Naïve socio-economic witterings done with, we pressed on to Livingstone where we found a Spar, a place to camp, somewhere to do our laundry for less than £80, and a nice cold beer. We had a braai on the banks of the river, watching the hippos and crocs float by. As the sun went down, the frogs got up. Soon the level and pitch of the sound was verging on painful, and it even managed to overpower the thunder of Victoria Falls that was just a few kilometres from camp.
The next day, we followed in Livingstone’s footsteps (not literally, as if you walk there you’re likely to get mugged) and headed to the falls. The size and the power of the immense body of water is staggering. The roar of the million litres per second crashing over 100 meters down a sheer cliff is deafening. The spray can be seen from several kilometres away, and, once you’re down there by the falls, you not so much next to them as in the falls. Despite our trusty ponchos, we got drenched. It was quite surreal seeing groups of dripping tourists wondering around a tropical rainforest draped in green ponchos, looking very much like lost extras from Star Wars.
We left Livingstone for Kariba early on the 27th of March - the day before our visas were to expire - leaving plenty of time to get up to the Zim border post at Kariba. An hour and a half later we’d managed to cover a measly 50kms. Between the police stopping us for driving licenses, import permits and triangles, and the extensive stoppages at, and detours round, road works, we were convinced that we’d be stuck and visa-less in Zambia. And then there was my panic about whether we needed a carnet de passage (very expensive ‘car passport’ that we’d have needed to obtain in Cape Town) to get the car into Zimbabwe, if, of course, we ever made it to the border...
Soon, however, the road works stopped and we found ourselves cruising along the brand new and shiny, pot-hole free road, which not only had white lines down the middle, but even had yellow lines down the edges. Luxury! And evidence that our road tax had been put to good use... Oh, and we’ve found out why camping is so expensive in Namibia and Botswana. We met a convoy of 4x4s at our campsite in Zambia – they’d been planning their 3 week trip round Botswana for over a year, and were more than a little shocked that we’d done no more planning than buying a map and a guide book and then set off in a 2WD with only a spade, a tow rope and a can of Tyre Weld for all conceivable emergencies. They were even more shocked when they found out that we only had a cooler box, not a plug in/gas powered fridge...
They explained that so many South Africans drive up in their fully kitted out 4x4s, and bring with them the majority of their gear, fuel and food, then race round Namibia/Botswana, trashing the roads and putting very little money into the local economy. As an – understandable – response to this, the governments have decided to increase the cost of camping as a way of getting a decent amount of money from these tourists. Sadly for us, this happened after our guide book was written, so the – in some cases tripled – price hikes were a bit of a shock.
After several hundred kilometres the road split, one turning going to Lusaka, the other to Zimbabwe. This is the main import/export route, and so there main traffic is lorries. The problem for the lorries is that the road takes them up and down many steep hills – with the added excitement of the rock falls that scatter themselves across the road. Overheating engines and brake failure were the most common demise of the lorries that had collapsed by the side of the road. Although one unfortunate trucker had lost his entire container on the way up the hill – the cab section had happily carried on without it, no doubt at quite a speed, and finally stopped halfway down the other side of the hill. As a child I’d always been terrified that lorries could snap in half like that, despite placations from my mother. Ha! I knew it was possible.
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