Following our aquatic adventures on the mighty Zambezi, our next mission was to head north to investigate the feasibility of crossing to Congo (DRC) at the small border post near Mwinilunga. The big question was whether or not there were navigable roads and public transport options to the nearest DRC town. If not, we would have to consider the larger, more easterly border crossing that would take us via Lubumbashi.
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| All bus stations in Zambia have lots of these heavy-duty wheelbarrows for helping passengers transport heavy produce. |
While Mwinilunga was pretty much straight north of where we were in Zambezi town, we first needed to go via the town of Solwezi to collect our passports that had been couriered back from South Africa. Because we’d been so incredibly busy before we left home, we hadn’t investigated the DRC visa process, assuming that we could apply for them while in Zambia. Alas, this was not so, as due to Covid restrictions, DRC visas could only be applied for from SA. This meant that we had to courier our passports to a South African visa agency and then travel without our passports in Zambia for almost a month. Fortunately the Zambian authorities are very tourist friendly so they were happy to accept photocopies of our passports and Zambian visas as proof of legality. After excellent and affordable service from the Zambian branch of Fedex we were able to collect our passports complete with three month DRC visas from the Fedex office in Solwezi.
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| Typical Zambian bus station scene |
Solwezi is a fast growing city, home to an enormous mine. Copper is to Zambia what oil is to Saudi Arabia; the economic history and success of the country has been heavily dependent on this important metal. Northern Zambia and southern DRC straddle one of the world’s richest deposits of copper and the economic fortunes of the country mimic closely the rising and falling price of this metal. More than 10% of all the copper in the world is mined in this one region.
At independence in 1964, Zambia had only three doctors, one engineer, 90 university graduates and about 1000 high school graduates. The economy was dominated by just a few thousand white Zambians. President Kenneth Kaunda initially had significant success with improving the education system; doubling secondary school enrolment and tripling primary school enrolment within just four years. The economy grew quickly thanks to the high copper price. However, things deteriorated as Kaunda chose the path of the one-party state and nationalised all the mines leading to economic stagnation and public dissatisfaction. The fall in copper prices after the ending of the Vietnam war added to the problems. The state-owned mining company used its revenues to expand into a broad range of industries leading to state owned dry cleaners, crocodile farms, tractor assembly and hunting safari businesses, most of which ran at a loss. In response to growing public discontent, Kaunda re-introduced multi-party democracy in 1991 and lost the next election overwhelmingly to Frederick Chiluba’s trade union-backed MMD party. Chiluba immediately embarked on a process of privatising the hundreds of state owned enterprises - including the copper mines - but sadly the privatisation process was comparable to the process that unfolded in the USSR with many dodgy deals and evidence of wide-spread corruption. Since then, there have been multiple democratic changes in government and two presidents have died while in office. Unfortunately the poorly managed privatisation process has meant that Zambia has not benefited as much as it could have from tax revenues generated by its numerous copper mines. The stand-out exception is the First Quantum Minerals copper mine in Solwezi. This one mine pays almost as much tax as all the other mines combined. In addition, FQM funded the establishment of seven excellent schools catering to a broad spectrum of Zambians - from the poorest, to the elite.
Dave’s cousin connected us with friends and colleagues who are based at one of these schools, the excellent Trident College in Solwezi. It was a treat for us to be staying in a proper home for a few days again and have home cooked meals in a well stocked kitchen. After a few fun and comfy days with our new friends, we packed our bags with our freshly laundered clothes and caught the Power Tools bus to Mwinilunga, famously the pineapple capital of Zambia and located close to the DRC border.
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| Road-side potato sellers |
Once there we began to ask around for Congolese traders who could advise us on the possibility of crossing from there to the DRC. We found a friendly Congolese known as “Papa Ladis” who ran a shop in Mwinilunga and frequently travelled back and forth between Zambia and the DRC. He gave us the low-down on two possible crossings near Mwinilunga: the tiny one which connected to the DRC village of Mutshatsha and a larger, more frequently used crossing to the DRC city of Kolwezi. The problem with crossing to Kolwezi would be that we would later have to travel the notoriously bad stretch of road linking it to Mutshatsha so we decided that we would opt to cross directly from Zambia to Mutshatsha thus bypassing the bad road. The problem with the Mutshatsha crossing is that it is only possible on a motorbike as the road has been so neglected that it is impassable to any other vehicle. Nevertheless, Papa Ladis confirmed that it was do-able and that was all we needed to know.
