Zambia: Plan C
Having scraped Plan A to travel north up to the lakes due to bad roads, long distances and shortage of accommodation along the way, we headed east. Plan B was to visit the Luangwa Game Parks. In order to get to North Luangwa, we need to catch a pontoon, this is not operational at the moment, to get to South Luangwa Park we need to cross 3 rivers and bridges have only been built over 2 of them, so we would need to retrace our steps virtually back to Lusaka and head south east. It would make more sense to enter the park from Tanzania on our way back south (by then Africa Plan X may be in operation, so we will see).
Back to plan C; we left Kapishya Springs, after a wonderful 3 days and travelled north east into Malawi and heading to Chelinda Camp in the Nyika Reserve. The first 180km to Isoka, was along a badly potholed tarred road(the Great North Road), it took us just over 3 hours. Along the way we came across 2 overturned and one burned out truck. In Isoka we managed to fill up with diesel from jerry cans, this took about ½ an hour. We then headed east, along a fairly good sand road into the Makutu Mountains.
Once we started our ascent into the mountains, the road deteriorated badly. At one stage we thought if we went over the edge of the pass, no one would know where we were, or where to find us; it was a very sobering thought. At the same time, being forced to travel around 30kph meant we were pretty safe. Road aside, travelling along these mountain passes afforded us spectacular views of the valleys below and the mountains, still to be travelled, ahead.
The 180 km through the mountains to the Malawian border post at Katumbi took us 4 ½ hours. At 4:30 we arrived at a homemade stop sign and on our right was a small brick building. The chap sitting in front of the hut told us to wait. A few minutes later the Immigrations officer arrived, in civvies and slightly inebriated but very friendly. After taking a while to locate his keys to his draw, he found his stamp, took a few more minutes to try and change the date and proceeded to stamp our passports, without checking our photos. There were no forms to fill in and he seemed to think a handshake and a stamp was all that was required for us to enter Malawi. We had to get our Carnet book (for import and customs) stamped, this form he had never seen before but was more than happy, once locating a second stamp and date change, to do. There were none of the standard border post, currency changing, loan sharks to contend with. This was a far cry from the filthy, cockroach infested, caravans we had to go through in order to enter Zambia at Katima. There was also no Zambian border post there, so 15 minutes after arriving at the Malawian border post, we entered officially entered Malawi (I hope), after having unofficially left Zambia and with not 1 Malawian kwacha to our name. One wonders what happens to people travelling into Zambia at this point.
The roads in Malawi were no better and we arrived at the Nyika National Park at 5:30 to be informed that we had another 60km to travel to Chelinda Camp. We were breaking our “no driving in the dark” rule for the second time in a week. However, this time we were not really concerned as the roads in the park were much improved and we had no trucks to contend with. I had read that the park contained mainly antelope and was famous for its large herds of roan antelope. Therefore, it came as a bit of a shock when I saw this giant shape looming up ahead in the headlights – it was an elephant. Luckily, he was chilled and eventually wandered off into the bush. We saw zebra and giant eagle owls, one with supper in his talons, along the way.
We eventually found the reception, booked in and arrived at the camp site at 8:00. The 420km journey had taken us 11 hours. We set up camp in the dark, made dinner and fell into bed, or rather climbed up the ladder and crawled, gratefully into our tent.
Makutu Mountains
Malawian Border post
Malawian road
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