Zambia, because I can't think of anything witty for the title

Mchinji (Malawi) --> Chipata --> Mfuwe (and South Luangwa National Park) --> Chipata again --> Lusaka --> Mpulungu --> Kasama --> Mpika --> Mutinondo Wilderness --> (straight through Lusaka to) Livingstone --> Victoria Falls (Zimbabwe)

The first thing, heck the only thing to note about Zambia is there is actually no real reason to go there. Really, there's not. In fact, on reflection, if Zambia disappeared overnight practically no-one except for the Zambians themselves would really notice. Am I being cruel? Kind of. It is telling that Lonely Planet's Top 5 things to see / do for the entire country includes hunting for out-of-the-way waterfalls in north Zambia and hanging out in resorts beside an artifical lake. Ironically I ended spending nearly a month there. The other downside for the independent traveler is that it is very difficult to reach many of these sights / waterfalls without spending a lot of time and/or money trying to find transport. For example, Lonely Planet notes that Sioma and Ngonye Falls (also on the Zambezi River) in western Zambia is "almost as majestic as Victoria Falls" before noting "it would be a major attraction if it weren't so difficult to reach." Which in some ways is a good thing.

My first stop was in the town of Chipata not to see the town itself but to use it as a base to get to Mfuwe and the South Luangwa National Park. This park is considered by people who know these things to be one of the better parks in southern Africa. It's reasonably priced too at US$25 for entry (cheap as chips compared with the famous parks in Kenya and Tanzania). I stayed in Chipata at Dean's Hilltop Campsite - run by Dean, an ex-pat Pom. After trying a few things such as chicken farming without success he finally built a backpackers with a very pleasing ambience. He also was able to help me get a cheap ride to the wee town of Mfuwe just outside of the SLNP entrance, so well done to him.

The claim to fame for Mfuwe and the various camps and lodges nearby at the park entrance is the need to not walk around outside them. This is because of they are all very close to the Luangwa River, a place where elephants and hippos hang out and using foot power can lead to the very real risk of getting trampled by a large animal. I stayed at the bizarrely named Flatdogs camp and they kindly picked me up.

At Flatdogs - run by ex-pat Poms - I decided to camp not on the ground but on one of the wooden platforms built into the trees by Flatdogs. There was no compelling reason for this aside from the fact that elephants and hippos also happen to wander through the camp from time to time. I choose me platform and tie my tent down, all is good. That night the nightwatchman, armed with a powerful torch, beckons me away from a bottle of Mosi-oa-Tunya beer and shines his light into the bushes. "Hippos," he says. Sure enough there are a couple of hippos eating the grass just out the back of the bar area and otherwise minding their own business. As it turns out they are just harmless one tonne creatures; the nightwatchman says that if he stumbles across one walking around after dark he just chases it away.

I retire for the evening and, after a good night's sleep arise to find my tent surrounded by ants. As in the bottom 50cms all along the front entrance is covered by the silhouettes of ants. As in if I sat there quietly I could hear the distinct hiss caused by the patter of many, many tiny ant legs hitting tent. After a brief recce (sticking my head out the flap) I determined that the entire plarform had been commandeered by the ants and they weren't going to leave me. It turned out, on closer inspection that they had decided to store a whole pile of their eggs under my tent which, considering how smelly my boots were (are), shows definitively that ants don't have a sense of smell. Despite well organised attacks on my lower limbs I untied my tent and moved it to another platform after first kicking off a giant centipede / milipede (seriously, it was about 20cm long) from the branch right next to where I would camp.

I booked my first safari, for the evening game drive and, returning to the tent had a chat to some other guests (a Kiwi and a Pom) who were going to get married in the park the following week. Our conversation ended with them exclaiming that a group of five elephants were recently just standing over there, probably heading to the swamp area behind the camp ground, as they gestured towards my tent. Sure enough there's an elephant standing under a tree close to the one my tent is perched on fanning itself with its ears and keeping cool. "Oh," noted one of the gardeners, "you should stay away until it moves." Little did he know how my tummy was rumbling; thankfully Dumbo soon moved on and I was able to prepare some lunch.

As a wee aside, apparently in late summer when the park's at it driest and the fruit on the trees at its most plentiful there are up to 50 elephants at a time wandering through the camp. Isn't that kind of dangerous? "Not really," says gardener, "as long as you don't surprise them they'll keep to themselves." Basically don't go bursting out of your tent and in return the elephants will pick their way around without trampling you as you camp.