When we had collected our passports in Solwezi, the good news was that we had indeed been issued with 3 month DRC visas but the unexpected news was that the entry date was stipulated as being only in two weeks’ time. These additional weeks gave us an opportunity to explore Zambias’ far northeast and Lake Tanganyika in particular. This involved crossing the breadth of the country from west to east for thousands of kilometres.
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| Most small Zambian towns have these awesome little solar stalls with lots of cool stuff for villages that are living off grid. |
Zambia has a peculiar shape thanks to the notorious Berlin conference of 1884 which divided up Africa amongst various European powers. The Belgian Congo was given land deep within Zambian territory due to a lack of obvious natural boundaries and the Belgian desire to have access to a swampland area famous for good game hunting opportunities. This area is known as the Congo Pedicle and has proven quite disruptive to travel within Zambia as it requires either taking a long route around the pedicle to reach Zambia’s northeast or a trip across the pedicle - and thus into the DRC - with the immigration hassles that entails. Zambia has struck a deal with the DRC whereby Zambia is responsible for maintaining the 100km road within this sparsely populated part of the DRC in exchange for the DRC ensuring that Zambians can transit with a minimum of immigration requirements. Unfortunately, the requirements for foreigners transiting in a similar fashion is unclear, so we opted to take the much longer route within Zambia that circles around the pedicle.
And so the long mission towards Lake Tanganyika began. The upside of going the long way around the pedicle was that we got to visit another family friend en route. The first long travel day ended in the large copper mining city of Kitwe which sees mosly business travellers and thus lacks affordable accommodation. After wandering around with our backpacks late at night we finally found an affordable option nestled in between a couple of Chinese hotels and casinos in a leafy suburb.
The next day we continued our journey to Ndola where we connected with another of Dave’s cousin’s wonderful contacts who runs the beautiful Nsobe Camp, farm and impressive community school. This was particularly interesting for us given the similarities with our own work back home at the Bulungula Lodge and Bulungula Incubator. We could share our experiences with many similar deep rural development challenges; it was all very interesting and inspiring. After a few more fun, happy days living in a beautiful house overlooking the animal-filled forest and working farm, we set off again on our journey around the pedicle.
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| The beautiful Nsobe Camp - a wonderful place to stay while supporting amazing community work. |
Continuing on towards Mpulungu, a village on the shores of Lake Tanganyika, our journey took another day and a half, the last stretch in a minibus with a box of chicks chirping all the way to the lake. By now, we had become experts at securing window seats which, combined with our religious wearing of N95 masks, has kept us healthy throughout the journey.
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| Beautiful lake Tanganyika |
Mpulungu is a quiet, pretty fishing and rice growing village right on the shores of the spectacular lake. The blue water stretches out so far that it feels like one is looking out at a calm and placid ocean. Lake Tanganyika is the deepest lake on the planet and holds 15% of the world’s fresh water, second in volume only to Lake Baikal in Siberia.
While travelling in the Covid-era certainly has its inconveniences, these are somewhat compensated for by the ‘Covid’ accommodation bargains which have enabled us to stay at much more luxurious lodges than we normally enjoy on our long trips. We had the beautiful Lake Tanganyika Resort all to ourselves and needless to say we decided to enjoy it for a few days longer than we planned. We spent the days lounging on our gorgeous verandah and taking many dips in the lake while making sure we were a good distance from the thick reeds that might shelter a croc or two! Evening brought candlelit dinners and beautiful sunsets. Walks through the vibrant Mpulungu village were interesting: the homesteads are built close together despite being surrounded by significant tracts of unfarmed land. Back home we are used to large spaces between and within homesteads but in Zambia, where livestock is rare, save one or two goats, houses are clustered together leaving open land that doesn’t seem to have any particular reason for being unused. The area close to the lake is mostly undeveloped, naturally beautiful and pollution free with surprisingly few tourist establishments. From what we could gather, there was our small lodge, with three (luxurious) rooms, another lodge we’d seen advertised on the internet, but which we couldn’t see from where we were, and another remotely located one that you had to take a long boat journey to get to.
