Zambia World Wide

This was a very busy and exciting time, we had wanted a second child for some time. After seeing the doctor Jan was told that she was pregnant and the baby was due in February 1974.We have now been here for a year which seems to have flown by it is now 1973. We were both pleased at the news. For some time we had wanted to see the Victoria Falls, so we decided to travel down before Jan became to uncomfortable, so we started making plans. It was the wrong time of year as we were well into the dry season and there would be very little water flowing over the falls. The Eastern Cataract is the only part of the falls on the Zambian side of the border and was the only part we could visit at the time. The border between Zambia and Rhodesia was closed due to the Civil War in Rhodesia, we decided to make the trip anyway as we knew that once the baby was born it would be some time before we would have another opportunity. Having made up our minds I took a week off and we left Kitwe for Livingstone. Kitwe is about 600 miles from Livingstone, so we had a good run to cover in a day. Our route would take us through Fisenge to Kapiri Mposhi which is the main railway link in Zambia, then to Kabwe which is in the Zambian lead and zinc mining area of the country. There is also a small amount of silver mining there. From there we drove to Lusaka the capital of Zambia and then on to Kafue to Mazabuka, both are large farming areas. We drove on to Monze, we could now see the deterioration in the state of the road. There were potholes across the road some of which were quite large, so we had to be careful not to drive through them at speed. We carried on through Pemba and Choma, from then on the road narrowed and became single tar, through Kalomo and Zimba and then on to Livingstone. The single tar did slow us down a little as we had to pull on to the dirt at the side to pass oncoming vehicles. The journey had taken 11 hours but we were there, we had not made any advance bookings so we now had to find a hotel. This proved to be much easier than we had thought, we drove through the main street and saw the New Fairmount Hotel. We went to the reception and booked immediately, probably because it was out of season. Although by now it was quite late, we dumped our gear in the room and though we were dirty and a little tired we drove to the Victoria Falls (the African name for the falls is Musi-o-Tunya which means the Smoke That Thunders). This first visit was brief as it was getting dark but we knew we would not have been able to sleep without having a look. We returned to the hotel had a swim and then changed for dinner. After dinner we put Gary to bed and had a relaxing evening, making plans for the next day. Standing looking at the falls was just amazing. We had heard about the Victoria Falls while in England, never dreaming we would one day be standing here over-looking them. Next morning we drove from Livingstone to the falls, it was quite amusing to see road signs saying beware of elephants and hippos instead of cattle and deer. We also passed the railway depot and were amused to see steam trains still in use. From about 2 miles away we could see the spray from the falls, we parked near the falls and walked along the edge. It was a great experience and we were surprised to find the area around the falls in its natural state, just as they must have been when Livingstone first discovered them in 1855.