When in Zambia …
The road from Sesheke
(north shore of the Zambezi opposite Katima Mulilo) to Livingstone:
In June we travelled the
Katima-Livingstone route going through the top of Botswana and Zimbabwe.
This involved 6 border posts and R160.- in 3rd party
insurance in Zim.
This time we decided to
boycott Bob Mugabe’s place and went from Kazungula (Botswana) to Zambia
using the ferry at a cost of R110.-. The
ferry looks quite sturdy and will take three average length vehicles.
The road from Kazungula to Livingstone is only spectacularly potholed
in the first few kilometres, requiring a bit of giant slalom driving or
using the well-developed track next to the road.
Some potholes are big enough to yield an echo.
Thereafter there is one police check and the odd large pothole, but a
decent speed can be managed. We
travelled the route in one hour and a bit.
The first section of the
road from Sesheke to Kazungula is, however, another story.
We did not witness this first hand, but a German trans-Africa
motorcyclist whom we met a few days later had travelled that section (70-80
km) in five hours – and he only had one wheel line to worry about, not
two.
We’d recommend the ferry
crossing at Kazungula: it’s R
50.- cheaper (unless you intend to go back that way in less than a month),
you get to show Bob the finger and you save some border posts and passport
pages. And besides, there’s
hardly any game in that Zim park anyway.
Places to stay along the
route:
·
Gwembe Safaris Campsite (S16°48’24.5”
E26°57’05.6”)
– basically a converted farmyard / campsite and costs US$5.- pppn. Gwembe is situated south of Choma on the T1.
Facilities include hot showers and cold beers.
·
Lusaka is supposed to have two reasonable campsites just out of town
(one to the South, one to the East) but we did not stay at either.
The farmers in the area will put you up for the night on their front
lawn, but the one on whose lawn we stayed still had leftover US$25.-
invoices from the solar eclipse (it was already dark and we didn’t know
there were real campsites 10 km further up the road.).
·
Forest Inn (S13°43’20.2”
E29°09’25.3”)
– roadside campsite that has good facilities including a restaurant.
Situated on the T2 in the Mkushi area.
Cost US$5.- pppn.
·
Kudalila Waterfall (S13°09’16.7”
E30°42’06.3”)
– 15 km off the T2, no facilities but a beautiful waterfall with
spectacular surroundings. A 20
minute walk gets you to the plunge pool at the base of the waterfall.
Cost K10,500 pppn payable to the caretaker who stays in a village 8
km before the falls.
·
Kapishya hot springs camp site (S11°10’10.3”
E31°36’01.0”)
– 35 km along a road that is very rough in places but goes through some
beautiful forest and past an English mansion completely out of place in NE
Zambia (this mansion will be turned into a lodge in the next year or two). The camp site is next to a river as well as next to the
cleanest hot spring we’ve ever seen.
The water that bubbles out of the shallow, sandy pond is clear, does
not smell of sulphur and is pleasantly hot that you can spend hour watching
the African night sky. Cost:
$5.- pppn.
·
Buffalo Camp, North Luangwa NP (S11°55’24.4”
E32°15’34.7”)
– one of three camps operated in N Luangwa (see the note on the Parks).
Simple but effective chalets that are rebuilt every year from
materials in the park. Beautiful
view over the river, plenty game seen and heard 24 hours.
Minimum stay is two nights. Cost:
$50.- pppn self catering, $200.- pppd full board + park fees.
Must be pre-arranged (mainly so you can get directions).
·
Wilderness camp, Luambe NP (S12°27’31.3”
E32°08’41.2”)
– unless you have excellent directions and no fillings in your teeth
it’s almost impossible to do the trip from South Luangwa to North Luangwa
in one day and this is the only campsite en route.
On the steep bank of the Luangwa River, it overlooks massive pods of
hippo that grunt all night. Cost:
$5.- pppn + $5.- pppd for being in the park.
·
Flat dogs (= crocodile) camp site outside South Luangwa National Park
(S13°06’05.8”
E31°46’41.2”)
– we went here because everyone seems to go here (so we had to see what
it’s all about) and because it was the first sign we saw.
There are other options in the South Luangwa/ Mfuwe area as well.
Also on the Luangwa River this is a classic overlander stopover.
Plenty of shady trees, a pool and the most expensive beers we’ve
had to date, but the restaurant prices were good.
The pool comes in handy after a long hot day in a vehicle. Cost: $5.- pppn
·
Yellow chicken campsite – half way between Chipata and the Malawi
border. This campsite comes in
useful if the diabolical road from Flat Dogs to Chipata takes longer than
expected (took us 4 hr 30 min for 135 km) and the next campsite is in
Lilongwe over 140 km from the border.
National Parks
·
Lochinvar is a part of the Kafue flats.
There is a massive lagoon that is worth a visit.