There was, I should note, a self catering facility at Flatdogs. It's a shed with a fridge and camping hotplates and it comes with monkey-proof doors and wire mesh. I was at home and, armed with shopping, cooked my own meals. Even with my food within arm's reach of me on the picnic table I still received advice: don't keep that out, the monkeys will get it. Monkeys? They're no-where to be seen and keep away from people. What could they do?

And so, the following day I did an evening game drive followed by a second the following morning (this is all included in a single park entry which covers 24 hours of access). The night drive was excellent, in large part due to the guides who are selected by rigorous examination to ensure that they know their greater blue breasted starlings from their helmeted guinea fowls. In fact, one of the guides, a young English chap called Ed who had picked up work at Flatdogs (it's all about who you know) was in the midst of taking his guiding exams during my time there. The theory exam is five hours of written work - explaining how do identify and differentiate near identical animals - and if successful followed by a practical exam in which a group of proven guides pile into the safari wagon with the debutant and ask all sorts of tricky questions over a period of about 90 minutes.

We saw the usual, lots of antelope (impala and puku) and zebra and just as I was completely not paying attention as I was fiddling with my camera the old Australian chap beside me spotted a leopard. It took a while to sight it because its sleek frame rises to just above the height of the grass. It appears that we had interrupted a potential hunting opportunity and the leopard sullenly slinked away as only cats can. Looking through binoculars the leopard crawled halfway up a distant tree before casting an accusing look back in our direction ... and then he / she / it was gone.

Of course you always think of safaris and game drives as a group of tourists driving past prides of lions, vast herds of wildebeest and so on. The reality is that often you see nothing by trees and grass punctuated by finding herds of animals all hanging out together. For example baboons and impala are often mingling because their different warning systems complement each other (impala braying when they smell danger, baboons whooping from the treetops when they see something). Zebra are just antisocial and don't bother mixing with other animals and can't even be arsed migrating; they have tough stomachs and eat whatever grass they find no matter how crunchy it gets. Lions are obviously trying hard not to be seen, during hunting time at least (sunrise and sunset),and unfortunately for me there hadn't been any lions seen in the game drive area for several days before I arrived. The other thing that you see a lot of (at least in this park) which is not in the travel brochures are birds. Lots of them. In fact we saw more birds than anything else: storks, geese, little things scuttling around on the ground. The African fish eagle (Zambia's national bird and one which I had a good hard look at through binoculars, what a beast!).

About half way through the evening game drive night falls with a thump and the guide whips out a massive, high powered torch. And then the wait begins. Obviously you can't see a thing except what the torch highlights so it comes down to a sloooow drive with sweeps of the light. This was punctuated with stops to listen for animal action: warning cries, shrieks, stuff like that which can lead the guide to some more animal action. One of the main things with a using a torch is that you see a lot of animals' eyes (crocodiles' eyes' reflections are red for some reason) and the torch man has to be careful not to hold the torch on the animals' eyes for too long. Otherwise whilst they're still re-adjusting to the dark they may get eaten. We did see more animals: a genet, which is kind of like a mongoose, some night-hunting birds and a trail of ants heading off to do in some termites (they all gate-crash a termite mound, grab a termite each and then take it back to their nest to have a feast).

Waking to an ant-free morning I started the day with a pre-morning-game-drive breakfast and we got into the safari action again. The ride was pretty much like the evening drive but entire in the light (we started after sunrise) and again birds accounted for most of the animals seen, along with a sizeable herd of Cape buffalo. We - or rather our eagle eyed guide - did find evidence of both lions and hyenas as they carelessly left their footprints on the dirt track overnight.

And so, with my safari experience in Zambia over I settled down to a day of relaxation. One lunchtime, as I prepared my food in the monkey-proof self-catering area I was watching the hotplates when I heard a plastic cup fall over. A bit of wind, so what. A few minutes later, looking at my plate on which I had placed some buttered slices of bread I noticed that I was short one slice. I had foolishly left the door to the sinks and washing up area undone and a monkey had pilfered one of my slices from literally behind my back. Surprise! Just outside there were a troop of vervet monkeys sitting in the nearby trees looking innocent (the guilty party presumably eloped to eat in quiet). I left that evening in the overnight minivan back to Chipata arriving back at Dean's Hilltop Campsite as dawn broke.

