement being as her and Scott have been travelling around Africa for the last 20 or so years) but nothing could have prepared me for the beautiful view we were greeted with when we arrived. After a quick talk about elephant safety (I’m not kidding), we were jumping in the pool to ease the midday heat somewhat. 


The camp is situated on the Luangwa river, on the other side of the river from the camp is the South Luangwa National Park, the river is the park boundary. As the river is so low at the moment and there is a food shortage in the park a lot of wildlife crosses the river to the campsite. The first night we had to hide under the truck as a large bull elephant changed through the camp (they can actually run surprisingly fast considering how big they are), luckily we had packed all our food away but the other truck was in the middle of eating when they came. The elephants basically destroyed their camp, ripping open boxes and stamping on plastic containers while the guys had to sit on the roof of their truck and watch - there was a particularly cheeky one who opened a whole bag of salt and then turned to everyone watching and poured it all over himself….hilarious. They even had a little walk through the bar, knocking peoples drinks all over the place, I was a little concerned about my laptop as I’d left it in the bar in all the commotion, but it was alright, apparently elephants haven’t discovered facebook yet.  That night when we were sleeping we were visited by elephants, giraffes and a hippo. Alice tried to wake me up but apparently I just muttered something about not knowing where I was, asking where Alice was and then went back to sleep….dam sleep talking!


The next day, the same stupid truck left all their food out again (actually it was our food - we had donated them breakfast as we felt sorry for them) and surprise surprise the elephants came back for more. As it was the middle of the day I have much better pictures/videos of them annihilating their camp which I will try and upload.  That night we had a whole family stood less than a foot away from our tent which was amazing, I actually woke up this time and it’s amazing how huge yet silent these amazing mammals are. Unfortunately they were the only animals we saw that night although I think we were secretly glad as apparently a pride of lions had wandered through the camp only a few days before!


I think everyone was sad to leave South Luangwa, it was a awesome place to chill out and it was cool to see wild animals actually in the wild rather than chasing them on a game drive. We spent the next two days driving (with a cool bush camp in the middle where Alice freaked herself out with Tris inspired stories of the slasher and a night in Lusaka just so Karl could go to Nandos) and arrived in Livingstone just in time for a sunset cruise on the Zambezi river. I say, sunset cruise, there was actually free food and alcohol so it turned into a bit of a booze cruise - most people were home and in bed by 8pm - lightweights! I was, of course, out until the wee hours. If my mother has taught me anything about alcohol its definitely stamina! 


The next day we were up early to go and watch Amy do a bungee jump over Victoia Falls. Rather her than me for sure - even watching I thought I was going to wet myself. She did it though and liked it so much she even did the gorge swing and zip line as well. Crazy girl. The afternoon we went to see the falls which were just as in the pictures and the spray was pretty amazing. Charly, Alice and I went out for some great Mexican food that night (with real cheese….bonus!). The next day most of the group went rafting so after the success of our wood carving school we decided to go and check out the local art centre. It was pretty cool, I wanted to do stone carving but we didn’t have time so I made a giraffe out of wire and an old fanta can instead. It actually turned out pretty well, I could probably sell it at some of the markets here for at least $10! The next morning we took a trip out to Devil’s pool which is basically a place right at the top of the falls where you can swim and look over. The whole trip was a bit of a disaster and was so overpriced but we got what we wanted in the end…pictures of us swimming right at the top of the falls. It was quite scary actualy as there was a really strong current dragging you towards the edge, when we had finished they also decided to tell us all these stories about people who fell off the edge and died. Gotta love the H&S in Africa!


I am now taking advantage of the meat pies and the free wifi in the bakery here. We’re leaving to Bostwana tomorrow and I’m quite sad, Zambia has definitely been one of my favourite countries in Southern Africa so far. 

Beautiful South Luangwa

The view from our tent in South Luangwa

Elephant in camp!

Elephant watching from a safe distance (top of the truck)

Pretty cool spot for a bush camp

Pretending to be monkeys (why not!?) just outside of Lusaka

Victoria Falls

Jumping in to the devils pool...yes that edge is actually the top of the falls

Marvellous Malawi

We spent five nights in Zanzibar and got the ferry back to Dar (which was ridiculously choppy and we all got seasick) where we were staying for one night before heading south. That night I was lucky enough to be able to catch up with one of my friends from uni who is working as an engineer out here (with a good job and an even better wage….maybe I should start investigating). We went out for dinner at this great Thai place and then on to some bars and the casino (turns out I’m pretty good at blackjack…. I came out about $35 on top) and finally rolled into bed about 4am. It was fun though and it was nice to see someone other than the people who are on my truck for a bit. 


The next two days were just driving and very uneventful - we stayed the first night in a pretty nice campsite in the middle of nowhere but they had comfortable sofas so I was happy (it’s the small things). The next night was our first bush camp since Samburu (over 5 weeks!) which was really exciting (well it was for me, Charly and Alice, most of the people who had joined us in Nairobi just looked a little scared and bewildered). It’s weird, I never appreciated bush camping when we were doing it all the time as it was just what we did, but now we haven’t been doing any I realised how much I missed it. This wasn’t the best site (it was no quarry that’s for sure) as it was next to a rather ominous forest but still, the sunset was amazing and it was awesome to be out in the middle of nowhere in the silence again. 


