Johannesburg to Northern Zambia, July 2023

This time, in 2023, we are going to make it to East Africa.

In last year’s travel season before the East Africa rains, we headed up to East Africa but pulled out at the last minute in the north of Malawi. We had taken more time than expected on the upward journey. The seasonal rains were coming within a few weeks (October). There was also Ebola in Uganda, and we really didn’t feel like going through another lock-down scenario. So, instead, we headed down south to the white sands of the Mozambican coastline and did another adventure we had always wanted to do.

Looking back on the decision to abort East Africa with knowledge to hand now: the rains were significantly lower in October and November 2022 than normal. So… rains wouldn’t necessarily have been as much of an issue as imagined within the final year of La Nina. Ebola. Well this disappeared fairly quickly after a few weeks of deep worry from many. No international border crossings were affected. However, the white sands of the Mozambican coastline were exceptional.

This time in 2023, we are taking one of the quickest routes possible up to Tanzania (discounting the idea of revisiting the Mozambique-Malawi route). We sleep the night in our roof top tent at the Big Fig Oasis campsite in South Africa, a couple of kilometres before the border – always a useful stop for this route. Entering Botswana from South Africa at the Martin’s Drift border crossing, we hastily buy a sim card at the first fuel station and head north. A brief stop in Francistown for a final Steers burger and some groceries. We then mission further up to Nata and the Nata Lodge campsite.

The next morning, we check in with our Kasane buddies to discover they, or at least one of them, is laid low with bad flu and so we regretfully have to forgo said buddies in both their and our health interests. Nothing will stop us from reaching East Africa this time! Even if it means forgoing a glass of wine or three on the banks of the Chobe whilst catching up with friends

From Nata we are surprised to find ourselves at the Kazungula one-stop border in the mid afternoon even after the mandatory Nando’s stop outside Kasane. We have done the Kazungula one-stop border before and so navigate through with some surprising efficiency as well as some luck. The customs guy is too busy watching football to worry about us overly and stamps our vehicle through easily. Some confusion from the gate guards on the way into Zambia regarding vehicle carnets but quickly settled by the preponderance of bureaucratic papers in our possession.

Onwards and into Zambia

If entering Botswana is Day 1 then we’re in Zambia on Day 2!

First stop Livingstone! Named after the famous explorer David Livingstone with claims to fame such as being an unsuccessful missionary, never finding the source of the Nile and missing hundreds of kilometres of the Lower Zambezi resulting in a failed expedition and the deaths of many. 

The town of Livingstone has reportedly been going from strength to strength, in a small manner, due to the benefits of tourism from the Mosi-oa-Tunya Falls as well as being on a major trade route. It is hoped by some that a further windfall will be gained from increased trade crossing the new Kazungula Bridge which, besides the already achieved road network, will also link the Livingstone railway line all the way down to Durban (South Africa), through Botswana. Livingstone already benefits from the completed Namibian infrastructure project connecting the port of Walvis Bay to southern and central Africa via the Trans-Caprivi Highway. There is of course also the road network running through Zimbabwe.

Livingstone has a Shoprite and an Airtel phone shop across from the supermarket so we busy ourselves getting final admin purchases in line. Good accommodation is difficult to come by and even though we are looking to camp close to the Falls tonight, we decide the options just aren’t available to us and so we go a further 100 km’s up the road to a farm campsite option found on iOverlander. Objective is East Africa this time.

Luckily, on Day 2 of travels from the bottom of Botswana, we have found some campsite owners who monitor their comm’s and we’re booked into Rob and Claire’s farm just off the main road from Livingstone towards Lusaka. So that’s 483 km’s of total travel plus a border crossing plus Nando’s burgers in one day.

It turns out that Rob has the same flu as our buddies in Kasane and so retreats graciously after showing us the facilities. We enjoy a quiet evening at the dam with the cattle grazing near us and some lamb chops on the fire.

Woken the next morning by the damn rooster we enjoy the morning light with a cup or two of coffee before heading out towards Lusaka.