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| Lake Tanganyika Resort |
The huts in the village had verandahs lined with colourful pot plants of much variety that rendered the mud wall and grass roof dwellings a pretty picture. We reckoned this was the happy upside of the dearth of domestic livestock - in SA pot plants wouldn’t last a day with all the goats and cows around. The dearth of livestock remains a bit of a mystery - in South Africa about half the domestic livestock is owned by rural subsistence farmers, a wealth estimated in the region of R50 billion for cattle alone. The only significant herds of livestock we’d seen in Zambia was in the Western parts of the Zambezi, on the Barotseland plains. The best explanation we’d been given was that the grass was not good for grazing although it all looked like pretty sweet grass to our eyes. Most homesteads have an additional hut structure outside which has a grass roof supported by about 10 wooden poles and this serves as an attractive cooking and relaxation area that allows the cool breezes to blow through.
Another interesting difference in this part of Zambia was the significant presence of Islam. This made sense with the large muslim population of Tanzania, just across the lake, and the 1000 year-history of the Arab slave trade that reached deep into the African interior until the early 1900’s. The ‘Muslim Church’, as it was refered to locally, had built large, well-run schools, houses for their communities and was busy constructing an enormous new mosque. We’d grown quite jealous of very low costs of building in Zambia. A decently built classroom-size building with fired clay bricks and a zinc roof can be had for the equivalent of about R30,000 ($2,000). We’d pay 10 times that in South Africa.
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| A bit of luxury at Lake Tanganyika Resort |
At Mpulungu harbour we saw perhaps 100 giant trucks waiting to offload their cargo. On further inquiry this cargo turned out to be mostly cement to be loaded onto ships destined for Bujumbura, Burundi on the northern edge of the lake. Thus this giant lake continues the tradition of millenia connecting diverse peoples in a never-ending ebb and flow of culture, commerce and religion.
Close to the village homesteads and rice fields we found the vibrant little town centre and fishing harbour. One of the great successes of Zambia’s post-independence economy has been the development of a strong, active entrepreneurial class of Zambians running all manner of businesses. While in South Africa shops stocked with cell phones, hardware, household appliances and groceries would invariably be owned by immigrants from South Asia or other parts of Africa, in Zambia these are almost always Zambian-owned and run. A huge transformation from the colonial era when most businesses were white-owned. These Zambian businesses have wonderful names… our top 10 favourite shop names:
*Patience pays
*Suffering gives knowledge
*Days are numbered Grocery
*Sweet of my sweat Barber Shop
*The Blues only God knows
*Don't condemn just advise Hardware
*No condition is permanent Grocery
*Bible Believing Baptist Church
*Why always me? Barber Shop
*Life is a Journey Agricultural Shop
One of the unique challenges faced by small businesses in Zambia is the dire shortage of small notes. Pity the person who wants to buy something for K5 but only has a K100 note. The shop-keeper invariably has to walk around the market trying to find change and sometimes even refuses the sale. We never got to the bottom of why there was such a shortage of small notes while there’s an abundance of large notes.
In between the relaxation at the lake, we had a full day mission to the impressive Kalambo falls, the second highest waterfall in Africa that forms the land border between Zambia and Tanzania.
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| The Kalambo falls - 2nd highest in Africa |
Zambia has lots of dangerous snakes and thus people are obsessed with cutting the fast growing grass where these snakes may hide. This job is the preserve of the ubiquitous “slashers” who cut the grass with a panga bent at a right angle at the bottom. These slashers can be seen everywhere cutting the grass with rhythmic golf-swings including along the national highways. We only saw a weed-eater a couple of times on our whole trip. These slashers typically earn the minimum wage of about $2 per day and this highly inefficient method of cutting grass is clearly a major job-creator. Though one cannot help thinking that by that logic one would create even more jobs if the slashers were given scissors instead… Perhaps this level of inefficiency is a valid trade-off for the many jobs created but one hopes that as the economy grows, there will be fewer people needed in this job of mind-numbing boredom interspersed with the occasional moment of terror when a snake appears and is summarily decapitated.
