As the train chugged along through Zambia, 2 of the peace corps volunteers got out in eastern Zambia since that was where they were stationed. The rest of us went all the way to Kapiri Mposhi, which is about 4 hours north of Lusaka. Due to the delays, the train finally arrived at about 5 in the morning on the 4^th day.

The 2 remaining peace corps members hitchhiked up north, and the Greek and I decided to hitchhike to Lusaka. After only about 20 minutes, someone leaving from the gas station we were standing next to offered us a ride. He managed to get traffic 3 tickets by the time we got into town.

While driving to Lusaka, he got one ticket for going 87 km/h in an 80 zone.

As we got closer to the city, we went through a stoplight at the outskirts while it was yellow, and we drove through the intersection as it was turning red. Ticket.

So, he needed to pay the tickets. He went to get money from an ATM. To do that, he parked on the side of the road. He should have parallel parked, but instead he just pulled the front side of the car next to the curb, and the rear end was still sticking out a bit. He then stepped away to go to the ATM, leaving us 2 in the car. A couple of guys immediately came over and put a boot on his tire for the parking violation. We tried to tell them that the driver was only going to be gone for like 2 minutes, but it didn’t matter. He came back and then had to hand over the money he had just pulled out to get the boot off his car.

He did laugh about it, saying that it was just a bad day for him, but we felt so bad for him. He never originally asked for any money for taking us (it’s fairly normal to pay even if you are hitchhiking here), but we gave him a little bit just because it was so rough.

Once we got dropped off in the city, we stopped to buy a bit of food before heading to the hostel. I also needed some more sunblock, and I was shocked to see the price of it in Zambia. Twenty-five US dollars! Apparently, since so few people do actually use it in Zambia, sunblock has been determined to be a luxury good and is highly taxed, which throws the price way up there. This not only sucks for visitors who don’t want to get burned but it also really sucks for albino people in Zambia. I was so surprised at the price, I had to google about sunblock in Zambia to make sure I was getting this right. That’s how I stumbled upon articles discussing skin cancer for albino black people in Zambia who just don’t use sunblock because it’s just not a thing in Zambia, but doubly so because it’s so prohibitively expensive. I grudgingly bought a half-size bottle of 30 SPF instead of 50 for “only” $15.

After checking into the hostel, we walked around and checked out what there was to see. We saw the freedom monument, which was funnily locked in with a gate.

And then we didn’t know what else to check out, haha. Like most African cities I had been to so far, there wasn’t too much to see in the cities.

We went out that night with some people from the hostel. The first place we went to had a rock/metal band playing, which was quite refreshing. Most of the music I had heard so far in Africa was hip-hop or rap, and it was nice to find some music that was more to my taste. And live at that!

The two of us also went to a Hindu temple. Neither of us had ever been to a Hindu temple before, and since there was one right next to the hostel, we decided to check out a service.

Unfortunately, the service was in Hindi that day, so we didn’t stay the entire duration, but it was still an interesting experience, and everyone was very nice and welcoming.

My next stop was Chimfunshi, where one of the biggest chimpanzee sanctuaries in the world is located. I thought the name came from the word “chimp,” but Chimfunshi just means “place that holds water” in Bemba, and the identical first four letters were just a coincidence, I guess. To get there, I took the bus up to the copper belt at the north side of the country. I had the bus pull over on the side of the highway at the dirt road that led to the sanctuary, and I just hopped out. From there, I had to trek 15km up the road.

After about an hour and a half, and halfway to my destination, someone with a car that was also going to Chimfunshi picked me up and took me the rest of the way.

It seemed like the people at Chimfunshi are doing a lot of good and really do care about the well-being of the chimps. I was very impressed with how much attention they gave the chimps and how much they tried to ensure that they stayed healthy and lived a relatively normal life. A lot of these chimps came from places where they were exotic pets or used as attractions at shady bars or about to be killed for bushmeat in places where it was cheaper to eat chimps than cows or other meat. Here, at least they could live without being abused and stay among other chimps. If anyone wants to help support them, their website is https://www.chimfunshi.de/en/.

