Well, we finally reached the end of our patience trying to deal with DHL Zambia and South Africa.  Poor Vivian was also tearing his hair out.  To say they were unhelpful and difficult would be giving them a compliment.   So, we realised there was nothing else for it but to head for Zambia.

Question is – what do we do with Humble – he couldn’t be moved and we couldn’t leave him in Hwange.   We had a bit of good luck when Andrew met Prince and Dube in Dete, who just happened to have a spare piece of chain (for USD 10), so we did a makeshift fix for Humble and off we set early Wednesday for Livingstone.

We were assured that if we paid the import duty in Livingstone on Wednesday that the part would be with us Thursday.    Bloody liars.   The import tax was K 1, 373 100 – I nearly had a heart attack until I realised this was about R2,200 (still not cheap, esp when the part was not being imported – we were fitting it and leaving).  So with the cost of visa’s, car import duties etc it has been an expensive few days.  It also didn’t help matters when DHL in SA told me to chill and that they were doing me a favour delivering the part anyway !!!  The guy was very lucky that he was safely in SA !!!!

We decided to make the best of our time in Zambia and ended up having a lovely time.    We camped at the Livingstone Safari Lodge and with a private site, our own ablutions and a cold beer on hand we were well sorted.  The camp is owned by Tjisse (see photo) who is a proudly eccentric and between him and Peter who runs the bar we had a good few laughs.  Andrew also met a guy 8 years ago in a coffee shop hundreds of kms away from Livingstone, who just happened to be in the bar as well.   Philip had built a swimming pool for an Australian friend of ours.  So a good time was had by all.

Livingstone has changed since we were last there, much bigger, well stocked and a lot friendlier than we remember.  Even the border crossing, whilst chaotic, was pleasant.  If you go, take USD and Kwacha as the border crossing costs are in both and you can’t mix – the USD charges must be paid in USD and the Kwacha charges must be paid in Kwacha.  Strange but true..  There are touts to get Kwacha but they do rip you off on the rate.

The prices in the shops are pretty much the same as SA but again you have a heart attack when the bill is K 907,000 until you realise this is about R1,400.  Phew……….  If you are there and fancy some seafood, the Ocean basket has better prawns and calarmari than Mozambique, is cheaper and has much better service.  It does feel very odd to draw K 4,000,000 out of the ATM – you can’t get it in your purse so you just keep a huge bundle in a bag. They are rumoured to be changing this next year but if its anything like DHL speed we will be long dead before it happens.

We also decided that we deserved a treat and booked ourselves on a sail down the Zambezi on the ‘’African Queen’ – it was so nice, hippos in the water, ellies on the shore and a beautiful sunset. Could life get any better…….

We met a family from Aberdeen and an old Indian guy from Darlington in England – we nearly burst out laughing when he was complaining that England is a nation on benefits and that their problems stem from all the foreigners that they were letting in from Eastern Europe.    I guess he hasn’t looked in the mirror recently !!

Anyway we finally got the part on Friday and we are now back in Vic Falls.  The plan is to head for Chizarrira early tomorrow and do a bit of birding for a couple of days before making our way to Kariba.  We are meant to be in Mana Pools on Oct 3rd and since this is a highlight of our trip, we can hardly wait.

Anyway folks – chat later xx