January 20th - 25th : Zambia, Livingstone

So. After many, many hot and dusty hours behind the wheel of a car, my next journey was as a passenger - on a 22-hour bus ride from Windhoek, Namibia to Livingstone, Zambia. 

Considering the state of the roads, vehicles, driving and time-keeping I had experienced in Southern Africa so far, i was impressed that the journey was pretty smooth and comfortable and our arrival in Livingstone was only a couple of hours behind schedule. 

My first day in Zambia happened to be the day of the presidential election.  The last president died in office last year, so the purpose of this election was to find a replacement for the rest of his term.  Unfortunately, things didn't go entirely smoothly. First, the heavy rains prevented many people living in more rural areas getting to polling stations, so the government decided to extend voting by a couple of days.  Then, once voting was closed, there were long delays with the vote counting. Finally, there were suggestions that votes had been incorrectly counted, so re-counts were demanded and carried out! It went on for a long time!

The whole process was fascinating to follow - particularly because it was such a close race between the top two candidates. Everybody was talking about it and the latest updates were showing on televisions in all the local bars and cafes, so after not too long I realised that I knew the names of most of the main candidates, their respective parties and even some of their policies!

On my 4th day in Livingstone, this information came in quite handy.  I was sitting having a coffee in a local coffee shop with Sandra when a television crew came in.  They were interviewing local people - asking them their views on the elections. As we were not local people we were fairly confident that they would ignore us, but we still tried to make sure we didn't catch their eyes just in case.  No such luck.  They decided it would be interesting to hear tourists' views of the election and came over. Five minutes later, my vast (!) election knowledge had been filmed by the Zambian National Broadcasting Company.  Whether or not the clip ever made the news, is something I will thankfully never know!

Anyway, back to Livingstone.  Livingstone is most famous for being the home of Victoria Falls, named by the local tribe as 'Mosi-oa-Tunya' meaning 'the smoke that thunders'.  In fact, Livingstone is only home to half of the Falls, as the other half is in neighbouring Zimbabwe - the falls forming the border between the two countries.

Victoria Falls is one of the largest waterfalls in the world. It isn't  the highest, or the widest, but it is the waterfall with the largest 'sheet' of falling water. In the rainy season (while I was there) over 500 million cubic metres of water pour over the edge every minute. Which is quite a lot of water!

There are lots of adrenalin-filled activities available to do at the falls - including white-water rafting, bungee-jumping and gorge-swinging. However, as my Mum made me promise not to go over the edge by bungee or rope, I had to settle for a relaxed dip on the edge in a small pool known as 'Angel's Armchair'... Those with a fear of heights (or of bad rain coats) might want to skip the next few photos...

As i mentioned earlier, the falls forms the border between Zambia and Zimbabwe. I hadn't planned to travel through Zimbabwe during my year away, but as it was so close, it seemed a shame not to pop in.  In fact, it turned out to be incredibly easy to do so  - by taking one small step across a white line on the bridge over the falls, I was in Zimbabwe! It was undoubtedly the shortest visit I have ever made to a country, as not wishing to pay for an official entry visa, I was back in Zambia within half an hour! 

 

Despite it being the main reason for tourists going there, Livingstone wasn't all about the falls. Whilst there, I also spent some time introducing myself to the local animals - well it would have been rude not to!

After 5 busy days in Livingstone, it was time to move on.  Having so far travelled by plane, car, bus and boat, it seemed like a good idea to try out a train. Train travel in Africa is not the faster option - the train from Livingstone to Lusaka (Zambia'a capital city) takes twice as long as the bus! (or longer if it derails...which we were told it regularly does)
  
The train was quite a fancy new one - less than 6 months old in fact. Sandra and I booked a sleeper compartment for 3 people and luckily nobody booked the 3rd bed so we had the compartment to ourselves. There was even a little restaurant and bar on board, so after dinner and a drink we returned to our compartment, climbed into our 'beds' and settled down for the bumpiest and noisiest night's sleep so far!  Amazingly - considering all the swaying and jolting - the train remained on the tracks for the entire journey. However, it of course still pulled into Lusaka several hours late..

...more on Lusaka in the next post! 

:)
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