We have been through Lusaka before. All roads lead to Lusaka and they apparently pass right through the city! Moving from south of Lusaka to north of Lusaka is big viewing pleasure with large flat bed trucks carrying copper, coal and other commodities vying for space with the bus’s and other vehicles. As before, on our first trip this way, local buses and 4×4’s jump off the single lane main road down impossible angles to curve around the highway length queue to rejoin again at the same impossible angle when a promising side dirt road runs out.

We went down the Great East Road to Malawi last time and so will be taking the Great North Road to Tanzania this time to maximise new sightings and experiences. Our stop-over will of course be Fringilla Lodge! Fringilla has been able to develop itself as a lodge, farm, campsite, venue, restaurant and butchery. There is even a health clinic for local Zambians as well as a vulture and maribou stork safe zone. Each part of the enterprise supports another so that fresh produce is available for the restaurant, the accommodation benefits from the produce and demand for the produce is guaranteed by the varied clientèle. I assume that diversification also allows them to survive when one section of the enterprise is impacted negatively, for example Covid in 2021.

We spend two nights at the campsite. The first night, by coincidence, there is a local farmer get together at the cricket club right next to our campsite and so we sneakily jump the fence and enjoy an evening of cheap beer, cheap boerewors rolls and a Zimbabwean musician with a guitar. A lot of former colonial farmers lost and/or sold their land in Zimbabwe over the decades from the 2000’s onwards and many of them resettled in Zambia. The Chisamba area, where we are now, has many ex-Zimbabweans and ex-Rhodesians (depending on their political leanings).

Onto the Great North Road

We spend two nights at Fringilla putting final touches on the Hilux for the up-coming overlanding trip. Stocked up with probably our last good biltong for months and their Fringilla’s famed pies from the shop, we head onwards via the Great North Road to Tanzania.

The Great North Road is indeed long and great. The route takes us two days of slow driving along the often pot-holed road with a stop half way at a decent road-side motel. We pass by the turn off to Kasanka and forgo the North Luangwa National Park. We also pass by the turn off to Route 05 which drops adventurers off of the Rift escarpment and down into the South Luangwa National Park. Kasanka annual bat migration in November would be a must but we’re too early and are focused on getting to East Africa this time. We keep on heading up north.

We have heard that there is an alternative border crossing from Zambia into Tanzania. Instead of using the main border on the TanZam highway at the Nakonde-Tunduma border crossing, we are going to take a left before-hand and try the much smaller Zombe-Kasesya border posts. This will give us an opportunity to get our first (and only) view of Lake Tanganyika on the Zambian side. At Mpika, we take our left off of the Great North road and breathe a sigh of relief at the reduced truck traffic and much easier road conditions.

On the Great North Road, I was struck by the sight of seeing small individual and isolated homes made mostly of clay only a few metres off of the highway, often partially hidden by some withered trees. This land is indeed parched and hot. These small homesteads appear to survive by using the Great North Road as nourishment by selling small products such as charcoal or simple road-side snacks to passing truckers and travellers.

What I didn’t expect, after turning off of the Great North Road was the amount of human life in the 80,000 km2 north of Mpika. I think we got our first sense of something unexpected beginning to happen further south down the Great North when I noticed a group of, what I assume to be, Pygmy people walking in single file with various containers after an obviously successful day of shopping in a Zambian town.

After some research, I was surprised to find that not only is a large section of northern Zambia defined as a part of the Congo basin, but that the source of the Congo River is actually considered to be the Chambeshi River which begins in the higher Zambian altitudes just below Lake Tanganyika. The Chambeshi River fills in the Zambian wet season from November to April eventually flooding the Bangweulu lake system which then discharges the water into the Luapula River to begin the furthest and most remote addition to the Congo River.

This Northern portion of Zambia is only slightly lower in population density than the country average (if removing Lusaka from the equation). Most of the population appears to survive on subsistence farming and some migratory work.

