A little update on my trip to the Lower Zambezi

On the road down to Zambezi, we ran into the most interesting roadblock. I didn’t feel the need to mention it until now as I didn’t think it was important. The road block was a couple of tree branches in the middle of the path with a handwritten sign that said ‘danger’. When we saw the sign, we stopped and I poked my head over the pile of brush, didn’t notice anything special, and didn’t give it a second thought. Figured someone was screwing around. A day or two after we get back, Martin mentioned the sign and roadblock to a Zambian friend who responded, “Oh yeah, that’s a land mine.” WTF!! Today, I bumped into someone from the Embassy that would know about such matters (if you know what I mean) and I mentioned it to him. He confirmed that that was probably a landmine (WTF!) and that only about half of the landmines have been found. I am not clear exactly of the situation—we heard different stories: perhaps the landmine was part of Zambia’s war of independence from England or perhaps we were in the area that was used as a training ground to prepare soldiers to fight against segregation. Ok, so if I see a sign that says ‘danger’, I will not question it. Btw, the guy from the Embassy was so excited to hear about the crazy road-trip-over-boulders and the danger sign that he wants me to take him on that route sometime soon.

Pile of branches on right.Grass cut down to drive around