We knew we were bush camping on our first night away from Luangwa as the drive to the city of Lusaka was just too far to do in one day with the roads they way they were. Bush camping is literally as it sounds. We find a spot in the middle of nowhere and set up camp. Its not allowed so we don’t do it often and arrive at dusk and get up super early to avoid attention. Kind of fun but also kind of hard work as well as there isn’t the luxuries of the camp sites. Its amazing though, how you can brown a shepherds pie by putting a lid on the tray and putting hot coals on it. I can see some of you saying its obvious but I have to be honest and say I’ve never done it before! We were camping in a clearing surrounded by tall tall grass and scrub.
The grass in Africa is amazing. It can grow well over 10ft high and you cannot see through it and that’s in the dry season when its all dead. Would be even worse in the wet season and after seeing a lion in the Serengeti hide very successfully behind a small clump of dead grass that can’t have been more than a foot high, I was too scared to venture too far away from the truck, even to go to the loo. Stupidly enough, I pitched the tent (Euan was cooking) on the outskirts of the camp then realised the error and you can only imagine how freaked I was when Euan and I were going to our tent later that night and a voice in the darkness ahead called out something to us. We nearly flipped. It was just local folk who were clearly curious and had surrounded us but kept their distance in the darkness and we had no idea they were there. Euan and I figured that if they were talking to us they must be friendly and want us to know they were there so we smiled and called back to them. I didn’t really care, it still freaked me right out. I don’t know how they saw where they were going, what they were treading on or what as there was no moon and it really was pitch black. Plus there was killer grass around. I had run my fingers through some grass earlier and it had nicely sliced my fingers.
We had one night in a camp just outside Lusaka and we had a few hours in one of the shopping centres there. Unfortunately (or fortunately?) any time spent in towns or cities is used up food shopping if you’re cooking for the group or using the internet, calling home, doing admin, getting/changing money, buying the odd bits and pieces (blankets are the latest purchase as its getting colder). We rampaged the local bakery and supermarket but things are really expensive in Zambia, far more so than Malawi or Tanzania. Diesel, for eg, is twice the price so we’re going as far as we can on the diesel that we have (and very nearly ran out).
It was a long drive to Lake Kariba and the distance and quality of the road had been underestimated. So, after a full day of driving through scenery that was beautiful but unchanging and the promise of two nights in one place ahead, it was 1800 and we were still 120 km of rough, bumpy dirt road away from our destination and a bush camp was decided on. So, off the road we went and parked up on a small dirt road and set up camp (again!).
We had one night in a camp just outside Lusaka and we had a few hours in one of the shopping centres there. Unfortunately (or fortunately?) any time spent in towns or cities is used up food shopping if you’re cooking for the group or using the internet, calling home, doing admin, getting/changing money, buying the odd bits and pieces (blankets are the latest purchase as its getting colder). We rampaged the local bakery and supermarket but things are really expensive in Zambia, far more so than Malawi or Tanzania. Diesel, for eg, is twice the price so we’re going as far as we can on the diesel that we have (and very nearly ran out).
It was a long drive to Lake Kariba and the distance and quality of the road had been underestimated. So, after a full day of driving through scenery that was beautiful but unchanging and the promise of two nights in one place ahead, it was 1800 and we were still 120 km of rough, bumpy dirt road away from our destination and a bush camp was decided on. So, off the road we went and parked up on a small dirt road and set up camp (again!).
Its quite cool setting up camp in the dark not knowing what’s around you then getting up in the morning to an amazing setting. We were woken in the early hours by angry shouting that sounded far too close for comfort but when we woke we saw that we were surrounded by a series of small steep hills and the sound would have carried a long long way.
The campsite can’t have been more than 60km away from where we bush camped but it was down a dirt track and took us about 2 hours to get there. We passed a huge croc farm on the way in and got to visit it which was pretty cool. They had 1400 breeding crocs in a huge area of land with massive ponds. I have never seen crocs that big. The largest was 650kg and 5.2m long. This photo doesn’t really show the scale (and I wasn’t getting out of the jeep to give it any that’s for sure!) but these guys were just huge, and fast! For eg, those are small (skinned) crocs that they’re eating and they were about a metre long and were swallowed whole. If I’d known crocs could move that fast I probably wouldn’t have ventured that far down to the river at Luangwe.
The smaller crocs were kept in pens and there were about 800 to a pen and this is where they stayed until they were shipped off to the abattoir.
The pens looked crowded but I think they liked lying all over each other as there was huge patches of bare concrete that they didn’t bother with.
It was an interesting farm to visit and run in a similar fashion to any intensive farming unit. The incubator could hold 40,000 croc eggs but wasn’t anything more than a container set up as an incubator.
We had a bit of chill out time at Lake Kariba, playing volleyball, reading etc. Its getting colder at nights the further south we go but the days are clear and warm. Some days its absolutely cooking and I think it would be unbearably hot in the summer not to mention the mozzies. Some people don’t get bitten at all but I’m like a magnet. One thing is for sure though. I’m sleeping better on the ground in a tent now than I do in a bed.
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