MagnusAndCheryl

Zambian Zoweeeeeeeeee!
Tuesday, April 24, 2007

Zambia is reputedly the "Real Africa", which based on our experience here means: extremely nice people, luscious green countryside, very basic living standards (lots of very cool looking mud huts), plain food and horrifically bumpy and dusty roads on which no vehicle is able to travel for more than an hour without a seemingly terminal breakdown!

The fact that February saw the worst floods for 35 years made things worse, washing out some tracks altogether. As a result on a couple of occasions we had to wade across rivers blocking our path (populated, of course, with man-eating crocodiles).

To add to the mix, our bus to the northeast of the country broke down twice on the way up and twice on the way down. Each time, there seemed no hope of a resurrection but the ingenuity of the locals in coaxing dead-parrot rustbuckets back to life to crawl a few more tortuous, smoke-belching miles is legend.

On our final journey, our van had a double puncture (so no spare left). With desperation in his eyes and an angry crowd of stranded passengers gathering, the driver started to fill the tires with rocks. We sensed our luck was finally running out, only for a passing truck to let us jump in the back and whisk us away to our destination. Who knows how the "rocks-instead-of-air" experiment worked out?!

Check our Latest Adventures section below for pictures and stories from South Africa.

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