KarenBike Trip – Zambia – 17 to 23 December 2017
* Continued
Returning Home from Gwabi to Kasane
As it turned out, the lure of that signpost to Siavonga was way too much to resist, and in our inimitable style, after about a 10 second consultation while approaching the turnoff, we happily turned left – off the boring home route; re-designing our trip and opting for a few days longer in Zambia!
All along the way to Siavonga, it reminded me so strongly of our high school teenage years, driving home to Kariba from Bulawayo – travelling the mirror image of this road on the Zimbabwe side. Especially that moment just before descending into the Zambezi valley, when the huge expanse of Lake Kariba suddenly appears, stretching out before you. I really wanted Tiennie to experience these formative memories of mine, and our sudden first view of the lake from above, as expected, was amazing. I don’t think he expected its immensity!
As we first entered Siavonga town, I was initially struck once again so strongly by the similarities with mirror-image Kariba Town on the Zim side, until….. the GPS sent us off our to our chosen hotel – Lake Kariba Inns.. the more the GPS insisted that we had to go one way, the more we started to disbelieve it as we were going through potholed streets, down down down into the strangest looking locations, which at first, felt something like the favelas of Rio! With my old memories of Zim side Kariba, being a really organised, pretty town – I just felt we were now in the “wrong area”, so we decided to distrust Garmin for sending us there, and did a mountainous bikey U-turn with extreme difficulty, and went back to the road sign and tried again until we ended up at another hotel which just looked pricey and so not the one we wanted. Another U turn in the hotel premises, we decided to now re-trust Garmin and headed forth into the friendly happy smelly strange suburb once again!
Keeping an open mind, we reasoned, it was just that the whole thing was on a steep gradient and full of fish and so on, otherwise it was pretty much the same as any other vibrant Zambian village we had encountered on the straight and level. Anyway, by this stage, everybody there was so used to us and our strange arrivals and disappearances, that they were smiling and waving at us like old friends, so just we kept going until we finally found the cunningly hidden entrance to the Hotel reception of the desired accommodation. Most odd, but we were glad we had persevered, as the Lake Kariba Inns were just beautiful. After a long walk through the property in biker gear, in I don’t know how many degrees heat and surely 100% humidity, we viewed and hired a “Luxury Villa” for the night, with our own private swimming pool, and view of the lake.
Weirdly, In order to find the access gate to the actual villas, Tiennie had to ride the bike back out and greet everybody in the “favelas” yet again, but eventually we were reunited at our Villa, and could finally get the luggage off the bike, and relax a bit. We dramatically flung open our curtains and patio door onto our stunning view of Lake Kariba – and a group of lovely bikini clad Zambian ladies enjoying our private swimming pool, complete with bottles of booze and a nice Bluetooth speaker playing from their cellphone! Typical Zambians, they were super friendly and even offered to turn down the speaker, which we found very thoughtful! We did not stress about it, and after we had festooned our entire villa with all our wet stuff from the Gwabi downpour, we left the ladies to enjoy the pool, while we headed for the terrace with a view, a well deserved long lunch and a few glasses of wine.
By the time we returned to the private villa, the pool was deserted, and no music was playing, much to our relief! Our privacy was next invaded by the craziest pair of zebras that entertained us on our patio, very insistently trying to infiltrate the villa, and rubbing themselves ecstatically against the patio wall! They were really an endearing pair, and very photogenic!
Dinner up on the terrace was beautiful, looking out at the darkened lake, dotted with hundreds of lights from the kapenta fishing boats out hard at work, the constant droning of their generators powering the fishing lights – it all brought back so many memories for me.
I have to just mention once again the beautiful fairy lights all over the trees up at the main hotel area. I was completely in my element again! This, in my opinion, is one of the bonuses of travelling at this time of year!
Next morning we wondered if we should just leave, or do our touristic duty in some way, and I in my wisdom felt no trip to Kariba would be complete without viewing the amazing dam wall,so we thought we would try and see if we could get there. We pointed the gps towards the Kariba wall.. off we went, and as we approached, we just saw a huge blank wall/fence/barrier, with a sign saying “Immigration”, and as the bike slowed down, another human wall of Agentsand Touts that seem to go with any Zambian borderpost, surged towards us – causing an instant unanimous decision, a very skilled hairpin U-turn and seamless re-acceleration in the opposite direction!! Deciding to probably leave any further Kariba sight seeing to the Zimbabwean side one day, we roared off, stopping en route at the Siavonga car wash.
Here the red mud-painted bike disappeared into clouds of foam, and was gradually made respectable once more by a very dedicated car-washing person, while his boss, the owner of the small business complex, came by to
chat in the usual friendly Zambian way! We were so impressed by his home make pressure washer constructed out
of a car air-conditioner compressor!
Eventually we turned back onto the scenic road leading to the Escarpment pass, and then turned left again, back
on track.. on the way to Kasane once more. Passing through all the non threatening diesel puddles, and sighing over the newest overturned truck on the pass(incredible!!), we enjoyed the twists and turns, celebrating the joy of two wheels , as opposed to sixteen or so – which no doubt gets those poor trucks into such a mess on that road.
Retracing our steps, through the hideous Mazabuka stretch, we again invoked compulsory fistshaking from the grumpy informal pothole-fixing team, to which we replied with friendly waves, hoping they would understand our unique circumstances as bikers!
