This was not your average safari. We picked up hitchhikers. We got lost at night. A man with a machine gun rode in the passenger’s seat for a while. The car was infested with disease-carrying flies. We visited an African village, meeting locals.
The more we drove long distances through Africa, the more we realised that the journey is not about the destination, but the road you take. As we approached Dar Es Salaam from the west, somewhere in the Tanzanian heartland between Mbeya and Mikumi, we found the most spectacular mountain pass.
We stared at the menu with skepticism. A pile of limp, pale, thick-cut fries was piled in the corner of a glass-doored display cabinet. On another wooden shelf was some kind of withered, skeletal fish. Both options looked like they’d been waiting for quite a while for a brave customer.
It only took us about four days to pass through Zambia. What was originally just a transit through ended up being awesome fun. We loved the challenge of the insane potholes, the offroad highways to nowhere, the beers and the zombie antelope. One challenge remained. To exit the country by road.
What are the roads like in Zambia? The short answer – shocking. The potholes are out of this world. They come in all shapes and sizes – miniature, jagged edged pockmarks that look like the lunar surface; road-width trenches that sneak up on you; corrugated fill-in jobs. Journeys in Zambia often take twice as long … More Does Zambia Have The World’s Worst Potholes?
Zambia was zooming past at great speed as we crossed it’s great arterial highway. Golden brown scrubland, dry skeletal trees, yellow-tinged earth, low rolling hills. Small villages clustered by the highway, clusters of tiny thatch huts with people and livestock standing around, sweeping leaves or carrying bales of wood. This truly felt like wild Africa. Meeting local … More Staying Overnight In A Tiny African Village
We arrived in Livingstone just before dusk. The streets basked in the orange glow of the setting sun. This was an exciting time in our Africa road trip – after we drank some gin and tonics and a camped on the shores of the Zambeze – we’d be seeing Victoria Falls.
Stop! Elephants! We missed them at first, and drove straight past. Then we saw the herd in the rear-view mirror. A handful were eating by the side of the highway. Another car pulled up and told us to go back the way we came; and sure enough, a few hundred metres away was the rest of the herd, at least … More Driving on a highway with a herd of elephants
Our headlights were illuminating the tall, wooden, arched gate. ‘Welcome to Chobe national park’. Through those gates were elephants. Further beyond that was the border to Zambia. But we were in a pickle; we were denied access and could go no further.
The Okavango Delta is the synonymous with life southern Africa; A beautiful, unspoilt wetland ecosystem, slow waterways glimmering in the sun, alive with mangroves, insects and crocodiles, covering thousands of square kilometers. Pushing through the reeds slowly and spotting wilflife in a mokoro, a pole-driven canoe, is an unforgettable experience.
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