Lusaka next. Why? Because it's there and because to get to anywhere else in Zambia I would have to pass through it. Lusaka is an amazingly dull town. Think Lilongwe but with fewer trees. And fewer shopping centres. I have indeed given Lusaka the crown of dullest city that I've ever encountered, a title which Dar Es Salaam gladly handed over after a short period in the spotlight. I stay at Chachacha's, run by Wade an ex-pat Pom.

Zambia's capital is not dull when it comes to politics and I heard several stories about the indefatigable Rupiah Banda, president of Zambia. The first, heard in Malawi from a traveler who had been through Zambia, is that Zambia bought its president a presidential jet (at the behest of Rupiah himself? I don't know.) and in doing so used up so much of its dollar reserves that there were fuel shortages for several months afterwards as Zambia couldn't afford to pay for its petrol imports. Is it true? Still dunno but it sure is believeable because it's just such an Africa thing to do. The other story I heard first hand from some Swedish economics students who were in Zambia doing a survey of government perceptions of government corruption (if that makes sense) as part of their university degree. They were trying to measure corruption but because no-one but a fool would admit to corruption they instead asked different government departments to complete a questionnaire which rated other government departments for levels of corruption. They'd had mixed success: some departments willingly participated, others stonewalled. Where they were stonewalled they had to seek the permission of a senior manager to go back to the departmental staff to complete the questionnaire. Except the senior managers weren't always able to meet them at the agreed time, sometimes delayed by hours. Why? Because every time Rupiah held a press conference the entire middle and upper ranking civil service would stop and watch the press conference broadcast to see if they would still be employed after the press conference. A few weeks earlier Rupiah had fired the entire military top brass at a press conference without prior warning so backs were up.

All the sights in Zambia are in fact concentrated in the south east of the country close to the borders with Malawi and Zimbabwe. As I didn't want to just zip through Zambia in a week, and to do my visit there justice, I next went north to the lakeside town of Mpulungu on Lake Tangynika. it's a very small town but the location does it justice. After a night in the local hotel I met Hannah and Ben (who had also come from Lusaka); they introduced me to Nkupi Lodge with its reasonably priced camping. I also met an English chap here called Graham who's been traveling for five years (he got a redundancy package then sold his apartment in London and is living off the interest).

Graham, Hannah and Ben were all waiting for the MV Liemba, an ex-German warship cum ferry, which runs up and down Lake Tanganyika from Zambia via Tanzania to Burundi. Except it didn't come on Friday as it should have done. Apparently it had taken the week off. Next week it was going to help in the repatriation of Congolese refugees and so was not going to resume normal service for another two weeks. Graham wasn't in a hurry but Hannah and Ben were so tracked down a truck heading direct to Tanzania; only a two hour journey they were told, it leaves at 8am tomorrow. Tomorrow comes and they board their truck (open air, so it would be tough under that sun) and find that actually the ride will be 8 hours. The truck sits there a while then eventually starts rolling - goodbyes are waved and off they go ... about 50m further and to the other side of the road where the truck stops to pick up more people. After a couple of false starts, including moving backwards, they finally get going and, as the truck disappears into the distance, Graham asks: "is that oil on the road?" Tragically, at the first road hump, the truck developed an oil leak which trailed the truck down the road and around the first corner where it had come to a stop. Last we saw Hannah and Ben they were heading to a mechanic on the back of the truck to get it serviced ... on Labour Day.

Nkupi Lodge was also interesting in no small part due to its owner, Danesh, an Indian from Zimbabwe and with a decent English schools accent (a clue: perhaps he's really a Pom). He's been running the lodge there for a good few decades and had the pleasure of meeting Michael Palin as he did his Pole To Pole journey in the early '90s. They met because Palin and his crew and assorted groupies stayed at Danesh's lodge. Palin himself was a wit, notes Danesh, getting asked lots of cheeky questions and always having a witty comeback ready. He also had a film crew, a case of wine, a case of cooking ingredients (mainly spices and sauces) and was accompanied by Kenya's top safari operator who was repatriated to Kenya on a chartered flight paid for by the Pole To Pole production company. Palin could afford to be so reckless because he was in turn met by Zambia's top safari operator (from Flatdogs, no less) who accompanied him and his enterage to South Africa. Danesh even had the Pole To Pole book to hand and Palin's except on Mpulungu focuses heavily on a bout of diarrhoea which afflicted him, keeping him up all night, and a traditional medicine ceremony that he saw whilst zooming around in a 4x4 with his safari operator.

