Rik: Dar Es Salam to Vic Falls

Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe: Dar Es Salam to Vic falls

The next few days would consist of 12 to 16 hour drive days to cross Tanzania from the coast to the border with Malawi in the south west.

Not all went as smooth as we expected, the border crossing Tanzania Malawi was the longest we have experienced so far. But not the most boring border crossing, we had a lot of fun watching Stuart and Bradley doing push-ups, guessing the following number in the 50 top love songs that was on the telly and guessing how long it would take for us to get our passports back.

Eventually we got to our campsite in Chitimba, here we would spent the night and leave first thing next morning to Kandhi Beach. Here we stayed 2 nights and this meant we where able to get to do some things for ourselves again. Lotte went with a few of the group horse riding on the shores of lake Malawi. Ryan, Bradley, Therese and Dylan and myself went of for a trip across the lake. In kayaks, surfboards or swimming. This was a nice visit to one of the islands on the lake.

Unfortunately on the way we had to drop Denford our cook from Nairobi off in the nearest town because his father passed away. He needed to get home for the funeral arrangements. This meant from this point on till at least Vic falls we would have to cook ourselves, having cooked before in Sudan and Ethiopia for most of us this wouldn't be a problem.

After only 5 days in Malawi we took of towards Zambia, which has funny enough the same amount of citizens as Malawi but is almost 6 times bigger. Compared to the previous border crossing this one was much easier and quicker.

Once in Zambia we got to our campsite from where we would do a morning and evening safari near Chipata. South Lilongwe national park, known for its troops of African dogs and the relaxing and quite safaris. It is one of the parks less visited by tourists, so its not crowded with 4x4s.

(A few days ago I also gave up on writing my handwritten diary, it's to much if a struggle or task to write. And it's not adding anything extra because we are doing a lot of long drives.)

South Lilongwe was a lot of fun in the morning when we left at 6 for a 4 hour safari. We didn't see much more different animals as the ones we've already seen but it was nice to have a safari which isn't rushed or crowded. In late morning we were back and had some time to ourselves in the afternoon we left camp again for a evening safari.
Not after I was thought how to play chess, to my surprise and Kirstie's I won the first game, and the second game where we got help from Steward and Vic we ended on a tie.

The safari started out as an ordinary one where we saw the same as in the morning but every animal was a but more active. But when we came to an elephant who clearly didn't want us to be there and came charging at us, so we asked to go back for this reason. But we ended up going in a loop and coming up behind the elephant to much frustration of everyone. Unfortunately as soon as the floodlights came out the whole atmosphere changed, for the worse.

We met a group of people with either big cameras or phones and they were taking pictures with flash which in the dark does not work besides pissing off animals and regardless of what we asked they didn't comply. This to much more frustration of our group.
Eventually we managed to disturb the midnight hunt for the lions with our flashes and floodlights, again to frustration of the group. Back at camp the tension was noticeable and it would be for the following days.

The national park was followed by again some long drive days towards Lusaka and Lower Zambezi national park. In the national park we got into the canoes and set off for 2 days canoeing.

After a few days of more driving we got into Vic falls. We got there and first had a nice warm and cold shower at the falls. The falls looked amazing and did life up to its name.

Once back to camp I would be reunited with Jantine after 4 months of not seeing her. My original plan was to pick her up from the airport, unfortunately we got to late into camp to make this happen. So I started waiting at the reception. After hours of waiting she still wasn't there then she called to say there was no taxi to pick her up. The reception was saying there was nine booked, but after showing the invoice they started calling and in the end I was asked to join the cabdriver to the airport to pick Jantine up.
Later that night we celebrated Dutchies birthday.

The following days we spent relaxing in Vic falls. I went and joined the newbies to Vic falls. And we had a romantic dinner with the two of us. Along with Jantine also Sarah and Andrew joined us again and some new ones among them Cateline and Matthew, Breatha, Josephine and Clara

After Vic falls we went south in Zimbabwe, more of that in the next and probably last travel diary.