Some people berate us, “You’re so lucky to be on such a long holiday.” Which gets a little bit up my nose and I immediately retort, “It’s not a holiday, it’s a trip!” What do I mean by this? First, we change locations on average at least every three days. So one day in three […]

You may recall that whilst we were home between travels in May, I briefly worked with a charity in Hinckley called The U Foundation, which supports children and families in Zambia. Sarah and Jay, my bosses at the charity, know Zambia very well and have lots of friends here. We were fortunate enough that they […]

Up until now we’ve been travelling largely without any specific plans and without booking accommodation. This wasn’t really a problem until we got to Lilongwe, Malawi where many places were fully booked. The situation was worse in Lusaka. There are very few budget places and the ones we did manage to stay in rarely had […]

In the UK, our street adverts and billboards are mass-produced. In Africa, they are more commonly hand-painted. The artists are talented for sure, but every now and then we are fortunate enough to to see what the artist didn’t at the time — click the picture to enlarge it.

For nearly two months we’ve travelled Africa and we continue to adjust to how different things really are here. Upon arrival in Lusaka, it appeared that we had re-entered civilisation as we know it in the West. The roads are made from tarmac. The cars are modern. There are numerous shopping malls. A cinema and […]

To travel from Mfuwe, near South Luangwa National Park, to the Zambian capital of Lusaka meant spending another 4.5 hours at 15mph to get back to Chipata and then face another seven hours on a bus on road probably not that much better. Or we could just get a one hour flight, from Mfuwe to […]

The previous day I had booked us onto a morning walking safari, which seemed like a great idea at the time. At 05:30 the next morning, the matter was certainly up for debate. Worse still, it soon became apparent that the rest of the early diners would soon be whisked away for a morning driving […]

Last night a man with a big torch escorted us from the Flatdogs Lodge restaurant to our cottage. Tonight a man with a really big torch escorted us through South Luangwa National Park on a night-time driving safari. Squiffy was dressed like a disguised terrorist to shield herself from abundant dust being kicked-up into our […]

As soon as morning broke, we checked-out of our terrible resthouse in Mfuwe and finally managed to make contact with the Flatdogs Lodge and Campsite. Within minutes, a branded 4×4 vehicle appeared and whisked us off to the lodge for a hearty breakfast. (We were told that we were not allowed to walk from the […]

Aftering waving the emerald smugglers goodbye in Chipata at about lunchtime, we set about finding an ATM, a cheap eat and a place to sleep for the night before setting off for Mfuwe (pronounced ‘muf-ooh-eee’), the nearest town to South Luangwa National Park for more wildlife watching. We found a restaurant to make us a […]