"Zambia - A Country of beautiful People " a Zambia Travel Page by cleocat

For once we had confirmed booked tickets. We could check in like the normal crowd and not hang around hoping for a seat. Livingstone airport is small but adequate. As we travelled on South African pasports customs was a bliss. Customs people in Africa are very seldom friendly. I was amazed the lady actually smiled at us and wished us a happy stay. I'm sure my mouth was open. The SAA office at the airport was very helpful and told us that the departure tax was already included in the ticket. Nice we had a extra $100 to spend.

I booked at Jollyboys because they had very reasonable prices and I could only find raving reviews on all the websites I looked at. They have a free airport pick up service. Bernard was waiting for us outside. More about Bernard later.

We had to wait for the other passengers going to Jollyboys to clear customs so we sat outside and took photos of the airport and the statues of David Livingstone's guides.

Not to long after we left for Jollyboys. The airport is about 5km out of town.
The roads are not excellent but not too bad either.

With a $100 to spare we took the booze cruise that left from Jollyboys at 15:30, about 2 hours after we arrived. So we were moving quickly. More about this experience later.

I was overwhelmed by the Zambian people. From Jollyboys to the entrance to the Vic Falls, the taxi drivers and the shop owners, everybody was smiling and exceptionally helpful. The country is poor, the people are poor, there are very little jobs. There are tons of blue taxis. Livingstone is a run down town with here and there an old house turned into a craft shop and some effort put into keeping it looking good.

Africa is beautiful, Zambia is beautiful, the people are great but Africa can't seem to get it's act together and become prosperous. The opportunities are there but somewhere something is horribly wrong. I have my theories but that is another story.