The long road to Livingstone

We left South Luangwa on Monday morning and set out on the 3 day journey to our next destination, Livingstone and the Victoria Falls. Zambia is deceptively large, about the size of England, Ireland and France combined and unfortunately we had to make our way from one side to the other. The Lonely Planet warns of the fun that we were in for, "Zambia is a gargantuan country, many of the roads are crap, and transport is frustratingly slow."

When we left Croc Camp we stopped at the local village of Mfuwe for some slightly unusual meat for that evenings dinner. The local hippo population is a little out of control and requires an annual cull to keep things in check. This year there are licences for the killing of 800 hippo, the steaks of which are on sale for the bargain price of $3 a kilo. We decided that when in Rome. . .

That evening, when we camped at Mama Rula's Camp in Chipata, we fired up the jico stoves and had a gourmet dinner of grilled peppered hippo steaks.

Here's Glen with a nice loin of hippo.

So what does hippo taste like? It was actually really nice with a taste and texture that were very similar to beef.

The next day was an early start, on the road at 7am for the 8 hour drive to Lusaka, the capital of Zambia. Lusaka is a really ugly city and looks like it was built by some mad communist architect who's buildings were too ugly for a Siberian gulag!

Thankfully we were staying a few miles out of the city at a great campsite called Eureka where we were visited by zebra and antelope as we sat around the fire after dinner.

Our final day on the road in the truck was another 8 hour slog as we made our way to Livingstone which we would use as a base for visiting Victoria Falls.