It was a good job it was so quiet as we had a ridiculously early start the next day (even earlier for me as I had to do breakfast) as we headed south/west to the Malawi border. Again, the crossing was stress free and the nice border official even asked me where I would like the stamp in my passport (which was great as I am very quickly running out of blank pages). Immediately as we crossed over the landscape changed (it is amazing how this happens) from lush green trees in Tanzania to brown wasteland with sporadic trees in Malawi. 


We are whizzing through Malawi as there’s not actually that much to see here other than the lake and the landscape. The first camp we stayed at was in a beautiful location on the lake surrounded by mountains. Unfortunately we only stayed there for 2 nights, I could have easily stayed longer as there was loads to do there with the local people. One day me, Alice, Amy, Daniel, Johan, Steph and Keith went to wood carving school in the local village (Malawi is famous for carved stuff) which was fun, although we were more like the entertainment as people came from miles around to watch us (one kid told me he’d walked 2 hours when he’d heard that we were there). The carving was much more difficult than we’d expected although we all managed to make something (Alice & Amy - masks, Keith - leopard, Johan - hippo, me & Steph - keyrings and Daniel - a man) with a little help from all the locals/kids/chickens that were gathered around. I actually got offered a baby by his sister, I held him for a while until he tried to pull down my top so I would feed him….I had to draw the line there as it was getting a little freaky. 


That evening me, Charly, Keith and Galbyn (and a few others) did what we do best and headed out to find a local disco. We semi succeeded, in that we found a bar with music but there was no disco ball unfortunately. Also, when we arrived they decided to play the two songs they know westerners like (Wavin Flag and Waka Waka - google them if you don’t know them, they were played incessantly here during the world cup) which was great, except they just had them on a loop so after the 7th time we were going a little crazy. We also learnt some new dance moves (the bird dance and the synchronised leg kick) to add to our repertoire so I’m sure we will be bringing out at some point in the near future (I will try and upload a video). We also got to try the local brew Chubuku or Shake Shake as the locals call it (so called as it’s so gritty you’ve got to shake it up pretty well before you drink it), it was probably the weirdest local drink we’ve tried as it comes in what looks like milk cartons and it’s made from white maize, it’s thick, sour and gritty and after about 3 mouthfuls I was beginning to think the Simien Mountain brew wasn’t so bad at all (I think the best way to describe it is if you went out drinking all night, came home, drunk a litre of milk and spewed it up into a old milk carton…lovely). We did manage to finish one though (with a little help from the locals), and we were back drinking our trusty Carlsberg (they own all the breweries in Malawi…very strange). I think the only thing missing was the prostitutes, other than that it was a great night.


The next day we stopped at this carving market, it was pretty crazy even though there were only 11 stalls the people were ruthless, literally trying to swap the clothes of our backs for wooden stuff they’d carved. They had some pretty nice stuff (coffee tables, chess sets, bowls etc.) but it’s difficult to imagine how stuff would look at home, especially as I won’t have a house when I get back. In the end I swapped the England shirt I had bought in Sudan for a mini Malawi chair which was pretty cool and a wooden ring. I actually got a scarf out of the day as well as Alice was about to swap this really nice one she’d bought in Turkey until I said I would buy it from her, in the end I swapped it for my wooden ring. Result  J




We spent the next two days chilling at Kande Beach on the lake although after the first morning I was going stir crazy as there were so many people there (we counted 9 other overland trucks at one point!) and we were right in the middle of nowhere so there was no local village/people to go and see (just an expensive tourist craft market). In the past I would have just sunbathed/listened to my ipod/read a book but when you spend so many hours doing that every day on the truck you want to do other stuff. The second day we hired a paddle boat to go out to this Island about a kilometre away where there was supposed to be good snorkelling. The whole thing was a bit of a disaster, the snorkels we hired let water in, the boat we hired let water in and both Amy and Tash don’t like open water. We managed to get there alright (although we couldn’t snorkel because of the masks), and moored up the boat (although we couldn’t get off as the rocks were way too slippery) and started playing scrabble (scrabble is a bit of truck obsession). After about twenty minutes we realised that we were actually sinking as the boat had let so much water. We all jumped off and basically had to swim back to the beach towing the boat - funny now, but it was a bit stressful at the time as there was quite a strong current and as I mentioned Tash and Amy aren’t that keen on water. When we got back we found out that the guy shouldn’t have even been renting out boats anyway and he was using someone elses boats and pocketing the money. Only in Africa. After that expedition, reading in the sun didn’t seem like such a bad option so I spent the rest of the day doing that. 


I’m currently on the truck on the way to the Zambian border. The people hate Madonna here which I think is hilarious, we actually passed through the village where she bought one of her kids from, she’s built a school there but no one wants to send their kids there. Stupid rich famous people. I’ve really enjoyed Malawi but I feel like we’ve rushed through a bit, I guess that’s the issue with being on a truck.Oh well, I guess its an excuse to come back!


Apparently there are elephants wandering through the campsites in Zambia....awesome :)