zambia: a very very huge place
soon after entering zambia, for the first time on our trip we had a dirt road. it threaded its way through beautiful trees and bushes, and went on like that forever. it took us about 14 hours to get to lusaka through what seemed to be the same landscape.
heres the thing with zambia: it has some of the most amazing sights, untouched game reserves teeming with animals, great rivers, thundering waterfalls....it just takes you forever to get around in the country.
all the zambians we met were remarkably polite, well-spoken and gentle. we loved seeing these kids helping to clean their kingdom hall after the meetings.
after a lovely weekend with aunt phoebe (who has featured in this blog before here) we set off for another long drive to livingstone. we left quite early and even though it was a long drive, we rolled into town around 4pm.
finally! livinstone is the destination to our epic trip, and so we celebrated by having a drink at a pretty little restaurant.
we poked around livingstone a bit and had a great time checking out their curio shops. even though its raison d'etre seems to be as a tourist town, it has a great laid back vibe, as though everyone was unaware that one of the worlds greatest sites was in their back yard. in some countries (which shall remain unamed) there would be road signs every 10km from 1000km away. YOU ARE NOW APPROACHING THE WORLDS MOST AMAZING SITE only 990km to go. and so on.
livingston was so charming that we decided to pop down to the falls and see if we could plot our assault the next day. the falls lie on the border between zambia and zimbabwe, and you have to pass through immigration to get to the bridge that crosses. to show you how relaxed they were, even though we didnt have our passports on us, they just waved us through casually to go 'have a look'
from the bridge, all you can see is a tiny portion of the falls, and even that is astounding.
we enjoyed 'illegal immigrant' status for a few minutes.
because it is in fact an official border crossing, and main road, every few minutes one of these huge trucks loaded with copper would roll across the bridge. the whole bridge would shake and shudder as the trucks would pass. since its 128 meters down to the river below, this is a bit worrying.
the bridge was built in 1905 under instructions from cecil rhodes, who gave specific instructions that it should be located where the spray from the falls would fall on the trains passing. rhodes may have been an imperialist and racist bent on making as much money as possible out of africa (and he did: he was the founder of de beers diamond company) but his choice of location for this bridge was perfect.
we went home that night with the lovely warm feeling of having had an unexpected blessing, and looking forward to seeing the falls a lot closer the next day. but since the falls are sooo amazing, they get a post all to themselves....