All in all, Mpulungu looked like a nice place to live: natural beauty, a quiet rural life (our hotel rooms had no locks on the doors), good farming, lots of fish and international commercial trade to boot.
Having filled our boots with luxury and relaxation, we were ready to begin the trek back west towards Mwinilunga and the DRC border. This time we couldn’t resist the temptation to take the shortcut through the pedicle, which would mean crossing into the Congo and out again, like all the Zambians do. The local Power Tools bus office assured us that foreigners can do so and that all that was required was to pay the standard 30 kwacha transit fee. So we got ready to board the bus at 4am and see what would happen.
At about midday we passed through a busy bus station near the pedicle border and a bolshy tout started questioning us and telling us that there was no way we would get through without paying a $50 transit visa fee. We had travelled too far to turn back now and we figured that our DRC visa’s validity date was the next day anyway, so the worst case scenario would be having to spend a night at the pedicle border and then to enter with our valid multiple entry visa the next day.
When we got to the Zambian border post, the officials were very helpful. They phoned the Congolese side, at their own expense, and the Congolese immigration confirmed that it would be ok to cross using our DRC visa one day early. So we were waved through by the Zambians, our passports unstamped. Then it was back on the bus with our fellow Zambian passengers across to the Congolese side. This was where the crunch was going to come, if indeed it was to crunch. At the Congo border the Zambians all lined up and began to pay the 30 kwacha fee each (about R20). We were directed to the more serious looking desk. Dave dusted off his French neural-connections and began talking about the wonderful time he had travelling through the Congo in the late nineties and how he was looking forward to sharing the re-visit with his wife in a week or so once we entered the DRC near Mwinilunga. All we wanted for now was to cross the pedicle and stay in Zambia for one more week. The officials, duly charmed, said we could pass and all we had to pay was the 100 kwacha ($5) standard foreigner registration fee that appears to apply to other African migrants...no talk of the $50 we’d been warned about. Phew! Round one had gone well. Now for the border posts on the far side of the pedicle. On the other side, there was no fee for the Zambians to pay and they walked straight through the gate. We tried to do the same with no luck. We were pulled out of the line by a decidedly unhappy looking Congolese official. Rapid French ensued with our passports waved about: we were not allowed to cross because on entering the pedicle we should have been stamped out of Zambia and then stamped into Congo so we could be stamped out at this side and then stamped back into Zambia. That was not our fault, we protested. 'Well!', said the intimidating downturned face, 'what could be done about it?' We then offered to put up our tent and wait until a solution could be found because there wasn’t one available in our wallets. No, no, no we couldn’t camp in no man’s land because there is "a lot of COVID in South Africa" (despite us being the only people in the immigration office wearing masks and the fact that we had left South Africa two months ago). The waiting game began but now we were holding up the bus. When the bus conductor came to check up on the delay, we said we didn’t want to delay all the other passengers and he should offload our bags as we needed to sleep at the border post until the stamp issue could be resolved. Bless him, he was determined not to abandon us. Thankfully, the intimidating official wasn’t keen on continuing the game of chicken and handed our passports back with an upturned nose. We’d done it! No bribes paid. But then at the last minute someone demanded a COVID test (having not asked any Zambians for the same) All we had were our now 2 month old COVID tests that we had had done before we left SA. These were photocopied without a glance and duly filed..and that was that...we were through! We returned to our fellow bus passengers who, instead of being put out for having been delayed, were thrilled that we did not pay any bribes. They were quite incensed at the shakedowns we’d been confronted with.
