First thing we learn at the border of Zambia: we need a specific car insurance. We also learn that this insurance was also required for Kenya, Tanzania and Malawi. However, we always got away with our Dubai insurance card which is not valid. But nobody cared… even the last day, when we were controlled six times by the Malawi traffic police!
Second thing we learn in Zambia: we need again our spare tires, Zambia welcomes us with a flat tire…
After our first night in Chipata – this time we have no watchdog, but watchhorse and watchchickens – we drive to the South Luangwa National Park. On the 100 km gravel road, the spare tire does a good job, however, 
when we pass a slower car, we are hit by a stone that makes a crack in our windshield. Once more we are amazed about the traffic in Africa, on the one hand the heavy trucks, that are approaching us with 100 km per hour on these bad gravel roads, on the other hand bicycles transporting wood, charcoal and even living goats!
But we are rewarded for this off-road adventure with one of the best campgrounds so far. After three days we are not quite sure what is better – the campground or the national park! The Flatdogs 
Campground – flatdogs is the South African name for crocodiles – is located at the banks of the Luangwa River, just opposite the Southern Luangwa National Park. All over the campground there are 
signs that all animals which can be seen in the park are frequent guests of the campground as well. This might be the reason why some people put their tent up in the trees.
Guests at our campsite are elephants, fighting hippos, who even run over the campground during daytime and also come at night to graze between the tents. The least we like are the aggressive monkeys and 
baboons who always try to steal our food. When they don’t succeed, they quickly climb the trees and pee down at our tent! The guards warn us not to have any food in the tent and even not visible in
the car, since elephants have broken into cars before.
The night before we plan to go to the National Park at 6 am to see the lions, one of the security guards – Kewi – wakes us up at 2 am to show us two very big hippos next to our car. We are quite tired when we get up at 
5.30 am to leave for the National Park. Nevertheless, we are completely awake when we see 3 male lions blocking our way at a short distance from the entrance gate. The photos we take 
are not very clear, we are not sure if it is the early morning’s twilight or our shaking hands… after some minutes they disappear into the jungle… later we learn from the game drive operators that they didn’t spot any lion that day. So we were really lucky!
We make a big tour through the park, spot many animals, and even take a drive through swamps where we can only guess where the track leads through the car-high reed.
From the National Park which is considered one of the best in Africa, we head west towards Namibia. The drive through Zambia is marvelous, in particular we enjoy crossing the rolling hills towards the Luangwa 
Bridge camp. From this camp we have an amazing view over the Luangwa River which also marks the border to Mozambique.
The next morning we continue to Lusaka, the capital of Zambia. We have a good impression of the city with its wide, tree-lined streets. We also enjoy completing our food supplies in very big and well stocked supermarkets. 
When leaving Lusaka, we are once more stopped for speeding. The officer claims that we did 10 km/h more than allowed. We are sure that this was not the case and bargain the penalty down from USD 30 to 10. In the evening we check our GPS data on the PC which confirms that we didn’t speed.
As we approach Livingstone, we see a lot of fires in the bush that even come close to the street. It’s surprising that nobody seems to care. At least the high reed along the street is gone which limits visibility. We are always 
afraid that some animal or human being might step out of this reed just in front of the car and we have no time to react. Fortunately this doesn’t happen.
Finally we reach the Victoria Falls close to Livingstone. On the way to our campground we are cornered by three huge elephants. They come very close to the car and we can not even go back or forth. The oldest of them 
comes from the side towards the car and in the last moment we can close the window before he is putting his trunk in our car. We are scared since we have heard about elephants who have flipped over cars and destroyed them.
We have have been told that the best time to see the Victoria Falls – one of the 7 nature world wonders - 
is early in the morning. Getting up early is not a challenge, since we never sleep longer than 6 am, but this time it is different since the temperature is only 1 degree Celsius. It might have to do with the fact that we are 1000 m high and the winter in southern Africa started 3 days ago. Already from the distance, we can see the Vic Falls, which are also called Mosi-oa-Tunya – “The Smoke that Thunders”.
But the early bird catches the worm, and we are the first and only guests at the Victoria Falls when we arrive at 7 am. Good that we didn’t take a shower. The Vic Falls take care of that anyway. We are completely wet, and only later we see that people make a business by 
renting rain coats and flip-flops. We are rewarded that we have the falls all to ourselves and have some breathtaking views. Narrow valley, rainbows.
We spend a very memorable and impressing morning at the falls, which are the biggest in Africa and are 111 meter high and 1,7 km wide. It is for sure one of the most spectacular shows of 
the nature we have ever seen and of course one of the highlights of our whole trip!
We camped in Chipata, opposite the Lunagwa NP, Luangwa Bridge Camp, the Moorings Camp – Monze, Bushfront Camp in Livingstone and drove 1740 km.
We got disturbed by a hippo when we wrote this blog, on the Numwi Island Campground at the Zambezi River in Katima-Mulilo Namibia. We hope that didn’t have an impact on the quality of the Blog.
27.06.09
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