We saw masses of red lechwe and birds (including both pelican
species). The rest of the park
is a derelict of the pre-independence era and has been poached to near
barrenness. Any game that is seen is very skittish.
The roads are only barely drivable in some places – must have a
reasonable ground clearance – and locals are often seen walking through
the park. The end of the dry
season is probably also not the prettiest time of year.
The good news is that an upmarket tented lodge (US$280.00 - pppn) was
opened a month ago and a trust will be involved in managing the park.
There is much potential. Cost: $5.- pppd, $5.- pvpd.
·
Kasanka National Park is close to the DRC border.
There is dense woodland, some proper African forest and open plains
with puku everywhere like sheep. Currently
there are two self catering lodges, a campsite (where one benefit was the
first hot shower in over a week). We
were also allowed to camp at the Fibwe hide – a tree lookout 18 m in a
giant Mululu tree from where sitatunga sightings are almost guaranteed.
There is a pontoon crossing (unless you wish to wade or winch through
a 1.6 m river with clay base) but heavy vehicles will still get their tyres
wet (pontoon’s made of 24x 44gallon drums), trailers don’t fit and a 130
Landy may be a tight squeeze. The
park boasts over 400 birds, including the shoebill early in the year and is
famous for the migration of tawny fruit bats (over 0.5 m in size) during
November and December. Flip
side is that it’s difficult to do a game drive, drink beer and swat tsetse
flies. We also did a canoe trip
up the river (no hippos but huge crocs were seen).
Costs: $10.- pppd
·
North Luangwa National Park. We went to this park because the road we’d intended to take
was impassable (see below). There
are only three camps that operate in this park and only during the dry
season from June to November. The
park and the few access roads are completely waterlogged when it rains.
Because of this the roads are in shocking condition and you don’t
just stumble across these camps: 16 hours from South Luangwa, 7 hours from
Mpika. Don’t even think about
going there without an expedition vehicle.
Game walks are the preferred game viewing mode (since the roads are
so bad) and you get close enough to buffalo, lion, elephant and other
toothsome creatures to have adrenalin rushes right in your own undies.
Plenty of not-so-dangerous game too.
It’s a real wilderness experience not to be missed, but it’s not
for first-timers. Costs: $15.-
pppd, $5.- pvpd (we felt we should get paid to take our vehicle in here, but
there you go).
·
South Luangwa National Park – by the time we got here we’d seen
huge amounts of game and were not prepared to fork out another $25.- pppd.
Game is said to be as plentiful as the tourists (some have told us
this is a better park than Kruger and the Serengeti, which takes some
doing). The park operates all
year and there are enough all-weather roads to deal with the rain.
Other:
·
Fuel is refined in the Copper Belt in the North of Zambia and is thus
cheapest (K3200/l) in the Kitwe/Ndola and Lusaka areas.
Thereafter the price increases with remoteness to nearly K4000.- in
Livingstone and Chipata and the still painful US$1.65 /l in Kalabo.
·
Banks have some strange customs.
Cash is usually better to change than TCs, rates vary by up to K300
in the same town and $50 & $100 notes fetch better rates than smaller
denominations. Beware the black
market traders in Livingstone. Rands
can be used easily in Livingstone. If
we could choose again we’d bring more cash and fewer TCs.
·
Lusaka has a secure shopping complex – Manda Hill on the Great East
road - that will make you feel right back in the northern suburbs of the Big
Smoke. Even Woolies is there,
but no food section, doll.
·
Zambia is f*@! expensive for everything.
·
Once you’re off the tar roads it gets rough.
Most dirt tracks are poorly maintained, if at all, and high clearance
and low range come in handy regularly.
The rainy season will render many of these roads extremely
adventurous.
·
There are almost no signs in Zambia for anything.
Metal signs get used for pots and implements (unless there are holes
in them), wooden signs get used for firewood.
To navigate, ask lots of people for directions/distances and take an
average. Maps differ by up to
40 km between towns.
·
There’s nice 4x4 (low range) dry season track from the T2 going to
South Luangwa National Park (157km to the Park) starting about 35 km south
of Mpika (turn-off at S12°06’25.2”
E31°
15’43.7”). However, there are one or two rivers that need to be crossed
and reports from people we’ve spoken to indicated that the water level was
still too high this year and that no one has got off the escarpment via this
route yet. The prospect of
determining the depth of a crocodile infested river and/or recovering a Land
Rover single-handedly from within said crocodile infested river did not
appeal to us sufficiently to attempt this route.
There are rumours of a pontoon operated by a hunting camp but that
camp wasn’t operational this year.
·
If you need a shortcut to the Serengeti, try the ferry from Mpulungu
to Kigoma on Lake Tanganyika. It
leaves every Friday at 4pm, costs approx US$60.00 pp and US$120.00 per Landy.
The trip takes 2 days.
Yours in Africa,
Riff-raff |
