Wheeling Solo On The Kalahari, Part 3

Because there aren't many cars when you get away from the cities, roads are primarily occupied by foot, bicycle, and bovine traffic. This view through the windshield of my H3 was a fairly typical sight in rural villages.

Because there aren't many cars when you get away from the cities, roads are primarily occu

Dozens of men pushed empty bicycles up the dirt road that lead to the top of the plateau. The timber that Livingston described was as thick as a brier patch, but it is being harvested from the mountain one bicycle load at a time. The bikes heading up were empty, but those coming down were stacked precariously high with machete-cut logs. (Chainsaws are expensive, but labor is cheap and plentiful.) In Blantyre, a woodcutter's two-day effort would net him about two dollars. The view from the Zomba Top, which had been clear-cut of marketable timber and extended west towards Zimbabwe and east into Mozambique, was spectacular.

The Luangwa Valley is a wildlife mecca, and any number of species-elephant, hippo, lion, or leopard-may visit your camp. After this large male pachyderm chased an overlander group into a tree and trashed their kitchen, this late sleeper finally poked his head out of the elephant tent. And you didn't think elephants can read?

The Luangwa Valley is a wildlife mecca, and any number of species-elephant, hippo, lion, o

Journey's End
The odometer clicked 7,900 kilometers; my trek through the Kalahari was complete. I eased the Hummer into Mozambique and reflected on the past six weeks: I'd been rousted by elephants, chased out of the Kalahari by a massive brushfire, had three-meter crocs under my mokoro (dugout canoe), and blasted across the Makgadikgadi salt pan under a crimson African sunset. I'd spent over 30 nights in my ARB rooftop tent under the southern skies, and the Hummer H3 I'd borrowed in South Africa had performed flawlessly. It had been an epic expedition-a trip of a lifetime, you might say. I pulled out my stack of unused maps-Tanzania, Kenya, and Rwanda-places yet to be explored. I slipped them into my map pouch, knowing that Africa would call me back one day.