Its been a while since my last entry, but it has been an interesting time. Getting used to how different it can be in Zambia compared to South Africa. Yes S.A is an African country with a highly dualistic economy, and living in Johannesburg it won’t be much different from staying in a large European city.

Zambia I’ve learnt is not the same, after being here for a week or so I needed to go wash the plane, arriving at the airport thinking it will be easy only to be informed there is not water at the airport. The kind security lady then directs me to the nearest village where there is a well that I can use for clean water. So off I go to find the well, it turns out the well is just a hole in the ground with some stones packed around it. Then what looks like old seat-belt straps tied together to hold a cut open plastic oil container to lower down into the water. With my bucket filled the plane was washed ready for the flight the next day.

Early the next morning I fire up the IO520 engine in the C207 and off I go to Ndola for a passenger pick up and drop-off at the mine. The flights go smoothly with no significant weather or snags to report and we arrive at the mine. This would be my first visit to the mine and having packed a overnight bag to spend the night and fly more passengers out the next morning we jump in the Land Cruiser and off we go.

Arriving at the accommodation it is permanent bush tents that look like something you’ll find on a luxury safari.

Thinking this isn’t too bad I head inside. There is a nice single bed set up in the middle of the room and that when I walk through to the bathroom area in the tent.

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No I guess its not the worst ever but not ever having been here and use to a more luxurious life (not going to sugar coat it) I was a little horrified. I was also informed that the hot water runs off a Boiler Donkey. A donkey is basically a meat container with water that you burn a fire below to heat it up.

After dinner I headed back to my tent and decided I’ll skip my evening shower and went to bed. The next morning I found out my donkey was never lit so I wouldn’t have had any warm water and speaking to one of my passengers it took his shower 30 minutes of running the hot water before it was actually warm.

The next week I did have a shower, but due to my lack of patience it was a cold one.

So far I’m still enjoying it, and I’m sure I’ll still have many more interesting experiences before I leave.