We turn off of the Great North Road and are surprised at the numbers of people living, walking and surviving on the 400 kilometres of road heading up to Mbala and Lake Tanganyika. Only in Malawi have we also experienced the feeling that the road belongs to the cyclists and walkers rather than the motorised travellers. Vehicles are expected to fit in one middle section coming from both directions. The later afternoon and evening is full of people travelling up and down the road. The flow of a vast community network on the road is energising.

Lake Tanganyika, Kalambo Falls and into East Africa

We are now on the adventure! It has taken us five days of travel and an additional two days of rest to get from the south of Botswana to the north of Zambia. We are now ready to slow down and enjoy everything around us.

We take a left at Mbala after picking up some questionable biltong from a local farm and some beers and cool drinks from town proper. I have been doing my price research and quickly get the prices at the bottle store down to local (overland expert) levels. We leave the earnest but content bottle shop owner behind with us carrying not only a six pack or two but a smile of smug satisfaction also.

A little more driving and we’re at Mpulungu on the shore of Lake Tanganyika, the only port belonging to land-locked Zambia. It is possible to catch a ferry from the south of the lake at Mpulungu port and travel all the way up to Burundi, via various connections. The first leg on the lake from Mpulungu (Zambia) to Kigoma (Tanzania) is via the legendary ship MV Liemba. Lake Tanganyika is shared by Zambia, Tanzania, Burundi and DRC. We arrive end of July 2023 when there is a lake-wide three month fishing moratorium and so the harbour is relatively quiet. The larger commercial fishing boats are all tied up in harbour waiting for the fishing season to begin again mid-August. Some reading indicates that not all of the lake shore countries involved in the fishing moratorium were successful in implementation.

West of Mpulungu, on the lake, is reported to be a great little campsite made available by a science research station used mainly by scientists and grad students for parts of the year. We try our luck and drive up to the station over a very rocky road to find a big welcome from the caretaker. The camp manager, a very nice person called Celestine, points out a perfect camping spot for us and our roof top tent on the Zambian shore of Lake Tanganyika. The campsite is so perfect that we decide to stay for three nights enjoying the sights of the lake and getting a few jogs in where we pass by small homesteads and a local school each morning. Every evening is spent with a small fire as the sun goes down and the local subsistence fishermen paddle past in their dugout canoes. The first, and one of the best, night skies of this leg of our expedition opens up above us and the depth of the surrounding universe swallows us in each night as we sit by our simple campfire on the shore of this ancient lake.

Here are a few example research papers from field studies conducted at the Lake Tanganyika  science research centre in Zambia.

Our next stop is Kalambo Falls, one of the highest single-drop waterfalls in the world. The falls can be found pouring over and into the Kalambo Gorge which joins the Tanganyika Rift valley five kilometres further down-stream. Every waterfall appears to vie for some accolade. Kalambo Falls is around 220m high and is a single drop which some say puts it in the category of second highest single drop waterfall in Africa but the accolade is uncertain and nebulous considering the existence of Mutarazi Falls (Zimbabwe) and Jin Bahir Falls (Ethiopia).

The waterfall is still beautiful and the fact that it and the Kalambo River are designated as the border line between Zambia and Tanzania is exciting as we get to peer across the Gorge at Tanzanian tourists doing similar things as us except they get to climb down a massive winding staircase into the gorge below.

The Kalambo waterfall area is also a major archeological site. Upstream from the falls, there have been discoveries of hominid activity from hundreds of thousands of years ago. Recent research (very recent) has identified the oldest known wooden structures made by hominids in the world right here in the Kalambo river region. These structures date to over 400,000 years ago. Well before the advent of Homo sapien sapien.

We enjoy a walk along the pathway on the southern side of the gorge and are able to view the waterfall as the shadows lengthen along the gorge walls. The light on the waterfall disappears as the sun moves towards sunset.

Camping is free (inclusive) with the entrance price to the falls and so we spend the night listening to Kalambo Falls while I make an exceptional baked bean and sausage casserole on our benzine fired coleman stove.

Our next morning will be our first step into East Africa.