| Highlights of Zambia (April 2007) | ||||||||||||
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We didn't know much about Zambia before arriving, other than it has a cool name and we wanted to go there!
The Zambezi forms a border with turbulent Zimbabwe and we followed that mighty river east towards Malawi. |
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Dr. Livingstone, I Presume?
Magnus' countryman, David Livingstone, "discovered" Victoria Falls in 1855, part of a strong Scottish missionary link with this part of Africa. Having fallen on hard times he now makes a few coppers in the "frozen statue" school of street theatre. |
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The Smoke That Thunders
Plumes of churning mist from Victoria falls are visible for miles around - hence the great indigenous name, "The Smoke That Thunders". |
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A Toe Into Zim
With Mugabe's bizarre economic policies driving Zimbabwe to ruin and making visiting prohibitively expensive, this tiptoe into the country was as far as we get. We'll be back when sanity is restored... |
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Head And Shoulders Above The Rest
After a stop-off in busy capital city Lusaka, we destruction-tested our buttocks again on a bouncy 16 hour bus ride to South Luangwa in eastern Zambia. Our bus broke down twice en route! It was worth it for a treehouse campsite and breathless nighttime encounters with hunting lions and leopard. |
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Zebra Crossing
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Meeting Rural Africa At Kawaza Village
Heading into wild Zambia we reached Kawaza village, where the friendly locals put us up in a mud hut and introduced us to their fascinating culture. |
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Zambian Moonshine
An improvised still knocks out throat-rasping, kick-in-the-head maize gin. 50 cents a bottle and guaranteed to reveal the true meaning of the term "blind drunk"! |
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Maize Mashers
With no mill in the village, maize is crushed in backbreaking pounding with a giant mortar and pestle. It was humbling to see how hard families (especially the women) have to work, just to get their daily food on the table. |
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I Feel A Healing Coming On!
A spooky encounter with a glaze-eyed traditional healer - possessed by a spirit during the ceremony. The revelation that Magnus had "an occasional small pain in the back - nothing serious, mind" failed to impress since she knew we had just gotten off a long bus ride... |
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Dance Party: Zambian Style
As night fell our hosts lit a fire and hundreds of people flooded in from the surrounding villages to check out the mazungus (white people). It was a little overwhelming as we were dragged to the dance floor to shake our booty to the driving rhythms of the local skiffle band. |
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Cheryl Goes Native
With only a few hours practice, Cheryl was finally able to hold an empty bucket on the top of her head. The local ladies seemed unimpressed - they carry FULL tanks of water for miles using only neck power. |
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Captivating Kawaza Children
Africa's population boom means there are kids everywhere. Their initial shock and awe on seeing our ghostly white faces quickly turned to inquisitiveness and then delight at our bizarre antics. |
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Quickly Crossing Croc Creek
Why don't you go first, honey? With the roads flooded, they only way back to civilization involved wading across rivers. Rivers that hold 12ft long crocodiles - we did not linger... |
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2 Punctures And A Goat
Heading back out of the interior we broke down twice more on the rough red-dust roads. As our driver searched hopelessly for rocks to fill the spare tire, Cheryl flagged down a passing truck, negotiated prime seats in the back by the goats, and off we sped to the border with Malawi! |
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- See more pictures from this section - Go to next section : Malawi / Western Tanzania - Go to previous section : Botswana |
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