Trekking in Zambia

Acclimatisation Phase One

During our second week in Zambia we did our acclimatisation phase which included a trek from a village called Mwandi to a small village called Sooka. This is where we got to see the REAL Africa and for the first time felt emotional as we had our first real chance to connect with the locals, especially the children. 

We trekked from Mwandi to Sooka village starting off at 7am, the trek was literally sand the whole way which made it so difficult (and I'd started to panic about the main trek already!) When we approached Sooka we saw a herd of children running towards us with huge smiles on their faces, one by one they took our hands and walked us to our meeting point, the local church. 

When we got to the church there were chairs set out ready for us, as we sat down the children holding our hands sat down on our laps too! From there I knew how amazing this evening would be as this was the happiest I'd been on the trip so far - although the dirtiest! We showed the children our cameras which they were absolutely amazed by and then we all had a mini photoshoot with them all because their smiles were endless, they all also took a huge liking into our wide-brimmed hats and our sunglasses!

The kids taught us some clapping games and some local songs then later we played with the skipping ropes I had brought over from the UK whilst some of the boys played football together.

That evening we got taught how to de-scaled and gut a fish which a few people in the group did (we actually ate the fish that evening as the local ladies of the village prepared us a traditional dish which was Maize meal, called Nshima out there, green veg and bream fish). The locals then put on a show around the camp fire by singing and dancing to us but then they expected us to perform back(!) so we embarrassingly sang One Direction and Justin Bieber songs as they were the only songs the whole group knew the words for! We appreciated everything the village did for us seeing as they did A LOT however they seemed like they appreciated to the next level as they wouldn't stop thanking us for coming, just for showing up and taking part in playing with the children and singing them songs. Just showing interest in their lives made them ecstatic which literally shows it is the small things in life which makes people happy. 

That night we all went back to our tents on such a buzz talking about how amazing and surreal everything had been so far. Seeing as we were all in such a good mood we didn't actually go straight to sleep, instead we got in our tents and poked our heads out of the doors looking up at the stars. The sky was absolutely incredible, honestly words can't even give it justice. Unfortunately I fell asleep after about 45 minutes but others in the group stayed up quite late; that night Jake, Lewis and Sara saw 8 shooting stars. 8!!!!

Acclimatisation Phase Two

In week 3 we did our third trek which was my favourite one!  (I would have never imagined I'd say I enjoyed trekking!) We had to wake up at 5.30am to cook breakfast and be ready to start our trek. Although this trek was 17k it didn't seem too bad because of all the amazing sights we saw, we walked up and down mountains, through mini villages and also some cornfields on the way seeing many children and locals. Since we went through a lot of bushes and jungle I decided to put my trouser legs back on even though it was boiling hot, luckily I did because most of the others had crazy scratches on their legs from all of the bushes and hilarious tan lines whilst I just had extremely dirty trousers!

After around 9 hours of walking we finally got to our destination which turned out to be a mini beach in Mozambique! Since we got there at about 3pm the sun was still up for another 3 hours so we had time to relax, wash and cook. So thats exactly what we did! Everyone in the group read a book for an hour or so whilst sunbathing and relaxing our bodies, we then went and washed in the river and then came back and cooked on an open fire. That evening Jenny and Sara beheaded two chickens and then our guides prepared them ready for us to eat!

The next morning we were extremely lucky as instead of trekking back we got to canoe down the River Luanga to get back to the campsite where we started off. This took about 4 hours, but it was literally the most relaxing 4 hours of the trip! The girls were on one boat and the boys were on another, we all ate some snacks of trail mix (nuts and dried fruit) and then had a nap whilst the guides sailed us back. To make the experience even more surreal we were lucky enough to see some crocs which were actually very close to us but no-one was scared we were all just amazed?! It's not every day we get to see a wild croc a few feet away!

main trek and project phase coming soon...