13th April
A lot of socialising with new friends today! Caroline gave us a sweet potato as they had too many, we bought sausages and eggs from reception, and had them for lunch. Sue and Caroline spent an hour in the hot spring chatting – due to the rains the river has risen quite considerably so the water is a bit cooler and some larger fish have appeared. In the evening we had rain again, but we sat and had a chat and drink with Brian until the biting insects made their presence felt!
14th April
A big monitor lizard appeared this morning – great except we were supposed to be leaving and someone got a bit distracted taking photos! B had a long chat with Mark the owner (the brother of Charlie at the house) – he is a mine of information, not only about the local area, but also North Luangwa and Zambia in general. He also had some bread and ham for sale – so we bought some of that as well!
In Mpika we got cash, fuel and bananas, there were big baskets of huge hairy caterpillars at the roadside (were they fried or not?) – a few live ones were crossing the road – as big as B’s middle finger. From Mpika we were back on the Tanzam Highway or Great North Road, this was the first time that we’d really seen any traffic in Zambia with trucks bringing goods in from Dar and copper headed the other way.
The 25km of road to Mutinondo was pretty monotonous – mainly just two wheel tracks through a flat miombo forest, hardly anyone living here at all. Arriving at the camp we suddenly came out of the trees to find a “whaleback” next to the road – these are giant humpbacked rocks resembling the back of a whale as it dives. Quite extraordinary, particularly after that road! We got into a bit of a pickle trying to find reception, it took quite a while to manoeuvre back out to get to campsite 8 recommended by Brian and Patti. We parked up just as it got truly dark. Dinner was some of that ham from Mark this morning – truly delicious! We heard hyena calling at night – and some other animals moving around.
A lot of socialising with new friends today! Caroline gave us a sweet potato as they had too many, we bought sausages and eggs from reception, and had them for lunch. Sue and Caroline spent an hour in the hot spring chatting – due to the rains the river has risen quite considerably so the water is a bit cooler and some larger fish have appeared. In the evening we had rain again, but we sat and had a chat and drink with Brian until the biting insects made their presence felt!
14th April
A big monitor lizard appeared this morning – great except we were supposed to be leaving and someone got a bit distracted taking photos! B had a long chat with Mark the owner (the brother of Charlie at the house) – he is a mine of information, not only about the local area, but also North Luangwa and Zambia in general. He also had some bread and ham for sale – so we bought some of that as well!
In Mpika we got cash, fuel and bananas, there were big baskets of huge hairy caterpillars at the roadside (were they fried or not?) – a few live ones were crossing the road – as big as B’s middle finger. From Mpika we were back on the Tanzam Highway or Great North Road, this was the first time that we’d really seen any traffic in Zambia with trucks bringing goods in from Dar and copper headed the other way.
The 25km of road to Mutinondo was pretty monotonous – mainly just two wheel tracks through a flat miombo forest, hardly anyone living here at all. Arriving at the camp we suddenly came out of the trees to find a “whaleback” next to the road – these are giant humpbacked rocks resembling the back of a whale as it dives. Quite extraordinary, particularly after that road! We got into a bit of a pickle trying to find reception, it took quite a while to manoeuvre back out to get to campsite 8 recommended by Brian and Patti. We parked up just as it got truly dark. Dinner was some of that ham from Mark this morning – truly delicious! We heard hyena calling at night – and some other animals moving around.