Afrique 29 – ZAMBIA 2 – LUSAKA TILL LUONGWE RIVER

 On Friday we move early by the East road to get off Lusaka. After 20 km of suburbs, we pass the airport and enter in the landscape. The road is rounded by fields, crops and middle high trees, not so bad. We see again the groups of huts, and the lanes of shops in basic concrete. The road goes hilly but mostly descending about 400 m so it is easy but very hot. We pass Changwe, which isn’t along the road, but at the cross we meet the classic slum of shops and women selling fruits on the shoulder. We continue and finally stop in a village to sleep in a primary school. The headmaster is a woman, and she is looking for english books for the school library.

On Saturday we continue by the hilly road under the heat. We have steep climbings. The road is rounded by middle high trees again, and huts, vegetable garden, lanes of poor shops and mangoes sellers. I continue to eat a dozen of mangoes by day, it is the best part of Zambia. We continue to see the sellers of wood coal all along the road. That is the reason they aren’t any big tree they are all chopped yet young to make the coal. At 2 pm we stop, because of the terrible heat, 37 in the shade, but there is no shade on the tarmac. We ask hospitality in a mission. Well the white manager and entrepreneur explains us all the story, from the firt school in mud walls and hay roof, till now, with rather a lot of buildings, a church, a nursery and some lodging, all in concrete and corrugated roofs. He is looking for big donations. Well to make a short story long indeed it is impressive. But I feel tired and it is so hot, I just dream to drink some tea and rest. After 2 hours of tales, he let us alone in a nice room.
And in the morning we start with light rain. After 2 hours we pass an other slum shops, Rufunsa. We try to make some shopping but we don’t find nothing bearable. We continue a bit and stop under a bus stop on concrete, at the cross which lay to Rufunsa village. We stay here 3 hours waiting for the end of a heavy rain. Then the sun comes again and I convince Martine to continue. I feel here in a trap, a poor village where no big bus would stop and heavy rain for 3 days. We continue and we joins quickly the cross with the hospital and mission. We buy some cooked eggs and go on. We climb rather easily the 8 km of the big climb crossing the lane of mountains. It is very hot and sunny. The view isn’t so scenic, hills with forest, a few big trees, and a few hills finishing by cliffs. Curiously a lot of cyclotourists pretend it is marvellous. Yet I am not ensorceled by Africa, and I find it sad and boring. A few km after the top we stop in a slum shops lane and ask hospitality at the primary school.
On Tuesday at 7 am it is already hot and sun is coming. I win, we cross the mountain and we get off the heavy rain influence of Lusaka and the Zambezi river. We enter in the sunny ambiance of South Malawi. So we get sun all day. We decide to make a short day. I have just read some cyclists stopped in a nice campsite along Luongwe river, just 35 km away. So after a few long hills rounded by the same forest with huts, we arrive at the big slum before the river. We take an early lunch and we make some shopping, beans rice and canbeef, nothing more to buy. Then we turn on left in the gravel road to Bridge campsite. Well the place is charming but very expensive. So we just camp. We are under big trees, in front the river, and all the walls of the huts and fences are in real stones! Once someone makes an effort, instead of waiting the NGO help chatting and drinking beers. I was just thinking that us Europeans we built our beautiful stone villages by hands, without machines nor technology, just taking the stones from the fields, one by one, and building walls without cements, which follows for hundred years. We did a lot also to irrigate and open new fields and build beautiful towns. Why here it doesn’t happen now. Pick up stones in a field or in a forest costs nothing but energy. Well human being is going in decadency everywhere, leasy and weak.
So we do the same today, relaxing in the campsite, after a good shower and cleaning the clothes. I see some fishers canoeing in the river. Well the entrance isn’t guard so one stays on the nice terrass with view on the river whilst the other stays near the tent.