Back on Track!

Where back in civilization! So finally time to update you guys and summarize for myself what we experienced in the last days.

Still in Lusaka…Where were we? Lusaka I believe, after we left Bertha with the official BMW/Landrover dealer in Lusaka, we spend 2 days at Chachacha Backpackers. A more interesting name then the place itself, but it served cold beers, so what else do you need?
We entertained ourselves with going to the movies (twice) and we visited the National Museum. Not much to talk about the exhibition, except the fact that it just makes you feel ashamed for fellow ‘white’ people and the way they have colonized and treated Zambians in the past. ‘Why’ is the question we asked ourselves, but that’s a whole other story.

In the museum we got a phone call from the workshop. After two days they decided that they did not have the spare parts necessary and also don’t really want to burn their hands on an old Landy like ours. “Actually we don’t have any parts for a 109. The last time we have seen a 109 was at least 6 months ago. People don’t drive those cars anymore…” Great! Now they tell us! Luckily we found another workshop in a crappy outskirt of town. We walked in and the manual for ‘Series III Landrovers’ lay on the counter. That gave us hope. And yes, John, the mechanic, pointed out the problem right away. He would have it fixed the next day!

And guess what, not only had he fixed the problem, he had prevented and fixed even more (with our permission). It was a little bit scary when we walked in the workshop the next day and Bertha was missing the whole left side of the front, but when everything was back on, she run like never before! John was our new hero!

To Kafue National Park
With Bertha back on the road we left Lusaka and headed north/west to the northern part of Kafue National Park. We read a lot about this park and it was well-known for wild dogs and leopards. Bertha was going like lightning! The speed cable is still not fixed, so we can’t see haw fast (or better to say slow) we are driving. But we have a GPS. Like a Ferrari reaching a speed of over 300 km/hr, we reached a topspeed of 107 km (downhill and wit a strong wind in our back). Go Bertha!

Since we left Lusaka quite late, we could not make it into the park on the same day. So we just followed some signs and ended up at a campsite in absolutely the middle of nowhere! Mobuku Camp. We were the only ones there. A team of three local people welcomed us and showed us the way to the site near the river Kafue. Absolutely beautiful. They asked us what time they had to prepare the donkey the next morning… Well, about 7 am will be okay. (A ‘donkey’ or ‘rhodesian boiler’ is a sort of wood stove with which you can heat up the water for the showers). And then they went home, leaving us in the bush.
Tinus made me a nice campfire which almost set the whole of the park in flames! The wind was suddenly very strong and the dry grass caught fire. Luckily with our Majete-fire fight skills we had it under control before it got to the high grass! Disaster averted and we could continue with the making of our tv-show “Cooking in the bush” (watch the video when we get home).

The next morning we headed to Lufupa Camp in Kafue.
Kafue NP is an area of more then 22.000 km2 (which is said to be the same size of Israel). So it’s big, really big! And we were now in the northern part. The wind was still very strong and blew the grey sand over the vegetation set in open plains. The appearance of the park was actually quite creepy, perfect habitat for hyena, leopard and wild dogs, we thought. But the whole 60 km drive to the camp we saw absolutely nothing except some puku and impala!

Lufupa Camp is situated at the banks of the Kafue River and the Lufupa river. While sitting there, enjoying the view, we saw thick clouds of smoke coming our way. It was a major bushfire on the other side of the banks. The smoke must have alarmed a beehive nearby. Suddenly Tinus jumped up and was cursing all the damn tse-tse flies, when a couple of waiters ran towards us, shouting: it’s bees, get out of there!
Tinus was stung 3 times in the face! One of the guys removed the eh…the…, well that part what the bee uses to sting, while I was running to get some anti-histamine. By the ‘time I got back, his face was swollen! Not too bad luckily enough, but still very painful. Aah, poor B-face ;)

That night we booked ourselves a night drive from 7-10 pm, hopefully to see some real nightlife! Since Lufupa Lodge was just reopened 5 months ago and it was now low-season, we were the only ones!
Unfortunately we did not see anything bigger than a wide-tailed mongoose, except…Pel’s fishing owl! Okay, I know not many of our readers have lived in the bush long enough to become crazy birders like us, but a Pel’s fishing owl is like the leopard of birds! Meaning it’s very rare and the fact that Tinus has a GREAT picture of it, with a fish, made the night drive still a success ;)

