Tag Archive | Mfuwe

Tribal Textiles Vortex

Sep26
Tribal Textiles

Up until yesterday, I had not done any souvenir shopping. I was hoping for fabrics and carvings – more native type crafts. While at Mfuwe Lodge, the gift shop was open, and I had about 25 minutes to choose from too many wonderful things! Essentially, the gift shop is an extension of the home base of Tribal Textiles, a fabulous business creating fabric designs and products based in Mfuwe. I bought for family members, but only a set of placemats for our home.

As we left the camp for the airport, we realized that the monkey antics had hurried us along: we were 20 minutes early for our rendezvous as we drove past the Tribal Textiles home base. Steve obligingly circled back, waggling his finger in warning that I only had 20 minutes. I’m a power shopper – I can do it.

Ha! Room after room of delightfully painted fabrics, grouped by themes and colors: I wanted to buy it all and redo the entire house! Mindful of my time limit, I quickly picked out items for our house sitter and more family members. I lingered over a lovely tablecloth with a menagerie of African wildlife surrounding the borders. Steve liked the pillow covers and the banners. He reminded me that most of our bedroom walls were bare. Perfect! We picked out 3 long banners to hang above the bed, two pillow covers for the living room couch, and then back for the tablecloth – who knew when we would be back in Zambia?

Check out, like most activities in Zambia, is efficient, but not quick. Now we are 30 minutes late to meet Rob and Lindsay, who had already crossed into Zambia from Malawi to meet us, and will need to cross back before nightfall. Everyone is gracious about our late arrival, and our Bushcamp Company driver, also named Steve, drives us back to Mfuwe Lodge. (I think he stepped on the accelerator a little bit as we passed Tribal Textiles again.)

No Bridges? No Problem!

Sep23

P1000208From our Tracks4Africa map, we knew that there was one bridge out before reaching the Mfuwe area, but there was a work-around. However, we didn’t expect many bridges to be out. Nearly all the crossings were dry, and most of the bridges were simply a concrete slab. Several of those slabs had collapsed or washed away – some were marked with the national hazard marking: a stack of branches and brush. But, some were not. Each time we got to the lip of a crossing, we stopped to peer over the hood of the rover to see if it was go or no. The numerous tracks generally showed the way around.

Near Mfuwe
Rest stop on the Petauke Road

We suspected that we were getting closer to the Mfuwe area when the track turned into a recently graded road. We came to an open valley: zebra, giraffe, impala, baboons, warthogs, crested cranes and more. Enchanted, we stopped. Steve decided to take an early sundowner – after all, he had been driving rough tracks for hours. I was a little anxious to keep moving, as we still had about 40 kilometers to go. We pulled down to the edge of the valley, and Steve pulled out the side awning, unfolded the chairs and popped a beer. After Steve took a short nap (I still can’t figure out how he can sleep in these chairs), we folded everything back up and got back on the road.

Sparrow’s Fart

Sep23

Our previous day’s drive was short because, we were told, there was really no other good place to stop between Lusaka and the South Luangwa park gate. We had queried Safari Drive about a potential route across Lower Zambezi National Park to get to Bridge Camp. I think we heard the gasp across seven time zones when Clare read that e-mail query – it really wasn’t a viable option. Her return email read, “Do not even consider taking this route.”

But, there are two ways to get to the Mfuwe area, our next destination. One route, recommended to us, was to drive east to Chipata, and then loop back northwest to Mfuwe. While the road is paved to Chipata, the road from Chipata to Mfuwe is notoriously bad and slow going. In fact, our itinerary stated, “Allow 6 hours for the drive as the last part is dirt and quite dangerous. Slow and careful driving is essential as it is easy to slide off the road.”

The other option was to divert north at Petauke, dropping down the escarpment and essentially following the Luangwa River to Mfuwe. We were admonished, both in writing and on the telephone, that the Petauke Road was not an option: “You must drive via Chipata to South Luangwa. The road from Petauke north is 7 hours of very bad road and you should not think about driving that route.”

Hmmmm…”not think about it”…those words alone make us think about why we should not think about it.

Both are long, difficult roads. Other sources tell us that the Chipata/Mfuwe route is boring, but the Petauke road is more scenic. When we checked in with Chris back in Livingstone, he thought that we were quite capable of taking the Petauke Road. We reserved our final judgment for this morning, but we left at sparrow’s fart (Australian slang for dawn) to give ourselves the most daylight possible. After all, we didn’t want to break two rules in one day, taking the Petauke Road AND driving in the dark. Besides, we are much more afraid of driving in the dark than driving a difficult route!

Petauke
Downtown Petauke
No naked lights at the petrol station!

We stopped at Petauke to fuel up, and asked our attendant about taking the Petauke Road to Mfuwe. Her response? “It’s a shortcut.” Well, okay, there you have it – the locals call it a shortcut. It was just before 9:00 a.m. – if it really was 7 hours of bad road, we have plenty of daylight to get there.

So, we turned north at Petauke. Nine hours later, we arrived at Wildlife Camp.