We got up early at the Livingston campsite and after a quick tea and coffee were on our way towards the Victoria falls.

For the non-Africans: the Zambezi river forms the border between Zambia and Zimbabwe, so the Vic falls also have both a Zambian and a Zimbabwean side.

We paid 45 USD entrance fee and entered the location on the Zambian side, which has several walks and scenic lookout points along the rim of the falls. The views are spectacular, accompanied by the mighty roaring of tons of water continually rushing down and the spray that comes with it. The spray produces a spectacular rainbow that is always on. The falls are wider and higher than the Niagara falls.  Our cameras were firing away rapidly.

We first walked upstream of the river to take photographs, then went back to the car to put on rainwear and took the walkway over the knife edge bridge. We had been warned by other visitors about the spray, which on that side was intense. Despite our rainwear, we got soaking wet.

As we returned to the parking lot, there was a baboon on the rooftop of our car. It dawned on me only later that he was on a mission to check out the inside of the car. Mark hushed him away by shouting and whipping his jacket. These animals are extremely cocky and as I was changing my soaking wet pants behind the cover of the open side door of the car the baboon quickly pushed past me and slid into the car. I was taken by surprise and I won’t pretend I wasn’t scared…. I didn’t dare just grab it as I was afraid it might bite me. As I was walking around the car to open the right rear door and throw my sneaker at the intruder, he quickly exited through the door that he had come in through. The whole scene took less than 5 seconds.

Oh, remember that bag of delicious rusks we bought from that eclectic Bohemian café in Otjiwarongo, that Mark had written about earlier? Well, we could only watch as the baboon enjoyed the rusks, sitting on our bonnet… Mark had warned me about the baboons, but I didn’t expect them to be that aggressive to sneak past me into the car. It taught me a lesson and I was glad that our loss was only rusks and not one of our cameras!

After that bit of excitement, we went on towards Lusaka. The roads were so much better than the day before, almost immaculate. Very few potholes, very few cows. It was a smooth and uneventful drive. Every village we drove through there were street vendors, and interestingly the main offering changed from village to village. In one there would be tomatoes and in the next one fish, and in the one after that potatoes. The goods were on display all along the roadside, and every car that stopped was quickly surrounded by the enthusiastic vendors.

We stopped in Monze for lunch at a small roadside restaurant. They assumed we were not prepared to eat their local food Nshima, which is the same as Pap, that Mark had made a few days earlier and offered to make us chips. We of course ate the Nshima, with a piece of chicken, a sausage, two eggs and a Coke. The total came to 49 Kwacha, the equivalent of around 3 Euros. Mark gave the 2-year-old daughter a pen and will be remembered forever. The other thing I noticed is that we had entered no-cutlery-territory. A handwash was offered outside of the restaurant, where a bucket of water and a basin were provided, and we ate with our hands as is customary here.

The final 65km of the road to Lusaka were again “under construction” and Mark was working hard to ensure we would arrive at our destination without losing a wheel.

Having no forward booking, we tried any place that looked like it offered accommodation after the town Kafue. The first spot was really beautiful but had no WiFi so we moved on after taking their recommendations of where we should try.  The second spot was a brand new development and had no camping.  On the third attempt we finally found our campsite… Eureka !!!