The next morning we drove around ourselves and besides some ‘crowned cranes’ (look it up) we did not see much. It occurred to us that Kafue is actually quite empty! If it has to do with the big problem of poaching, lack of resources, the strong wind, the big fire, the full moon, we don’t know. But Kafue has a big problem, that’s for sure!
OW yeah, and we did a boat cruise too, the whole boat for ourselves! Nice sunset, not many birds though, although we spotted the grey-headed kingfisher, new to our collection ;)

To the south…A little bit disappointed by the northern part, we went south, to Ithezi Thezi. It was a terrible trip of which another 120 km on the worst dirt road yet! And Bertha had lost power again, 85 was the max and a continues smell of diesel made us worry all the way. But we made it, again! And what a reward when we got to New Kamala Camp. A stunning view over Ithezi Thezi Lake, together with sunset and playing ‘rock dassies’. Our mood was below zero however, and we actually had a serious discussion if it still would be fun to drive Bertha to Namibia and back. She makes a hell of a noise, while driving all the axles and gearbox etc. create a temperature of above 45 degrees Celsius inside and she is not reliable and every time we drive her from A-B we are worried we’re gonna strand somewhere in the middle of nowhere…

But the next morning, a new day! Next destination…a camp site somewhere in the southern sector of Kafue. We entered the gate at about 8 am and from here it would be 70 km to the campsite. So we took it easy. But at around 11.30 we were there. We estimated at the turn off that if we continued, we actually could make it all the way to Livingstone before dark! So we continued!
We drove a total of 134 km in the park and saw wide open plains of … nothing! Unbelievable. Ok, one small herd of wildebeest, but that was it!

Livingstone, here we come!
Then another 75 km of dirt road and 130 km of potholed tarred road. The last one being the main road from Lusaka to Livingstone. They’re working on it, but big parts are still absolutely terrible! The whole drive of 350 km, took us about 10 hours with only two stops to top up the fuel. But we made it. And all went so well! Okay, the noise, heat and diesel smell were still there, but something had changed. We had changed, or maybe the way we feel about Bertha. We didn’t care anymore! In a good way. We were sure she would make it to Namibia and back! Probably she had heard us talking the night before and decided to act the best she could. We celebrated in a very touristic but nice African-theme restaurant. We actually thought we were going to a local restaurant, but it turned out to be the one set-up for international big-bellied white visitors. You know, with all the staff dressed up in ‘traditional’ wear and a band on local instruments. But the music was nice and the food good and we enjoyed the fact actually having had a good Bertha day!

Falls or Foleys?
We were in Livingstone now! Many people come to Livingstone for the Victoria Falls, but we actually came to see a well-known Landrover dealer in Livingstone, called Foleys. We were told by different people they had absolutely everything! So with our harts pumping of excitement and a well-prepared list of items, we went to the owner. “No, sorry, I see you have a 109, but we don’t have any parts for a 109. Actually, the last time we have seen a 109 was at least 6 months ago. People don’t drive those cars anymore…” Hmm...where had we heard this before? He was very nice, but unfortunately couldn’t do anything for us. Well, that was disappointing to say the least. Tinus had driven 2500 km without a vacuum pump for the brakes and we were positive we would find it here, among other things. But it turns out nobody is crazy enough to buy and drive a 109 around Africa. A 110 or 130 yes, but an old 109??? Well... we are that crazy and we’re gonna make it, ha!

Next stop was the Falls. We visited them from the Zimbabwe site in 2005 and since we are here now, we might as well visit them ;) We asked the lady at the entrance about the special ‘lunar rainbow’ which occurs during full moon, which would be tonight. She starts laughing and says, no sorry, no rainbow, there is no water in the falls, it’s dry season. What do you mean no water? Well, it’s more Victoria Rocks. I liked her humor and we still wanted to visit the rocks. The view was still very nice and it was funny to walk to the point at which we could see the Zimbabwe site were we walked some years ago. How much has happened since then!

So now we’re back at the hostel. We’ll take it easy today and tomorrow and continue to Namibia on Thursday. The plan is to cross the border at Katima Mulo and drive in 2 days through the Caprivi Strip to a campsite 53 km before Grootfontein. At this place they apparently organize 3-day hunting and bushwalks with the San (tribe in the Kalahari, remember the movie ‘Gods must be crazy?) and since I mentioned this to Tinus, the bushman in him has come out.
After that we’ll continue to Grootfontein. From there we will make a new plan. We originally wanted to go into Kaokaland but we are not sure if this will be a good idea with Bertha. We’ll see.

Anyway, it will be at least another week before we will get back to civilization again!

Lots of love,
Amy and Tinus and Bertha