Travelling through the pedicle one is struck by how much harder life was there. The huts were, like Zambian huts, also made of ant hill mud bricks and grass roofs but they are much smaller and more often than not there would be just one lonely, drab one all on its own in the bush. Zambian homesteads are in villages with at least a few huts to a homestead and evidence of basic necessities. Not in the pedicle area of the Congo. There was no cell phone signal at all, certainly no electricity and what seemed like a dearth of access to any schooling or healthcare. There was just lots of thick bush with a few isolated huts here and there. We reflected on the development one can see in Zambia over the past two decades. The efficiencies that flow from cell phone and road infrastructure are obvious to see. While there is much to be done for Zambia to improve its roads, they are mostly good enough for big passenger busses to connect all major towns and for traders to move products to all parts of Zambia quite cheaply.
The road from the border to Kitwe was a horrendous mud bath and after such a long day we held thumbs tightly to get through. The Power Tools bus driver did an amazing job and we made it to Kitwe happy that we already knew where a cheap room could be found.
After Kitwe, we had a half day ride to Solwezi for an encore at our friends’ cosy home (and washing machine). We could also have the necessary COVID tests done in Solwezi that are required on entering the DRC despite Papa Ladis assuring us that it was definitely not necessary. After some back and forth to try and find a place to test - the government hospital had completely run out of test reagent - we got tested for almost half the price charged in SA and had our negative test results the same day.
The benign COVID situation in Zambia and many other African countries remains a bit of a mystery. We read this excellent article which perhaps points to some answers. Another article points out that countries like SA, UK and the USA with high rates of obesity have 10 times more deaths. Zambians in general are amazingly slim thanks probably to their lower incomes resulting in the consumption of less sugar and processed foods. Lastly, it is clear that many people who do die here of Covid are never recorded (as shown in this article) but nevertheless we found medium-sized towns that had recorded fewer than 10 positive cases in the whole year.
Zambia’s second wave peaked at about 1800 cases per day and is now down to fewer than 400 cases per day and fewer than 5 deaths per day. In smaller Zambian towns conversations about Covid typically involve people saying they’ve heard about it on the radio and have seen no evidence of it among people they know and where they live. The bars and nightclubs are busy and we're sad not to be willing/able to join in the fun. We remain just about the only people wearing masks in indoor public areas (except in some large shopping malls where their use is mandatory).
In Solwezi, we also needed to do one more uniquely Zambian shopping experience: visit the local DAPP shop and replace one of Réjane's t-shirts which was beginning to take strain. This non-profit company has branches throughout the country selling secondhand clothing donated by people in rich countries. For as little as $1 or $2 you can buy second hand brand name clothing in good condition - we saw excellent Levi jeans for $1! There are also second hand shoe stores where you can buy used Merrells, Skechers, New Balance and other smart shoes in good condition for $10. When a DAPP store receives a new consignment of clothes, prices for everything in the shop is set at $5 per piece. After a day or two when the most desired items have been bought, the price drops by a dollar per day until after a week or so the price for everything is $1. If you’re lucky to be an uncommon size, like Dave, then you get to buy unwanted sizes in excellent condition at the lowest price. In South Africa the import of secondhand clothes is illegal as it is correctly believed that it will destroy the local clothing manufacturing industry. This is what has happened in Zambia where apparently 20,000 jobs were lost when the importation of free secondhand clothes was first permitted. However, thousands of jobs have since been created in the retail sector and, more importantly, the incredibly low prices of quality second hand clothes has made the poorest Zambians considerably richer as the buying power of their few kwacha has been dramatically increased. It is noticeable that even in the poorest parts of Zambia, people are rarely seen wearing the threadbare and broken clothes common in the deep rural areas of South Africa. Economically speaking, if you decrease the price of something by 90% it is the same as increasing their income by 1000% so in Zambia one needs to consider that while 20,000 people lost their manufacturing jobs, all 17 million Zambians became richer in the clothes-buying department.
And then it was back on the Mwinilunga bus to return to a town and guest house where everyone knew our name and where delicious pineapples cost just R3 ($0.20). The welcome back to Mwinilunga was warm and after a repeat visit to our friendly Papa Ladis, we were on the back of a bakkie (pick-up truck) towards the border town of Ikelenge. When bakkie transport is used as public transport, it has no canopy and no seats. Half the load bin is piled with goods and the other half is standing-room-only for about 10 passengers. For the standing room space, where you place your feet at the start is where they stay in position for the entire trip (this one was 4 hours) - there is absolutely no room for them to move 2cm in any direction.
