KarenBike Trip – Zambia – 17 to 23 December 2017
This was our first ever venture into Zambia by bike, on a mission to Gwabi River Lodge, Lower Zambezi – to meet up with my sister Jill and the twins. This trip was actually in honour of our late, much-missed brother in law Mike, who passed away sadly in July 2017. We were off to meet the family and a crowd of their Lusaka friends at Gwabi – one last send-off for Mike at one of his favourite places in the world, the beautiful sandbanks of the lower Zambezi.
After lessons learned on our first ever long distance bike trip (April 2017) we had invested heavily in a few advance Christmas and birthday presents to ourselves in order to lighten our camping gear. A techno 2.5kg biker “Lunar” Tent, and two tiny, compact sleeping bags were now replacing the generously sized 6kg tent and ginormous floaty sleeping bags of earlier times. Two tough and lightweight dry-bags were ready to protect all our stuff from the elements! With all this lightness going on, I even felt inspired and justified in smuggling some of my beloved solar fairy lights on board!
We had done this trip to Gwabi once before, so at least we knew where we were going, but that had been during the dry season, in a car. So a very different time of year and mode of transport promised a bit of an adventure again! Being the rainy season, people in the know seemed to be coming up with two themes/warnings in common about our proposed trip:
- the dreaded Mazabuka pothole section on the road to Lusaka
- the spilled diesel on the Zambezi Escarpment road towards Chirundu
After our usual struggle to loosen the ties with work, and get packed and ready to go, we set forth from home just down the road to the Kazungula Ferry border, prepared for the usual drawn out border crossing over to Zamibia!
While in the planning stages, Tiennie had suggested a new strategy – to try and pre-appoint our Zambian “Tout” or “Agent” on the Botswana side, in the hopes of a peaceful start to the journey. We have tried in previous years to complete the ferry border crossing without hiring one of these enterprising fellows, but we always surrender at some point on the Zambia side. Thus, the logic seemed indisputable – if we know we are going to succumb at the end, let’s rather get it over with up front and eliminate the stress of fighting a losing battle. Trying not to hire anybody, fending them off all the way from Botswana into Zambian territory can be hard work!
Plan intitialised – sure enough, deep in Botswana territory, before even stopping at Immigration, the bike was immediately surrounded by a mini crowd of Zambian potential Agents. Scanning the group for the “right” seeming person, a mutual connection was made.. enter the fabulous Emmanuel!!
After herding away all other potential Agents, our immunity from harassment began as Emmanuel and his partner got to work. As we approached the ferry docking area on the Bots side, the crowds parted as the two of them managed the situation and ensured our capsule of perfect serenity amidst the chaos.
Our ferry bill was paid for (with our cash naturally), and after crossing the Zambezi, we were escorted off on the Zambian side, where the new crowds of clamouring Agents were speedily dissolved by our team, who ran a tight operation on foot and with a bicycle. Leaving our bike in the hands of a third party bike-watcher appointed by Emmanuel and co, we were escorted from one office to the next, in the complex dance of borderpost formalities, collecting receipt after receipt in varying currencies as we went along. All dutifully stapled together by the ever efficient team.
As a parting shot, despite my best intentions to harden my heart and look like a steely eyed non-buyer, I unfortunately made (steely-ish) eye contact with a copper bangle seller who was not fooled in the slightest, and thus ended up purchasing my usual armload of unnecessary copper bracelets, but I believe this is my contribution to informal economies all over the world! Where would they be without people like me… Not having an allocated slot in the strict packing regime, into the smuggling pocket with the illicit fairy lights they had to go! We finally escaped the border post after about a 3 hour stint.. somewhat lighter of cash but ina much calmer state of mind than ever before when tackling this task!
Relieved to be through that border and officially in Zambia, we headed to Livingstone, and to The Zambezi Waterfront – one of our favourite places to have lunch, overlooking the incredible Zambezi river, with Zimbabwe over on the other side. Here we made the acquaintance of a security guard with a tiny Chinese motorcycle, who promised to look after its big brother. Had a surprise meet up with our friend Bundy, who wished us safe travels, and warned us, as usual, to watch out for those dreaded diesel patches on the Zambezi Escarpment road!
After lunch we headed north, and we only had to get as far as The Moorings Campsite near Monze, a distance of about 270 km. We found biking through Zambia to be an absolute pleasure. Friendly policemen at the road blocks, and mostly beautiful quality roads. The one thing we noticed in contrast to Botswana, was the behaviour of small children on the side of the road. Pretty much everywhere we go on the bike in Botswana the small kids wave at us until their arms just about fall off, and leap up and down with excitement, whereas in Zambia they were rather indifferent, so for this whole trip I was actually relieved of my customary pillion princess waving duties from the back of the bike!
The roadside stalls in Zambia are always a riot of colour, with tomatoes and potatoes on beautiful geometrical pyramid displays. Each village and town on the roadside absolutely hums with activity, and the shop fronts and little stalls are incredibly vibrant. People cycle past with huge towering packages of charcoal, eggs, passengers, you name it, balanced on their bicycles and nowadays also on the small motorbikes, rather Asian-style. I don’t think we saw anybody at all lying around chilling in a wheelbarrow along the sides of the road.
As ever on our bike trips, we ended up chatting to random people, most of whom are incredibly friendly, here often introducing themselves to us by saying : “We Zambians are very friendly people, you know… “ So true. Loved meeting and chatting to all of them.
The Moorings Campsite is an unexpected gem. As you turn off the main road, through avenued farmlands, you arrive at the campsite which really feels as if it is in the middle of the bush. Beautiful indigenous trees .. lots of birds, and frogs in full chorus. Although basic, they have absolutely spotless ablutions with hot water, and what more do you need!