I did consider going to Kalambo Falls, the second highest single-drop waterfall in Africa (and about the 12th highest in the world),about 40km away towards Tanzania, right on the border. However, there was no way to get there on public transport by road. I could have gone by lake and stayed at a lakeside lodge but then the costs of visiting the waterfall racked up: I'd need to hire a boat and guide to take me to the next bay and then up the path for several hours (apparently this guide is essential as the path is hard to find). The killer though, is the $15 entrance fee, which was increased from $3, overnight, just a few weeks before I arrived. I spoke to a local lodge operater - an ex-pat Pom - who stopped at Nkupi for a meeting and after she complained to the director of tourism about the sudden increase (she was taking in pre-booked, pre-paid guests who had already paid $3 over a year ago when she was first hit with this price rise) he apparently suggested that if people could pay 20 euros to go to the top of the Eiffel Tower, they could surely pay $15 to see this waterfall. A good try on his part, if thoroughly disingenuous, except this fee applies to all waterfalls in Zambia (except Vic Falls: that went from $10 to $20) and the next day some American volunteers arrived on their way to a lakeside lodge. Yes, they had had to pay $15 each to go and jump off a 3m high waterfall somewhere in the boondocks near to where they do their volunteer work. Stupidly, they actually paid so perhaps the director of tourism is actually onto a winning idea.

However, a possibility that I hadn't considered was suggested: a visit to the Mutinondo Wilderness. I hadn't really considered a stop because the entry in Lonely Planet had left me with the impression that it was too pricey. A good chance to see more of northern Zambia is not to be missed. The catch: the camp is 25km off the main road about 60km south of the nearest town, Mpika. I thought about it and hatched an elaborate plan. First a stop in Kasama, which has decent shops, to stock up on food to take to the campsite. Then to Mpika where I would leave most of my stuff and, traveling light, hitch to the turn-off and walk to the camp. Best laid plans and all that. First I got into a truck going the wrong way - I didn't know - but the driver was far too focussed on getting some pocket money and happily 'yes, yes' took me towards Tanzania despite me asking 'yes, yes' if he was going the other way. Eventually I find out the problem and a local to confirm this and turn back (no pocket money for the driver either). The ride back was in the back of a pick-up with locals. I had the misfortune to be there when the pickup ran over a rodent that had chanced its arm crossing the road, timing its run to coincide with the only vehicle for miles around. The rodent was flattened and a young man shouted out to the driver: the car stops. The same young man runs back 30m and collects the rodent and shows it to the lady next to me who decides to keep it. She drops it in the pick-up's tray beside her, later putting it into her shopping bag when the pick-up fills up.

Now back at Mpika, I stay overnight again and early the next morning at about 4am get my first episode of diarrhoea for a while and spend all morning and early afternoon running to the toilet. Things calm down that afternoon and after a day of rest I'm ready again to find this wilderness and know which direction to go in.

The journey starts well, I get a ride within 30 minutes and the driver is easygoing and friendly. I get dropped at the turnoff and start my 25km trek. The diarrhoea episode must have taken more out of me than expected (an unintended, terrible pun) and after 7 hours of hard slog I hobble into the camp - run by ex-pat Poms ... why are all these camps in Zambia run by ex-pat Poms? - with a monster blister on my left heel. It was worth the effort though: the scenery was superb, the camp pleasingly isolated. As an added bonus I got to cook my baked beans and rice with fire on the outdoor BBQ. The only thing to do at Mutinondo Wilderness is to enjoy the wilderness with walks through the countryside. I basically had the place to myself as the few other guests all had 4X4s and seemed to prefer relaxation after the hard drive in. The place was fantastic and well worth the visit. All I had to do was walk another 25km back to the main road (with a sore blister on my heel) and was quite pleased when a bus to Mpika came past a few minutes after I hobbled to the layby.

I was able to catch the overnight bus back to Lusaka and then a morning bus direct to Livingstone, named after that Scottish guy who died of the unpleasant sounding black water fever in northern Zambia. Locals cut out his heart and buried it under a tree (since died / killed) and his body repatriated to, I believe, Westminster Abbey. As my left ankle had now swelled to the size of a small orange (although it would deflate to nothing overnight only to swell up again during the day) I used my time in Livingstone for R&R. You won't find any photos of Livingstone in my albums: it's really not that special.

And so, after a few days and with my ankle back to normal I went to see Victoria Falls, but from a different country as the view's supposed to be better there.