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| On top of the pick-up truck to Ikelenge |
Once in Ikelenge we had to make a turn at the source of the Zambezi river which was just a few kilometers out of town. The mighty Zambezi that we had adventured on a month before turned out to originate from a little puddle in the ground! The area is now a Natural Heritage site in a thick, wet forest. The puddle that is the source seeps out as a tiny spring from the forest floor and then audibly bubbles along the ground, hidden by a thick bed of forest leaves before gathering momentum and forming a tiny stream from which one can drink cool, delicious water. A revelation for travellers accustomed to the massive himalayan glaciers that are the source of Asia's large rivers.
* The source of the Zambezi river *
Pilgrimage to the Zambezi source successfully accomplished, we had to get to the serious business of negotiating our transport across the border in the morning. The only option was to take motorbike taxis, no vehicles being able to navigate the terrible road. It made sense to us that we’d need two bikes, one for each of us with a backpack at the back of each. Unbeknownst to us, at that point, we were coming across as someone who was trying to hire two cars to transport two people when everyone and all bags could fit into one! The first price we got was therefore astronomical, befitting people who had so much money to spend they wanted more vehicle space than was really necessary. After we realised this, we began to ask how one 250cc Boxer motorbike could accommodate a driver, the two of us, and two large backpacks. “No problem at all” we were assured, that was the way everyone travelled! So that’s what we did. Our transport search complete, we fell into bed in our little room at the Sacred Heart Catholic Mission guest house to spend our last night in Zambia.
We hadn't planned to spend almost two months travelling 8,000km in Zambia on this trip, but we're so glad we did. This fascinating country and its gentle, friendly people have much to offer travellers and we came away optimistic for its future. The lack of formal employment opportunities over the last few decades has resulted in a highly entrepreneurial society with everyone busy with some economic activity, be it productive small scale farming or basic manufacturing or retailing. Hopefully the government can find the correct balance between creating an attractive environment for investment in the mining industry while at the same time securing a fair share of the profits to invest in physical and social infrastructure.
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| Our transport to the DRC |
The next morning we loaded our bags onto the motorbike and set off. The road was bad, very bad. But wow, did Chris, our motorbike driver, know the road! He swerved this way and that, ducked through the bush, pushed his loaded bike through a raging river and lifted it through mud swamps, this being the R5611 international road from Zambia to the Congo border. The landscape was kilometers of forest with a few mud hut villages along the way. At one point we passed a man who looked like any of the other farmers going to their fields. Our driver stopped and introduced us to him. He turned out to be the Zambian border official who simply wished us a good journey. We asked about needing an exit stamp for Zambia but he just smiled and said that he didn’t have one and that they would do it all on the Congolese side… OK then! So we carried on through the bush and eventually came to another village, that looked like all the others, with a few thatched mud huts and an old man sitting on a stool with a young woman, a baby on each of their laps and toddlers playing around the legs of the chairs. The driver stopped to the amazed look of the old man. We thought he looked amazed that we were stopping at his hut but it turned out that he was the Congolese border official and had never seen tourists coming through - he was only used to the back and forth of Zambians and Congolese. He had no choice but to process us so he led us inside the little 2m x 2m hut that had a desk and table and a black A4 Croxley lined school book. He carefully and neatly recorded all Dave’s passport details in the book. Rejane’s details were seemingly not necessary for the book but, just in case, they were recorded on a loose piece of paper that was tucked into the book. With intense concentration, both passports were carefully stamped and signed. The issue of COVID tests was not mentioned. After a shy request for a gift that we politely refused, the motorbike pushed on forward and we were now in the DRC! A few hours later we emerged in the village of Mutshatsha...
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| The road from Zambia to the Congo |
The sight and sounds of the wonder-filled DRC, our interviews with local intelligence agents and the crazy, crazy road trips will have to wait until our next blog. Stay tuned!
Our Zambian song of the month:
