Day 6: Crossing into Zambia

Beautiful Granite Hill

Rest stop before entering Zambia

Border Crossing on the Mozambican side

Bicycles are used to transport almost anything

Campsite at South Luangwa National Park

Today the journey continued from our roadside campsite in the maize field to South Luangwa National Park, but we had to cross the border and that is usually an adventure in most developing countries.

Upon arrival at the border post, we waited quite a while for someone to show up to help us. The official then proceeded to stamp our passports! We thought we did it in record time, but then a senior official showed up, and said the passports needed to be stamped again, as the other official did it wrong. Needless to say, we had to have it restamped. The whole border crossing took 3½ hours.

At the border post we were joined by our guide for the next 10 days, William Soko, Operations Ranger of the Lower Zambezi National Park. Mr Soko is also a former student of the Southern Africa Wildlife College.

We then refuelled, stocked up with fresh food and left to go to the Mfuwe International Airport to pick up the SABC 50/50 film crew and guests. Our guests include Professor Willem van Riet from the Peace Park Foundation, Sandra Prinsloo, the famous South African actress and also Ferdi de Vos, Marketing Manager of Toyota South Africa.

Today’s journey was 485 km on some very rough dirt tracks with a journey time of eleven hours! Our Garmin GPS was very accurate in leading us, especially to the small airport, even though we had our doubts. Thanks Garmin!

For most of us this is the first time at South Luangwa National Park. Our campsite here is on a riverbank and we are told it is quite a hotspot for elephants and hippos!

Tomorrow we will spend time with graduates of the Wildlife College and explore the Luangwa National Park. More about this tomorrow...

To view today’s route on Google Earth, please click here.