casejoeyafrica: Kande Beach, Malawi to Mama Rula's Campground

'Awoke at 5am for our last morning at Lake Mawali to a beautiful sunrise as the many dug out canoes were out and about angling for their catch of the day.

Given we had no tent to pack up we were ready by 6.30 followed by a light beakfast and then only waiting for Edwatd to drop me off my AU $3.50 cholera bore water ice block at 7.30. Once he had delivered the bottle we put the "engine food" hamburgers under the bonnet and set off

We had approx 420kms to travel today which would take about 8 hours with the boarder crossing included hopefully, as the Zambian crossing can be quite lengthy and red tape problems.

One of the crew that were in Kande Beach that were coming north had said they have had lots of rain in Zambia as well on their way through .

Lots of people as usual all over the road with very few cars or trucks - I reckon all up no more than 20 of so vehicles over most of the day so spent most of the time driving in the middle of the road to avoid the locals

Our first stop mid morning was to the roadside snack bar which serves chips and goat parts and was at the first police check point. We opted not to go the goat today( for good reason) and instead went for a serve of hot chips each which cost the sum of one green meanie( AU$2) and them had a nice hamburger "engine food" and chips

As we enjoyed the snack a local bus turned up for a pit stop and the locals getting their fix of goat and chips followed whilst their bus was inspected by the local police.

As usual the kids were so friendly and came up to say hi to Jo

Through the police check point and soon arrived at the gate of Nkhotakota Widlife Reserve which was 35 kms of wet red mud gravel roads,however didn't see any wildlife expect for a lone baboon.

Came across a nice stand of palms in a low lying swamp area which were a reddish brown colour.

Corn,sugar cane and bananas seem to be the main farming crops by the locals.

We arrived at the Mawalian boarder at about 1.45pm and as usual hassled by the money changers on the way to the immigration office to fill out the forms and get stamped out. Then onto the Zambian immigration to again get accosted by the money changers and to pay our US$50 visa fee and get the vehicles stamped through . All up the process took 45 minutes which we think is a PB - sometimes it can take hours and even days to get through the border crossing due to their processes- thank god it's so quite on the tourists.

Zambia is also a landlocked country of 753000 sq kms with a population of 17m neighboured by Congo,Tanzania,Malawi,Mozambique,Zimbabwe,Botswana,Namibia and Angola. The capital is Lusaka and most of the population is concentrated around this area. Zambia is drained by two major rivers basins:the Zambezi/ Kafue covering about three quarters of the country and the Congo covering about one quarter.It is heavily dependent on copper which is the ecomonic strength behind the country when the price is high.

Zambia has some of natures best wildlife and game reserves with North, South and Kafue National Parks having one of the most pro folic animal populations in Africa. The Victoria Falls in the southern part of the country is also the major tourist attraction