Another lovely night at the peaceful Moorings Campsite, and a perfect home cooked meal done on a charcoal cooker, due to a power cut. Slightly less chilled Mosi beers this time, due to power cut, but still a welcome rest.
Next morning, the 23rd of December, we headed for Livingstone, and we could see the weather was starting to close in. We stopped, put on biker rain gear – mine shiny, new, never before used! Into the weather we rode, and I experienced my first ever, proper rain-riding! Most interesting how the viciously sharp little raindrops managed to make their presence known on the knees through jeans and rain gear, but no harm done, other than very wet gloves and a soaked through non waterproof right boot. It was actually quite an exhilarating experience. Looking at the blackening sky, and knowing only too well the behaviour of our Zambezi afternoon thunderstorms, good sense dictated that we should press on and get over the Zambezi back to Kasane before the weather turned nasty.. however, we were starving having only had coffee and 1.5 rusks – 1 rusk (Tiennie) and half a rusk (me) for breakfast, and we really felt like we deserved some lunch at the Waterfront!
Arriving in the middle of a very festive Christmas lunch featuring lots of locals, children, tourists, jumping castle, Santa hats, Christmas music at loud volumes, etc… we got right into the Christmas mood with our poolside lunch, even though passing on such temptations as turkey & cranberry pizzas, and enjoying our virtuous biker glasses of water! The view out over the Zambezi is always spectacular there, and we enjoyed watching everybody getting more and more in a party mood! It was beautiful to experience the golden afternoon light, blue sky and sparkling blue river on one side while a turn in the other direction produced a view of the contrasting looming blackness over dull grey water as the storm brewed along our proposed route…
Those epic Zambezi cumulus clouds piled up relentlessly, and we could see the price to pay for that delicious Christmassy lunch break, was going to certainly be a ride from Livingstone to Kazungula straight into the blackest of skies, with massive storms en route. However, we still reckoned the lunch had been worth it! As I love to collect contacts and numbers, I had of course harvested our Agent Emmanuel’s details, so I messaged him and it was confirmed with dollar signs no doubt floating in a thought bubble over his head, that, oh yes, he would sure love to meet us at the ferry border later that Sunday afternoon, dreadful weather and appalling conditions or not!
As we rode out of Livingstone, kitted out in our full rain gear, we immediately hit the thunderstorms as expected. This was one unbelievable experience. At times we had to go as slow as 40km/h as the rain came down in sheets, with visibility of about 20 metres, with the wind pushing the bike all around the road, but the bike skipper did an amazing job, and we eventually succeeded in actually outrunning the entire storm!
Keeping the storm at our heels all the way, logically it had to catch up with us eventually when we were compelled to slow down – upon arrival at the utterly chaotic Zamiban side of the ferry border. So we came looming out of the dark sky in +ine style, with the first of the rain falling along in a curtain behind us , steam coming off the tarmac under us – and the huge fearsome bike with two bulky Michelin type people in our pitch black rain gear attracted every tout and Agent in the area who made their usual stampede towards us!!
However.. materializing out of the rain and mist and chaos came the very welcome vision of Emmanuel, in priceless theatrical manner, his huge umbrella held aloft, yelling at all and sundry, he started directing traffic (us) and people in all directions, instantly humbling us all and vapourising the +lock of wannabee Agents with his incredible persona. After organising a bike parking spot just about on top of the borderpost boom, (where we would have never dared to park on our own), then placing our car/bike guard on duty, he whisked us off to the border post building under shelter of said umbrella!
As we all arrived at the border post buildings, the heavens really opened in truly spectacular style. It rained and rained and rained, thundered and lightninged. The ferries completely stopped operating, and we sloshed around the buildings in ankle deep water, doing our various paperwork duties, until there was no more left to do. All of us bedraggled travellers, Agents and ferry drivers, were trapped under whatever shelter we could find, and all we could do was look at Botswana over on the other side of the river, knowing there was nothing for it but to be patient and wait out the storm.
Eventually, ferry services resumed, we were escorted on board , and with a last farewell to Emmanuel and team, we crossed back over the Zambezi River. Some skill was needed by Tiennie to actually get the bike off the slippery ferry and up the ramp, while being forced to cross over a slippery metal track on his two wheels, without flipping the bike due to pressure from the rear traffic on the ferry, demanding forward motion, and the masses of dawdling pedestrian passengers who decided to disembark right in front of the bike, in a very disorganised jumbled crowd of shouting humans! Some stopped dead, right in his path, to watch and “help” with hand gestures and directions – little did they realise their actions were not all that helpful to a biker in such conditions, however he managed to heroically cross his horrible slippery metal line without either crashing or taking out some pedestrians along the way!
After this, destination home was just a few kms away. A rather surreal feeling – geographically so close and yet in in actual reality and time, so many hours away from our Christmas lunchtime at the Waterfront in Livingstone!
With the Kazungula Bridge and the One Stop Border Post scheduled to open in 2019, we embrace the experience of this historic ferry crossing, whatever it throws at us – optimistically believing it’s soon going to be an efficient and effortless task to cross the Zambezi over here!
Watch this space for our first Kazungula Bridge Bike Trip one of these years in the future!!
*This bike trip was in special memory of Mike Thiselton (1961 – 2017)
