Kuomboka

After we finally managed to tear ourselves away from Namibia, we found ourselves in Livingstone again, but only briefly. We stayed with a friendly Aussie couple (Kristen and Jacinta) who are volunteering there, and had another look at Victoria Falls from a bit further away.

Our next major destination -- the end of another long bumpy ride in the back of a crowded bus -- was Mongu, in Zambia's western province, site of the Kuomboka ceremony. This is a big cultural festival of the Lozi people (who live in the nearby part of Namibia as well), celebrating the relocation of their king (and queen) to higher ground when his dry-season residence gets flooded by the Zambezi river. He makes this journey on a barge specially made for this purpose, propelled by a hundred honoured paddlers. The queen and other members of the family have their own barges. The trip takes all day (it's about 15km) and is followed by several days of celebrations. All the locals attend, and many dress up in fancy colourful clothing, or at least wear a bright red cap to show their enthusiasm. It felt great to experience this genuine local tradition. We were two of only a handful of makua (white people) there.

The arrival of the king (he's under the elephant)

... and the queen

Scott, who had been working until the day before, managed to make it up there from Katima just in time for the arrival of the king. We found him curled up in his tent later that night when we got back to the campsite. He had tried to find us in the crowd with a few timid cooees, but was only met with puzzled looks from people around him. The next day we went back to the palace to see some very imporessive dancing and drumming, all in honour of the king. And indeed he seemed pleased. The queen, sitting on a camping chair in a separate tent from the king's, didn't look quite as happy.

Though the celebrations continued into the week, we decided to join Scott and follow the Zambezi river back to the Namibian border. This turned out to be an epic journey and we travelled about 300km in 14 hours. Highlights included a shredded car tyre followed by the fastest tyre-change we'd ever seen, a speedboat trip on the river that started noisy and ended in unhappy choking noises from the motor, and a 10-hour ride in a Hilux along a road made of sand, lumpy dirt and water. There were a few adventurous river crossings where we had to get out and push, and one where we were drove in metre-deep water a fifth of the way across a river before we went up a ramp onto the last section of the bridge.