As we had no space for catering kit, we ordered a home cooked meal from the lady in charge of the place, and had some ice cold Mosi beers from their beer fridge. We realised that it was some sort of a community project, providing employment to people in the surrounding rural areas, so were glad we could support them. We were very excited to try out our new tent for the first time, and were impressed with its spaciousness, despite its tiny packed size!
Next day, we started out on the Lusaka road, soon making the acquaintance of the infamous Mazabuka section, rivalling some of the most neglected Botswana roads for disintegration and horrendous potholes. Enterprising locals were busy filling in potholes and then appeared to be flagging drivers down to pay for this work, however it would have been quite difficult for us to stop and carry out any such transactions and negotiations while travelling on the bike, with pothole-dodging traffic coming at us each way, and the usual handicaps of gloves and helmets,
so we decided to just endure their dramatic yells and shaking of fists, rather than cause some sort of traffic incident.
When we eventually made it to Mazabuka, I started to do the rounds of the banks to see who could change USD into Kwacha for us on a lovely Monday morning, while Tiennie sat in the blazing sun, guarding the bike, looking like an intergalactic cruiser on the sidewalks of Mazbuka, and waiting patiently for me to appear, disappear and reappear with updates on the banking procedures! Luckily the second bank I tried, Barclays, was able to be online enough to assist, and we were able to roar off onto the open road again.
Once past there, we finally headed towards the Zambezi Escarpment and with trepidation regarding the notorious bike eating diesel slicks (me) and huge excitement about the curves and gradients (Tiennie) we started into the winding mountain pass.
The last time we drove on this road, our late brother in law Mike himself had sent us our instructions and part of it was not to be alarmed about all the truck accidents, as he assured us he had seen a different truck accident on the escarpment road every single time he had driven it during his many trips to Lower Zambezi. Sure enough, we had travelled on that road both there and back in 2016, and true to Mike’s predictions, we had seen separate overturned truck accidents on each leg of that trip. I truly hoped and prayed in 2017 that maybe the trucks had been spared this time, but sure enough, Mike was right again and inevitably we came upon our first unfortunate upside down truck clinging backwards to the cliff edge, wheels in the air…
After realising that the diesel was actually not an issue on the road, especially since it was not raining – and seeing the dark blobs lying innocently all over the opposite lane, I relaxed and enjoyed the hairpin bends and gradients in the hands of the most capable bike skipper! The vegetation down in the plunging ravines was so green, and lush – last time we had been there in May, dry season, so December’s jungles were stunning, especially viewed from the bike.
Along the way we noticed a very alluring signpost to the right, marked “Siavonga” – to Lake Kariba! Our impulsive souls started to long to try this road out on our return journey, and both expressed this desire at the same moment, but we decided to hold that thought and be responsible – we had a definite return date to Kasane after all!
Our ten year old twin nephews, having in very knowing fashion informed their Uncle Tiennie that his BMW bike would “never get to Gwabi” were hopefully suitably impressed when we appeared. Personally, I never had any doubts as to the bike’s getting there capabilities, since Tiennie had said it would. However… I was actually also quite thrilled with this achievement, as of course Gwabi lay at the end of a scary looking 13km red dirt road that we had only thus far experienced in our Pajero!
It turned out to be not as bad as I had expected, although along the way we did remark to each other several times that we would really NOT like to do this road during or after any rain. As Tiennie remarked, looking at the abundance of imported “fong-kong” imported Toyota Corollas flying up and down on this road – his benchmark is that anywhere a Corolla can go, so most certainly can we! Most encouraging to know, so I became very fond of those reassuring Corollas, despite their hideous driving habits!
Our time at Gwabi was amazing, as ever. The wonderful Tony, Ann, Kath and staff gave their all to honour Mike at the sandbanks. Surrounded by friends, and looked down on by the magnificent Zambezi escarpment, he would have loved it. We all missed his quiet presence – he really should have been there, sitting on his coolerbox with whisky glass in hand…
We were blessed with lovely weather, and enjoyed the idyllic riverside campsite. Our tiny biker camp was definitely the most minimalistic there.! Despite my best efforts to produce campsite fairy lights, I learned a sad lesson that my smuggled on board solar lights were not much use for a biking trip, due to their specific charging needs, thus a waste of space and weight, compared to my usual ones that get plugged directly into the power sockets in campsites!
Thankfully, Gwabi River Lodge had some lovely lights to make up for my flopped ones.
On our last afternoon at Gwabi, we watched a set of impressive thunderclouds rolling in….
..and therefore.. we were able to fully test out the waterproofness of our new tent in the early hours of the morning!! When we stuck our heads out, we noticed we were placed in a running river straight through the middle of the campsite – full marks to our awesome new tent, which did not let in a drop of water either through the flysheet, or its groundsheet, and gently floated over the waters of our little +lash flood! Worth every rand we spent on its technologically superior 2.5kg body!!
As we packed up in the sodden campsite, we realised that bike camping in the rain is different, and there was nowhere like a car to put everything in between getting it from the tent and into luggage so a lot of our clothes etc got wet in the rain just while packing! We also realised that the bike was going to have to be driven out on the slippery red road – after a monumental Zambezi deluge of rain… I had no hesitation in hitching a lift for our panniers and myself with Jill in the high clearance vehicle, while rally boy enjoyed riding the bike out in the mud, minus the paranoid pillion on the back!!
As we had given him a good head start, we followed the brave bike track all the way, through lakes of puddles and sloshy red mud holes, and as we started to encounter the Toyota Corollas confidently ploughing through this mad terrain, I realised all would be well with the bike!!
Eventually we located the strangest looking red-mud-coated bike and rider, parked safely on the side of the road by the Chirundu clinic!! After loading me and the panniers back onto the bike, we headed back south again, towards Monze, due the next day to be home in Kasane.
