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18 December 1998

The Kingsmill's Trans-Africa Overland Trip, Part 8: Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi

Geoff Kingsmill
2006-04-25 21:06:58

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permit which was free of charge.

At our first of many Police road blocks through Zambia, a suave “Eddie Murphy” looking official asked us if we had any breakfast to offer him and his pals to which we replied that we had eaten all our breakfast and we had none left. He very good-humouredly laughed it off and waved us on. This was to be the first of many attempts where officials have asked us for a bribe. Time will tell if we get through Africa without giving a bribe.

We camped at Eureka Camp grounds just outside Lusaka, the capital of Zambia. This is a lovely campsite owned by an Aussie with Zebras grazing in the grounds. Everyone told us to beware of downtown Lusaka but we had to travel through the centre enroute to Malawi. We did stop in Lusaka to refill our Gas cylinder which cost us US$1, the cheapest we've paid.

The road from Lusaka to Malawi is good in a few places but for most of the distance the road is full of potholes. It is unfortunate that third world countries have very limited resources to maintain what was once a good road, possibly put in with overseas aid. These roads are now beyond repair.

In Lusaka we heard from Paul and Rachelle, an Australian couple, that we now need visas for Tanzania. When we left Lusaka we thought it would be possible to get the visa in Malawi, however we realised three hours drive out from Lusaka that there was no Tanzanian Embassy in Malawi. Undecided as to what we should do we continued to the next town to phone the embassy which turned out to be another 150km further on. With difficulty we got through to the Tanzanian Embassy in Lusaka and they told us it was possible to get a Visa at the Zambian/Tanzanian border but not the Malawi/Tanzanian border we planned to cross. By this time we were almost in Malawi so we decided to take our chances and continue as we had planned. We had hoped to visit South Luangwa NP in eastern Zambia, however we were running short of time as ...