I went on a bush walk while I was there. The walk takes place at the orphanage, which is where most of the newer chimps go. As we approached, they were screeching and making lots of noise. I actually stopped walking toward the building for a second and had to wonder to myself if we were really going in there. The other person that I was going in with just laughed about it, since she had already gone a couple of times, and led me forward. We went first into the office and got the lowdown while donning some overshirts that had big pockets. We filled up our pockets with food, and then we went through the building that all the screeching chimps were in and into the sanctuary. While they are feeding, the handlers keep the chimps in the building to ensure everyone gets enough food. Two of the more-tame chimps are permitted to stay outside in the enclosure, and those are who we met. There were one other visitor, the handler, and I, and we first just sat down on some logs. After a couple of minutes of waiting, Cindy and Deedee came up to us. They started digging through our pockets for food, and Deedee even climbed up on my lap to search through my breast pocket. I was honestly petrified and barely even moved while her face was just mere inches away from mine. Chimps are ripped, and I feared doing something wrong and getting broken in half.

Of course, that didn’t happen. After the chimps had gotten their snacks out of our pockets, they walked off into the bushes, and we followed them. They actually ending up more or less leading us through the enclosure that they lived in. We walked around with them and took some breaks from time to time over the course of 2 or so hours before returning to the orphanage building.

I unfortunately don’t have any photos of that experience, and that’s due to 2 reasons. The first is that if the chimps find cameras or phones, they have the tendency to take them and break them. Not really out of malice, but just because they like breaking things like a child likes breaking down the intricate Lego creation you just made (I’m looking at you, Pierce!). I, therefore, didn’t take my phone with me on the walk.

The more important reason is that taking photos like that leads to increased poaching. They explained that when pictures of people walking directly with chimps (and maybe having them on their laps or climbing on their backs) surface on the internet, the pictures get pirated and taken out of context, and it leads to a measured spike in poacher activity as people see chimps as a romantic house pet that you can have or something along those lines. They did say that writing about it is fine, though, because that’s harder to take drastically out of context.

After the bush walk, I did get to take some photos from on top of the orphanage building once the chimps were released back into the enclosure after they had finished eating.

We then went to another enclosure and saw more chimps that weren’t required to stay at the orphanage.

After the trauma that some of these chimpanzees have been through, some of them, like humans, develop neurological conditions. I can’t recall what this one particular chimp’s story was, but he had some interesting habits. Namely, the chimp loved touching rainboots. When the handlers were walking by, he would lay on the ground and reach through the fence to touch their boots as they walked by. Once he was able to rub the boots, since he was laying on the ground, he would actually start humping the ground.

I felt bad for laughing at the scene, but damn if it wasn’t funny to watch. I wasn’t the only one laughing, though, so I didn’t feel too bad. I didn’t get pictures or a video of him in action, but I took this after the handler was gone. If you look closely, you can even see that he was still quite excited…

After a few days, I made my way back to Lusaka. I first had to walk the 15km to get back to the main road. Honestly, ever since Tanzania and the train ride, I had had an on-and-off upset stomach. I suspect I actually had a mild case of giardia. That was one of the days my stomach was acting up, and I had to make frequent stops on the side of the road, which made it a looong morning. I was almost to the road when some other travelers who were also visiting Chimfunshi came up on me in their truck. They graciously gave me a ride to the nearest town where I then took a bus to Lusaka. The bus sucked.

Sometimes being tall has its downsides. When the seats in the bus are so close to each other that I had to hug my knees against my chest for the 12-hour bus ride, I sometimes wish I were shorter. At the beginning, I had 2 seats to myself so I could kind of sit sideways, but someone got on after a couple of hours and I was confined to my microwave-sized area for the rest of the journey.

Regardless, I got back to Lusaka, and I could finally stretch my knees. I only stayed one night, and then I went to Livingstone the next day.

During the night I was there, I walked from my hostel to the hostel that the Greek and I stayed at the last night when we were last in Lusaka. She had forgotten her power bank, and since we were both later heading to the same destination, I said I would pick it up and return it to her. While I was walking down a not-well-lit street, a sex worker approached me and “wanted to just talk to me.” I kept walking, and she kept yelling after me to talk to her. For hundreds of meters. I was well down the road, and I kept hearing her yelling after me in the dark. I am pretty sure I then heard her yelling something like “he stole my money!” That put me into the next gear and I started power walking down the road. I had put some distance between us, and I finally couldn’t hear her anymore. But then a car came up from behind me and pulled over on the road in front of me. I slowed down and made sure my pocket knife was firmly in my hand, and I was trying to time it so that I could only get close to the car when one of the seldom other cars came by and I could maybe call upon them for help if need be. A car pulled onto the road in front of us. Its headlights were on us. I started walking up to the parked car to pass it. The drum of the blood in my ears mixed with the roar of the approaching engine. And then the parked car got back on the road and drove off. Thanks for freaking me out! I picked up the power bank and decided to take a taxi back to the other hostel.

