Day Two - Tyre Problems & Victoria Falls Phase - Livingstone, Zambia
Livingstone, Zambia
Friday 25th: Started day 2 off by giving Emma a lift from the Zambezi Sun to the Mukuni village - taxi Dad, even in Zambia ;-) Managed to offload all the stuff we brought over for The Butterfly Tree - school bags and blankets from Jane and books, pens, bats, balls, writing paper, socks , knickers, soap, from us. After leaving Emms at the village, Chris and I set off for town (Livingston) to change some Sterling into Kuacha, the Zambian currency - currently going for 8.4 to the pound sterling (more info than you require, I now realise). En route got stopped at a routine police check point and was asked to get out of the car by a large black Zambian with an extremely surly manner. Imodium would have been useful at this point ! Anyway, as it turned out, he just wanted to alert me to the fact that one of my front tyres was almost flat. I had not felt it and it must have happened when we dropped Emms off at the village - a thorn or piece of glass or something. He advised us to go to the Vuma garage about 200m down the road to put air in it then go to town to find a garage to repair it. The latter was easier said than done. In contrast to Namibia, where all garages seemed to do puncture repair, in Zambia this is not the case. Eventually we found the Total garage and a chap that did an "African repair" (soapy water on the tyre, in situ, to find the leak, then bore out the hole with what looks like a rough cork screw, then plug the hole with a soft natural rubber plug). It seems to have done the trick as 150km later it is still going fine (fingers crossed). That all put a dent in our morning but we did eventually get our Kuacha (though that took ages as the guy insisted on checking the hologram of every twenty pound note in great detail). Went back to the Zambezi Sun, then walked to the Victoria Falls, which are a stunning natural feature, though somewhat devoid of water on the Zambian side. It turns out that, on top of it being the dry season, they are also diverting some water to the hydro-electric power station at present. We plan to go to the Zimbabwe side tomorrow. Walked down to the Boiling Pot which was quite a challenge in the heat. Stopped half way on the way back up to rest and watch the bungee jumpers fling themselves off the Victoria Falls bridge - fools ! A cool swim in the pool before dinner and then a trip into town to eat at the Cafe Zambezi next to Emma's hostel "Fawlty Towers" and meet her fellow volunteer, Jess, a nurse from High Wickham. Then back to the Sun for an early night ready for the Zimbabwe trip the next day for the Oldies whilst Emms stayed on for a bit of clubbing.