A well earned rest: Part 2: Livingstone and Victoria Falls

Last Wednesday we picked up Jo from Lusaka airport. Jo has come out to join the team out here for 3 months. It’s her first time in Africa, so she was pleased to ease into things gently with a trip to Livingstone and Victoria falls, before starting work on the ‘Life’ project this week. I say easing in gently, although a 7 hour road trip isn’t perhaps the best thing after a couple of night flights via the very crazy Nairobi airport. The trip to Livingstone went without incident, and with a couple of stops at Monze and Choma for refreshment, we had made good progress. However, the last 100kms into Livingstone is along a road with numerous potholes, with the traffic weaving from one side of the road to the other, and a number of large lorries finding the going very slow, this part of the journey ended up taking almost 3 hours, with much of it in the dark, just to make things even more interesting! Finally we arrived and booked into a small guest lodge for the night.

The next day we met Pastor Leonard, who I’d met in March on my previous visit to Livingstone when doing some Alpha training. We agreed to meet up with him in the town centre, however, while parked waiting for Leonard to arrive, we found that our car was being washed. Yes it was very dirty after the journey, but nevertheless I hadn’t requested this service. In Zambia though people tend to give a service whether you want it or not, and then demand money afterwards. In fact stopping at all is dangerous. At major junctions throughout the country, many people will crowd around the car trying to sell you things. Often food, and this can be useful, as it saves a trip to the supermarket for fruit and veg. In Lusaka the other day people were selling puppies at one of the major traffic light intersections. Although the puppies did look sweet, we did decline them.

Anyway with a clean car (which we did pay for), but without a Zambian football shirt, 3 pairs of socks, a saucepan, a broom, a set of spanners to name a few of the attempted sales to us while the car was being washed, we met Leonard, and booked some accommodation for ourselves and the Witt family, plus Mark who had been to Botswana with them. The accommodation was at a camp by a crocodile filled river!

In the afternoon Ruth, Jo and I visited Victoria Falls, which had much less water falling than in March, when we got drenched viewing the falls. In fact we were able to walk across the top of the falls in some places, where the Zambezi river was dry. It was a great experience, though standing on the edge of the falls looking down was a bit scary. A guide held onto us for good measure. I also swam in a small pool formed by the river drying up at the top of the falls. While at the falls, we also had a bag of crisps stolen by a baboon right in front of us! That doesnt happen every day in the UK!

Photo: Me, Jo and Ruth at top of Vic Falls

Photo: Baboon eats crisps!

In the evening we met up with Jon, Jude, Mark and the kids, who had had a great time in Chobe National Park in Botswana. The next day we visited a crocodile farm, which was ok, though I’m not a big fan of these mean and dangerous looking creatures, nor of the selection of dangerous snakes which we could look at behind glass, each of which it was explained could kill you. Hmm, I think Jo was wanting to head back home at this point!

Photo: Fierce green monster

The highlight of this trip to Livingstone was taking a helicopter trip over Vic Falls. The view was amazing and for my first every helicopter flight, this was certainly a great place to do it.

Photo: On board helicopter

Photo: View of the falls from the air

On Sunday we made the 12 hour drive (14 hours in the end with breaks) back to Chingola, which was tiring although less so, sharing the driving. It’s been a great break and I think we all feel refreshed for the hard work to come. For Mark it was the end of his Zambian adventure, as he returned to the UK on Saturday as he had to go back to work on Monday.

Next time on the blog.....Ruth, Jo and I visit Kepeshi School with Vincent and Joel to do some painting and meet the teachers and school parents committee, and we continue to prepare for Saturday's conference.