inge skryf (5)

Dag 5, Dinsdag 12 Mei 2009

It was inevitable. I am sick. I don’t know how my body manages to let me down so quickly, but here I am, sick as a dog. My spirits, however, are still high. The one thing I conveniently enough forgot to pack was antibiotics. Luckily Anja had some to spare and I started with it today. After we showered and packed everything back in the car we were on the way.

DESTINATION: PETAUKE

We stopped at a huge shopping centre in Lusaka to stock up for tonight. While Lodie sat at the Kilimanjaro Café, Anja and I went to Shoprite to buy some beers (Mosi!), a dust pan and some dry lemon. That’s apparently all we needed. Nice. We had a quick breakfast at the Kilimanjaro Café and then we got back on the road. While driving out of Lusaka, Lodie managed to get us pulled over. We were doing 89km/h in a 80km/h zone. Oh-oh. Lodie asked the female “spietkop” if she could just let us off with a serious warning. She then replied:

“Come speak to my boss so that he can forgive you.”

While Lodie was asking for forgiveness, Anja tried to sneak a photograph. Unfortunately the female “spietkop” saw her and called her over. Anja then had to delete the photograph in front of them. The good news is that we managed to dodge a K217 000 fine for speeding. Score.

In Lusaka there are quite a few Chinese-style buildings. Apparently the Chinese finance a few projects in Zambia. We also noticed a lot of mosques. They offer free education and access to libraries, but the students obviously have to convert to Islam. Because of the lack of access to education, this can be a possible threat to Christianity in these parts of Africa.

Ich habe jetzt ein laufgenase. Yuck.

A while later we stopped at the side of the road, because there were to people on a motorcycle. The girl is French and the guy is Scottish. They live together in Scotland. He reminded me of the guy from the movie P.S. I Love You. They tolf us that they are driving to the south of Kenya and then they’re returning to Europe to get some gadgets on the bike fixed. Then they’ll come back and hopefully continue to Cairo. We stopped in Luangwa to eat some wieners, chips, fresh bread rolls and drink ice ice ice cold Coke. Heaven. This was one of the settlements that Lodie stopped at on his trip last year. The French lady and the Scottish man joined us for lunch. Afterwards we walked down the road and took a few photos. People here have mixed reactions when we ask them if we can take photos of them. Most people prefer that you buy something of whatever they are selling before you can take pictures. Others just say no. And then there are those beautiful souls who just smile and laugh when you show them their faces on your little LCD screen. I am grateful to those people. The main item sold in Luangwa was fish. How hygienic and safe that fish is we will never know. I did not want to risk my health (the little that I had left today) this early on the trip.

We accidentally missed our 2000km mark. We then had to settle for a 2019km mark and take a photo at the side of the road. From Lusaka onwards you see schwarzes schweine everywhere. They run in the road with their little curly tails bouncing. To me it seems that the children here start walking shortly after birth. Today I saw the tiniest little kids and they were trotting along. Quite amazing.

We arrived in Petauke just as the sun was setting. We camped at a place called Zulu’s Kraal. It’s basically located in a township and it belongs to a family (the Zulu’s) who offer tourists a campingplatz for a little extra income. The woman who runs everything there has two little brothers. The smallest one is Mapalo Zulu. He is about five years old and just this bundle of joy and energy. He had me running around within the first few minutes of our arrival jumping and rolling around, chanting like a ninja. The older brother was David Zulu. He is about 13 years old and very smart.

That night the Zulu’s opened their home for us to charge out laptops and look at our photos of the trip so far. When Lodie pulled out his video camera, Mapalo’s eyes lit up and the little man started singing and dancing. He was quite the entertainer. I slept in the car again. I am, however, way too tall and my legs hurt after a while. Africa ain’t for sissies.

Bis morgen.