The next morning, I got on the bus to Livingstone. The trip went without a hitch, but once while in transit, we all had to get out of the bus to quickly wash our hands. Everyone got out of the bus, and the bus drove a few meters forward. Everyone then walked by a guy with a bottle of water as he sprayed their hands. Everyone then got back in the bus, and we continued our ride. I was incredibly confused as to the reason for that exchange, but everyone else did it without question. I was later telling a local this story, and she told me it was to fight the spread of Foot-and-mouth disease to cows and other livestock.

I stayed with a couchsurfing host in Livingstone for a week. After so many train and bus rides in such a short time, it was nice to just stay in one place without having to worry about my next move.

The Greek lady was busy most of the time at a school she was volunteering at, but we met up and went to Victoria Falls together.

We were then thinking about going to the Angel’s Pool. The Devil’s Pool is the more infamous one because you can lean over the waterfall, but you can’t go to that pool when the water level is high, which it was when we were there. The Angel’s Pool is an alternative when the water is high. Although it’s a little more protected, you can still swim within a meter of the cliff. To get there, you’re supposed to book through a hotel, but it costs a lot as they take you with a boat to Livingstone Island, and you can then go to the pool from there. Instead, we needed to find an unofficial guide who would guide us across the top of the falls to the pool. While she and I were discussing it, some guy approached us and asked us if we wanted to go to the pool. We couldn’t help laughing about the perfect timing.

They escort you across the falls with 2 people. One guides you through the water where you wade through parts and swim through other parts. The other one walks a trickier route with your backpacks (and all your valuables inside them). I found it kind of sketchy as they could easily take your bags and run off, but we went for it anyway.

The journey was a bit gripping at some points because you had to swim across a current, and some of those currents were strong. If you didn’t get over in time, the falls were the only thing downstream from you. They even told us that when the water gets too high and the current even stronger, it can even push elephants over the falls when they try to swim across the river. Thanks for the reassurance, guys!

We took a rest at a beautiful lookout point.

I thought the way the mist flowed up the cliff was beautiful.

After some more swimming and careful walking, we reached the pool and swam around for a bit.

After that, we walked and swam back to the side of the river and kept walking around the Victoria Falls area. In the end, the guides were honest and everything of ours was returned.

We ended the day at the Victoria Falls bridge, which links Zambia to Zimbabwe. You are allowed to walk on the bridge, and there is even a bungee jump on the bridge.

I was considering bungee jumping, but the $160 USD price tag was just a bit too much for me, and I ultimately decided to save the money for other adventures. Someday when I’m not trying to budget a world trip, I will go bungee jumping.

Another day, I went on a rhino walk. I saw pretty much all the animals I wanted to see on my safari in Tanzania except a rhino. There was a walking safari offered in Livingstone where they guarantee that you will see at least one rhino, so I decided to go for it.

The guide actually followed a soldier from the army who was able to track the rhino by the faint footprints in the ground. During the day, the army constantly walks around with the rhinos. Armed with machine guns, they will gun down any poacher. They used to watch over them at night with infrared goggles, but apparently it’s hard to distinguish all the animals, and the soldiers kept getting attacked by various animals at night, so now they only come out in the morning. After a bit of tracking, we came across 4 southern white rhinos.

After that, I just chilled a bit longer at my host’s place.

I originally was planning to take the Intercape bus, but it seems they no longer go to Livingstone. I found another bus, The Oasis, that left from the Shalom bus station, but they only left on Wednesdays, Fridays, and Sundays.

My extended stay in Livingstone came to a finish, and along with it my time in Zambia. I took the bus to Namibia on Wednesday. The bus went over some really rough roads on the Zambian side of the border west of Livingstone. The bus even went off the road and drove on the dirt next to the road in some spots due to the massive potholes. They obviously don’t maintain that road so well. We got to the border and then continued on the much smoother roads in Namibia, where the roads are good enough that busses are allowed to drive at night (it’s simply not legal in Tanzania or Zambia because of the driving conditions).

I dozed off on the bus as we cruised toward Windhoek in the night, but I’ll get to that in my next post.

Like Kenya, the main language of Zambia is English, so I had no difficulties speaking with anyone, unlike the cases where it could get tricky in some places in Tanzania. I didn’t spend all that much time in Zambia, but I very much did enjoy the time I did spend there. It seems that it was more developed than the other 2 countries I had visited in Africa, and it was kind of refreshing to be in a place that somewhat reminded me of home.