Dave is…
In Livingstone, Zambia.
Getting up at 5am sucked but it meant I was landing in Livingstone, Zambia by noon.
Getting into the country was kind of a pain in the ass. You have to pay an entrance tax, and if you want a multiple entry visa you have to pony up $80 in US bills. I was lucky I had enough American bills.
From there I cabbed it into a hostel and then set out to explore Livingstone. The town, named after the famous explorer Dr. Livingstone exists to service Zambia’s biggest tourist attraction, and one of the world’s natural wonders, Victoria Falls.
You could actually see the falls as you flew in, or rather not the falls but the high continuous cloud of mist thrown up by the water cascading over the 100 meter cliff. Locally it’s called Mosi-o-tunya, “the smoke that thunders”.
While presumably the falls are as impressive as reputed, the town of Livingstone isn’t particularly. It’s a bizarre mix of Cape Town and Cameroon. On the edge of town is a shopping center featuring Debonair’s Pizza and a Subway. Directly across the street from the Fawlty Towers hostel (I booked here purely because of the name. I dream of having a few Zambian beers and walking around yelling “DON’T MENTION THE WAR”) is a brand new Shopright complex that is having its big grand opening tomorrow. They are currently setting up for a huge party for it.
At the same time the streets are strewn with potholes and the town in many places looks like the business areas of Kumba or Bamenda. You get off the main streets and you are right back in the kind of fly infested, rickety wooden shack filled market stalls that came straight out of Cameroon. The end result is this weird juxtaposition a very developing country feel with odd pockets of out of place seeming luxuries, tourists and adventure activities.
I know this cause about thirty seconds out of the hostel I was “befriended” by two Zambians, Chris and Duncan “like the donut”. I can only speculate that Duncan’s knowledge of the titular donut comes from a t-shirt cause this town is clothed almost entirely from the Goodwill t-shirt rack. They were trying to sell me copper. Copper is a major thing in Zambia, and I am told is renowned. I am also told wearing a copper bracelet can cure rheumatism and high blood pressure. Seeing as I don’t suffer from them, and don’t really do copper bracelets I passed but allowed myself to fall into continued conversation. Again at first it focused on the hustle, them steering me towards their adventure tour booker of choice.
When I didn’t bite on anything but remained friendly they shifted to showing me around town. This consisted mainly of showing me the in town market and the larger market on the fringes of town. Again, nothing I hadn’t seen in Cameroon but it was nice getting away from the central strip and we steered things to a bar and got some Zambian beer, a Mosi to be specific. So it was a pleasant afternoon. Though I wouldn’t recommend Mosi, terrible aftertaste. You get used to it but it’s not pleasant at first.
Even on a day that was swelteringly hot. Zambian summer way more intense than further south in Africa. It’s just brutal here.