Zambia and Malawi

Zambia and Malawi



On the Thursday we crossed the border from Botswana to Zambia, on a ferry. Drove an hour to Livingstone (named after David Livingstone, i presume :') This is where you stay when you visit Victoria Falls which is 13kms out of town. You can do all kinds of activities at the Falls, such as bungee etc but we just went and had a walk along and around the falls. They are pretty spectacular, although i think we couldnt see the best bit as there was so much spray. We walked across a bridge in the spray and it was liked being in a huge rainstorm; i think thats when i lost my sunglasses. We had another few days in Livingstone with not much to do but watch movies and soccer. We watched a couple of games at the cinema which was cool, lots of local guys cheering for Chelsea or United.


Had a few long days on the truck which is not so much fun as it was when we were going slowly on the other side of Africa. Sometimes too much speeding along and not much to look at, but other times going through country villages with the roof off. Its a bit too easy on this side. And we are staying at campsites with other tourists rather than bushcamping by ourselves in the middle of nowhere. But at least the police stops just wave us through rather than making us sit around for an hour or too like they in West Africa.



On Wednesday we arrived at Croc Valley camp. This is a campsite that organises Game Drives. There are no fences. As the guide said 'its like being at the zoo, but you are in the cage with the animals'. It is their terrority. Well, a monkey stole our bread. And we could hear hippos grunting during the night, after we had watched them in the river during the day. On the second day i went on the afternoon/evening drive. The guide took 9 of us straight out to where a pride of 17 lions was dozing in the grass. We were nearly within touching distance of them, i could have stepped out of the truck and stood on its head! And they could see us but were not bothered about us. They got up and stretched and nuzzled eachother, i got some great pix. I was on an outisde seat but found myself edging in to the truck when they did eye us up. We also went off to the buffaloes who were pretty nervous as it was dinner time and the lions were literally round the corner. Once it was dark, we put the spotlight on and went looking for leopard, without success. But we did see a few hippos walking around and then we saw one running....jeez, they run quickly, there is no way you could escape a hippo if it was chasing you. That was one of the most memorable things, it was pretty funny. That night when i was in my tent I heard an elephant eating from a tree next to my tent and when i looked out i could see it was walking through the campsite about 10 metres away. A big black mass against the campsite lights. Cool.



Next day we crossed the Zambia/Malawi border and stayed at Lilongwe. The next day we made our way to this campsite at Kande Beach on Lake Malawi. The lake looks like the ocean, it is so vast and has a tide. The scenery alongside and behind the lake was spectacular. Yesterday the locals took us into the local village to watch a couple of local soccer matches, village against village. But i had more fun watching the kids play with our rugby ball. They didnt stop for about 2 hours. Then we came back and watched the end of the Premier League. Dinner was a couple of pigs which the local guy spit roasted for us; the best crackling ever. Later we went down the beach for some drumming entertainment.  We have a few more days along the Lake before heading to Tanzania.