The Lower Zambezi and the road to Kanyemba

Kanyemba  http://www.kanyemba.com/   is a privately run resort located on the Zambezi river just below the confluence of the Kafue river and east of the major border crossing to Zimbabwe and South Africa. 

The drive down is about 160 km (100 miles) with the majority on a 2-lane tar road that is heavily traveled by truck traffic and it also winds down the escarpment to the Zambezi from the plateau where Lusaka is located. 

The descent is probably 1500 ft and there are sections of the road that are now 3 lane to allow passing of the slow heavy trucks. It is also the site of some spectacular accidents or breakdowns. On our return there was a tractor-trailer with a trailer that was jack knifed in the middle of the road when the main drive shaft to the axles snapped. It had happened the day before. On the way down we saw a tractor-trailer where the whole of the front right wheel and axle had come off and the truck stuck on the road.

Many of the trucks will not drive the road at night particularly up the escarpment where they are loaded and slow. It is a dangerous curvy road, but the added problem is that thieves will climb on the slow truck and steal some of the load. Maybe a couple of bags of maize or a couple of packing cases of canned goods or whatever. The driver is held responsible for the safe delivery of the load. You will also see small cans or plastic containers of diesel fuel for sale. Apparently the truck drivers siphon small quantities of fuel and sell it for pocket money. Buyers are generally smaller operators. Diesel is about US$ 5.75 a US gallon.

There are plenty of other vendors on the roadside selling vegetables and fruit and plenty of people selling sacks of charcoal. This is the favorite local fuel as it is cheap and fairly easy to transport. It is also a problem as the wood is cut and land cleared indiscriminately and soil erosion is a large problem.

To get to the lodge we turned off the paved road and on to a bumpy dirt road. It is only about 22km to the lodge and after about 5 km the road improves some, and after about 10km we came to an African classic. The pontoon. I will do a separate post on pontoons.