The worst road to Kafue - Zambia

Sunday 24.3:

 

After many recommendations we decided go to the Kafue National park east of Lusaka. The first 200 km were no problem on a nice big tar road without the usual potholes that you normally see coming once it is too late. However we than had to take a right turn off the main road to get to the Hippo Lodge located directly at the Kafue River.  It was the beginning of the most miserable 90km of dirt road we had experienced so far. It already got dark once we arrived at the park gate and then we still had to go for another bumpy 45 kilometers through the jungle. On the last kilometers the ground turned too liquid mud. Finally we arrived at the Hippo lodge at the river. Suddenly torches pointed at us and more and more guys approached us in wonder that someone had actually made the trip out here. They told us that camping is not allowed at the lodge and that we have to return. We thought it is a joke. After a while the manager of the place appeared. A young zoologist from England who had been managing the lodge for the last 3 years. He turned out to me very helpful and allowed us to stay for the night. I guess he was also happy to have someone to talk to in his age from Europe. He told us the main season has not started yet because the rainy season has just stopped a few weeks ago. All game drive roads were still closed down. Exhausted we pitched our tent and went to bed. About 20 meters from our car the wide Kafue River was silently flowing.

Monday 25.03:

Chris the manager of the lodge woke us up the next morning to give us a tour of the fancy Hippo lodge. We could use the utilities for the morning toilet. Since all roads were closed except the road back to Lusaka we decided to head straight back. Chris also had to go the same way with his old Toyota pickup truck. He asked us if he could go drive behind us. After just one kilometer he got stuck in the mud the first time. With the high jack and some rocks he managed to free the car. The biggest annoyance were thousands of tse tse flies which attacked us once we left the car. I was trying to keep the car on the road while Ju perfectionist her skills to get rid of the little monsters that managed to get into our car.

 

Late in the afternoon we arrived at the Eureka camp ground just outside of Lusaka. Once we entered the little park surrounding the camp a family of giraffes, zebras and impalas walked peacefully tame across the road. I guess the owners just flew them in from somewhere else to give the guest a little of a safari feeling.

Tuesday 26.03:

Ju stayed the day at the camp ground to sort out her things. In the meantime I drove our car to the garage on the other side of Lusaka. In the thick and chaotic traffic it took me more than an hour. The new tires were not correctly aligned the week before which caused vibrations when driving faster than 70 km/h. It took them more than two hours until they were finished balancing the tires. Once I accelerated I immediately found out that the problem was still them same. They told me there balancing machine is not calibrated properly so I had to go with one of their mechanics to their partner garage in the center of Lusaka. Unfortunately it was in the middle of the rush hour. While driving the mechanic also noticed a strange sound from our exhaust which I thought was just the normal sound of it. That means tomorrow I have to come back to get this also fixed. Late in the evening I finally managed to get back to the camp ground. I than had to tell Ju all my adventures of the day out hunting.

The next day we spent at the camp ground, refilled our water tank and relaxed. In the late afternoon we drove again through the horrible traffic to go to the movie theatre to watch the Wizard of Oz. The first moving pictures since I left Vienna. Before we quickly stopped by to tell Eberhard and Karina goodbye who went to Mauritius that night for vacation. They were so nice to allow us to camp in their yard that night. The house dog Bongo watched over us.

Thursday was again a full day at the service station. They promised us a 1 hour wait. That was at 1 pm it is now 7:20 pm and we are still waiting. I guess we have got used to the African time already since we just take it as it is without getting too upset. At least I found the time now to write up the latest blog entries.

Visiting friends in Lusaka - Zambia

Wednesday – Saturday 20-23.03

We spent 3 nights in the  beautiful house of Karina and Eberhard in Lusaka, the capital city of Zambia. He was the supervisor of Judith in Bolivia in 2005 when she wrote her Magister Arbeit for the GTZ (Gesellschaft für technische Zusammenarbeit und Entwicklung). Now he is coordinating all water related development work for the GIZ for the southern African countries.  

On Thursday he invited us to participate at the world water football tournament organized by him and his team. Junior football teams from all over Zambia took part and ambassadors and ministers spoke official words. A Zambian popstar was singing and a marching band playing. In short a great experience! I even played football myself in the German team but we lost both our games.

At night we were invited for dinner by Karina and Eberhard  to a fantastic Italian restaurant  at the Polo Club of Lusaka. From the people we met that day and from what we have been shown of Lusaka we can understand why they feel very comfortable in Lusaka. Thank you very much again Karina and Eberhard!

Walking among wild animals in Mana Pools - Zimbabwe

Monday18.03:

Mana pools, a national park at the Zambezi river, was our last destination we planned to visit in Zimbabwe. A 2 hour bumpy gravel road lead us to a wildlife campground at mighty Zambezi river. We gave a lift to one of the rangers who patrols the vast area of the park to find poachers. When they find one they kill them he told us to our shocking surprise.
At 4 pm we arrived at the camp and immediately continued for a game drive on a nasty off road track with elephant herds crossing our way.  I saw my first water buffalo and plenty of marabous resting on dead tree branches.

We got a little bit lost due to the common complete lack of direction signs. Therefore it was already dark when we arrived back at our camping spot right next to the Zambezi river. We cooked our pasta while listening to the the loud concert of the jungle orchestra (hippos grunting, cicadas chirping, lions roaring and baboons crying out for our food). Thousands of insects gave us a hard time. We barely managed to escape from them into our safe rooftop tent.

