Back in the truck after a few days at the fresh water beaches of Lake Malawi. Will cross into Zambia today.
Wednesday 21 September (still on their behalf)
Left Lusaka at 5am yesterday to avoid any possible election carnage.
Cruised the lower Zambezi River last night.
Just been microlight flying over Victoria Falls from Livingstone in Zambia.
As you can no doubt tell, we are enjoying ourselves.
(You can read more about the Zambian elections by clicking here.)
Wednesday 21 September (from Pam and Peter)
Kerryn is doing a wonderful job updating with our texts. Thanks.
In Malawi, we stayed at 2 different beaches, went via Mzuzu clothing market after the first beach. this clothing market sells donated clothing from all around the world that even the africans wont wear. We had each drawn a name from a hat, and had up to $10 to spend on an outfit for the bad taste party the following night. At Kande beach we upgraded from our tent to a beachfront cabin for $40 in total for the 3 nights we were there. We could sit on our front verandah and look at the lake, which was just like being at a normal beach, except the water was fresh. Lake is 365 miles long and 52 miles wide, which is huge. Everyone drank too much at the party, the esky was filled with cheap spirits and fruit juice punch.
Things are going very bad in Malawi, no foreign aid until the president stops spending it on himself (foreign aid is about 40% of GDP). Even had a general strike there today. Villages look very poor, and it is one of the poorest nations in Africa.
On to Zambia, we have had 2 1/2 long days of driving. As soon as we crossed from Malawi, we moved into a much more developed country with shops, vehicles (almost none in Malawi), traffic lights, normal houses.
Now we are in Livingstone, the Zambian side of Victoria Falls, the adrenalin capital of Africa. Had to choose (and pay for) activities. We decided not to go white water rafting, abseiling or bungy jumping, rather microlite flying, a sunset booze cruise. Tomorrow we take a day trip to Botswana, then on Friday go to Livingstone Island for breakfast at the posh hotel, followed by a swim in the Devils pools at the top of victoria falls. The flow rate is low, so the pools are open.
Then it is off to Victoria Falls, where our group splits up and goes 4 different ways. We will join a different truck there.
