A woman selling potatoes on the roadside, hoping that the next car will stop.
Photo taken somewhere between Kabwe and Kapiri Mposhi
Tag: road
Tires and avos
When you’re travelling, not everything always goes according to plan. So we had a flat tire, and what we do best in such a case is look helpless…
Luckily, we were in an area with many plantations and farms.
The workers and manager of one of these farms helped us a lot, providing us with a jack, filling up the spare tire and fitting it on our car. Unfortunately, the spare tire did not fit our car (don’t know how that is even possible…). In a complex switch, the manager gave us two of his tires to fit on our car, so that we could continue our travels. So good to meet kind strangers!
The farm was an avocado plantation.
We were invited to visit the harvest.
The avocados are harvested once a week, from February to November. This day the manager had hired about 100 extra workers to help out.
When we arrived they had just finished. The workers were heading off. They walked to the office, where they would receive their pay.
And the boxes with avocados were lifted into a waiting truck. According to the manager, the avocados are then sorted according to size – large, medium and small. Apparently, people in Germany only want large avocados, in the UK they prefer medium, and in China small is popular. Spain takes any size. Learnt some great new things, and we were given some avocados to take home with us – what an experience!
On the road again
Driving through the beautiful, changing scenery of southern Africa feels extraordinary – I still, after more than five years feel I need to pinch myself to check that I’m not dreaming, that it’s really me driving here…
Road works
Road maintenance in Zambia happens less frequently than one might wish for. Especially the road from Lusaka to Livingstone has spectacularly bad stretches. In an attempt to let the users of the road pay for their maintenance a system of tolls has been implemented. Let’s hope that the revenues find their way to the potholes!
Sunday afternoon
Speeding on the bicycle over the sandy lanes, with two bottles of juice on the bike rack – do you remember those Sunday afternoons?
(Btw I love the outfit: Millennium Falcon meets Pixie Pals…)
Photo taken in Choma, Zambia
Elephant on the road
This morning, according to the news, a herd of eight elephants on the loose near Pretoria are being led back into the game reserve they escaped from. I can’t imagine the sight of a herd of elephants trudging to the suburbs…
We met this bull on a recent visit to Pilanesberg National Park. In the bushes on either side of the road there the herd with several baby elephants was foraging. The aggressive bull would not let any car come close, let alone pass. We didn’t even attempt to get nearer. Elephants are said to be ‘gentle giants’, but to me they are the most scary animals one can encounter on a safari!
