But before we leave the far North, I have the highlight of a visit to Lake Tanganyika to look forwards to. This is the second largest and deepest freshwater lake in the world courtesy of being in the Rift valley. It's a pretty amazing sight to see and is the place where Zambia's only port resides (well it is land-locked!)
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Lake Tanganyika
You'd be forgiven if you're sat there thinking that Mpulungu is a quiet, picturesque place. There is hardly a ripple to be seen. The water is surprisingly warm as I paddled at 24 celsius (lake temperature not ambient). However far from it, it has to live up to its name as Zambia's busiest (ok, ok, ok - only) fishing port! On the 40km drive north from Mbala to the end of Zambia, Mpulungu we passed some stunning mountainous cliffs, cut in the vein of the Rift valley. This is indeed the reason the lake is here. The lake is also the reason lots of people are here. It's a hotbed of trading from both Tanzania and Rwanda as well as a fertile land for crops and clearly an abundance of fish. So the daily market is very important. We pass minibus after minibus laden with woven baskets full of crops to sell early morning en route to the harbour.
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| En route to the harbour |
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| Setting up at the market |
We arrive at the harbour and immediately feel the hustle and bustle of a real fishing port. There are loads of wooden boats ready to go out for a day's fishing. Initially confusing as they had larger wooden boats loaded up with smaller ones. It soon became apparent that these are fishing boat taxis! they use their motors to take the fishermen in the rowing boats further out on the lake to start their work quicker and also I suspect in an area that has better numbers of fish.
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| Loading small boats onto a larger vessel. It seems that the usual lucky charm at the front of the boat is a well-known football team. Though with the present pecking order in the premier league I'm not sure they'll be touching the paint up on that motif in dry dock! |
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| Plenty of people trying to get a spot on board |
After a fair bit of negotiation and loading they finally leave the shore in clouds of smoky diesel.
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| Fishermen on their way out for a hard day's work |
And for some, the work has been completed overnight and they are selling their produce there and then. It can't be fresher than that! Though most deliver to the women who sit patiently on the dock with their large bowls, waiting to start the selling process in the blazing heat!
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| Boatful of fish |
It's no joke selling fish at the market - its hot, there's a lot of flies and even more competition from other women. Its important to keep the produce cool and shaded! Either that or its advisable to dry and smoke them.
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| Fishermen's wives |
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| Dried Kapenta fish - dreadful smell but not bad taste! |
It wasn't only fish for sale, there were plenty of tomatoes, pumpkins, ground nuts and rice. After a bit of bargaining Wisdom and Patrick had filled the boot with a vast quantity of foodstuff to take back with us on the 1000km plus return trip. Though it seemed to make little difference to the random stopping to stock up further on side of the road produce such as more tomatoes, pumpkins, bananas ad salt! All that I can cope with but the dried fish absolutely stank, especially as it was 28C outside. Thank goodness for air con indoors!
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| Rice sellers at the market |
Eight hours later we pull into Lusaka in darkness having negotiated not only a very long drive, the odour of dried fish but also trucks and lorries with variable lighting on them and possibly worst of all Michael Bolton CD on repeat. I thought I'd got a reprieve after an hour as it stopped working - phew! Though that is easily sorted. Apparently when you pass by the garage you bought the illegal CD from two weeks ago and it doesn't work the vendor happily swaps it for another. Groan... I'm deadly serious! The vendor was very apologetic - it seems he doesn't want to lose a valued customer and swapped it for some gospel...
And that really does mean the end of the road for the follow-ups and will soon be the end of the road for my time out here in Zambia also. I will be desperately sad to leave all this behind but I have a few other important life events to attend.... My cousin's wedding in York and the little matter of running a marathon in Paris. Having endured a marathon of mileages for the follow-ups I'm sure my training will not put me in the elite set! In fact I am pretty sure that only running twelve times in the past two months (granted in 26C at times) is not your conventional training regime but it's what I've managed out here as the follow-up and UTH work had to take precedence. However if you've enjoyed reading these blogs I would be really, really grateful if you would consider donating - even a pound or a dollar or a kwacha or whatever currency towards my marathon run (oh yes and did I mention I'll be cycling across Tanzania in October with three other mates!!) - its all going towards cancer research - which we all know, has no respect of boundaries and affects people of all creed, culture and country of origin. Thanks (link below) !
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