Tuesday 19.03

As the first wake up call I managed to reverse the car (now named Symba) into a huge tree which was hard not to see. Now the left plastic bumper is also bent in and needs to be replaced. Great! To my excuse I was heavily distracted by my side passenger. 

Mana pools is the only wildlife park in Africa where you can leave the car for a walk. We did not dare to do this on our own. Instead we went for a one our walk with a park ranger and his loaded Kalashnikov. He did not need to use it.

Then it was time to say goodbye to Zimbabwe we managed to cross the whole country in a little bit more than a week. It is a beautiful country with again extremely nice, open, and helpful people.

Except maybe at the border in Chirundu. It is a so called one stop border. In one building the Zimbabwean and Zambian customs officers work together (unfortunately a little bit too close). After they stamped out our Zimbabwean visa the Zambian officers said we are missing the police clearance sheet for our car. The first time we heard about this document. After four hour discussion and a so called neutral agent who basically collected the bribes to get us in we crossed the border 1 minute before it closed at 6 pm.

Exhausted we stopped at a camp ground directly at the Zambesi river

Kariba Lake - Zimbabwe

Friday-saturday 15-16.03:

On the the early morning drive through the center of Zimbabwe we saw hundreds of school kids walking for kilometers to school in their uniforms. Finally we arrived at the Chinhoyi caves national park. Here we stooped to have breakfast, clean the car from the tar and finally to have a quick look at the dolomite caves and sinkholes. The highlight is a pool with unknown depth and crystal clean water.

We continued our journey up north  to the small lakeside town Kariba situated in a beautiful landscape at the Kariba lake, the third largest artificial lake in the world.

We found a nice cheap campground with a pool and small restaurant. It was only us and a bus load of teenage school kids from the capital Harare staying there. The first thing we were told is that the previous week a local woman was eaten by a lion while making love in the jungle. The lover managed to escape. The next day another local was eaten up except for his head. Apparently this was the first lion attack since 30 years and we were assured not to worry.
The next day we were trying to get information from the tourist office. However we were told it is closed because the responsible officer was in hospital after a crocodile attack.

Sunday 17.03:

We had stayed another night at the Kushinga campground. At 12:00 pm we watched the gigantic opening of the dam to reduce water from the lake. 

The afternoon we spent in a 5 star resort so Ju could prepare for a online test for a job opening at the united nations in vienna taking place on thursday morning.

We also went on a 2 hour boat ride on the Kariba lake and dared to jump into the world of crocodiles and hippos.

We again spent the night at the kushinga campground.

Matopu Nationalpark & crossing Zimbabwe

Thursday 14.03:

In the morning we drove down to a scenic dammed lake and made our coffee, muesli, fat cake breakfast. Afterwards we visited world view a barren granite mountain with a great view over the bizarre surrounding landscape. On top john Rhodes the founder of the former Rhodesia was buried.
We left the park to drive up to north through the center of Zimbabwe. We had heard a lot of warnings about going to Zimbabwe before. However we experienced the opposite: friendly people, good roads, ATM machines with us dollars the main currency here, and plenty of fuel stations.
On the road I unfortunately was forced to drive on fresh tar by oncoming traffic. The next morning it took us about two hours to rub it off the car finish with molten butter (we got that tip from www.fragmutti.de). We did not find any safe sleeping spot until we finally were allowed to sleep in our seats in front of a night club/hotel. In the middle of the night a drunk women desperately tried to get into her van for about 1 hour making a big noise. At 5:30 the night guard politely asked us to leave.

Hwange National Park -Zimbabwe

Wednesday 13.03:

In the morning we visited the painted dog conservation center were we got a private tour by the local guides. Unfortunately those animals are close to extinction.
Then we drove 300k down to Bulawayo the second biggest city of Zimbabwe. Via the Mugabe Avenue we crossed this truly African city and arrived at dawn in the Matopu national park to find a beautiful camp site next to amazing granite rock formations. We felt safe because we were assured that no big animals roam around in this area. Let's hope it’s true.

Tuesday 12.03:

We woke up early by the morning speech of the main officer to the 30 police students who lined up just in front our rooftop tent.

Throughout the day we crossed the national park which has the largest elephant population in Africa with 30000. Every now and then families of them suddenly crossed our path but they were more peaceful then in the Kalahari.

At night we left the park and found refuge in the painted dog refuge. Were we invited john the night guard for a pot of spaghetti Cooke on our stove. We peacefully went to bed to the cries of the nearby baboon family.

Monday 11.03:

We left Shoestring backpackers at noon to drive to a huge baobab tree upstream of the Victoria Falls. The afternoon I spent getting Zimbabwean Sim cards for me and Ju so we will have internet even here in the middle of Africa. I also got some help with my broken laptop. I asked for help in a shop where they sold everything even fashionable wigs for the African lady. After two hours about 10 guys from the village stood around the laptop giving their expertise. In the end we agreed that the problem will fix itself by itself with given time.

Ju had to sit the whole time at our car to watch out for it since Vic falls main street did not seem like the safest place.
In the late afternoon we decided to head 100k south to Hwange national park. We arrived in the dark and found shelter at the district's police school.