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It took a couple of hours for the coach to finally leave Lusaka after picking up most of the congregation from a local church. The front of the coach then sang African Christian hymns for about 2 hours along the bush road through the highlands to the Luangwa river bridge.

Southern Africa - part 5

Stevemonty
2005-09-23 18:44:25

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Zambia
It took a couple of hours for the coach to finally leave Lusaka after picking up most of the congregation from a local church. The front of the coach then sang African Christian hymns for about 2 hours along the bush road through the highlands to the Luangwa river bridge.

Here we went on a 4 day canoe catarmaran trip upriver with John, Tom and Gaz from Aberdeen Uni. Walking part of the way through remote villages and low-river maize fields that are raided at night by hungry hippos. Throughout the day we saw crocs ahead in the water and passed hippos popping up for air.

We bought live chickens in the villages and the second night Tom successfully slit one their throat for dinner. The rest of us couldn't quite bring ourselves to do it, yet, you should probably do it at least once if you eat chicken. That night we slept on a sand bank by the river and ate Nsima a kind of thick Maize porridge with our featherless food. Our guides took it in turn to keep the fire going and watch out for hippos and hyenas.
During the second and third day we left behind the villages and went further up the gorge passing several rapids until we could go no further without dismantaling the cat. We then did some scrambling up a nearby hillside and descended down a steep dry riverbed. We spent the entire return journey just chilling out on deck and soaking up the sunrays.

I then gave the mountain bike a 2nd outing by cycling 3 days onto the village of Katete. This proved to be quite a physical challenge, the first day I covered 65km through some serious hilly country, many of the local villages knew no English and would shout out Bwino Bwanji, meaning How are you as I passed. That night I stayed at the large but empty motel in Kocholoa with both electricity and water turned off because so few pass through these days.

I had 110km the 2nd day to a campsite in Petuake, it took me virtually all day to do and I'd had my fill of bananas ...