City touring – WanderwithFaith

Moving back to your home town can take a toll on you especially if you got so used staying away from home. Being back in my home town meant adapting to the many changes that have taken place here. The beauty is that as one that loves travel, I can handle this. The biggest change has been the school I work from.

New scenery, friends, students and old family members is what I found here. I treasure my solo trips because they have helped me get out of my comfort zone and find myself. Lusaka town has changed a lot over the years and it was clearly time to visit places I visited way back but this time in a group.

Nothing does it like a day-trip to a remote place in summer. It’s super hot here and taking a dip would be awesome.

Kalimba Reptile Park is a place one should bucket list and visit when on this end. It is not so much of a hidden gem. Lots of people frequent this place to be away from the busy places. It may be your go-to-place for day trips. If you are not a local, you may have to return to town area for accommodation as this place does not have lodging.

As we arrived, we were greeted by some cows on the premises that were grazing. We paid our 5 dollars entry fee and my niece paid less for being a youngster. I have done crocodile meat and this place has a kitchen where that can be prepared but the style of this trip was barbeque what we brought and we didn’t bring croc meat. I will try this on another day.

Kalimba Reptile Park is great for group excursion or family day out. For all the fishing lovers, this is the perfect place as well. You will also enjoy a display of reptiles.

The park houses snakes like black mamba, boomslang, vine snake, Mozambique spitting cobra, brown house snake etc. It was amazing to see some of these species camouflaged in the grasses which made me question where I was standing just in case.

If at all you did not pack much to eat, it’s fine because this place has a kitchen and am sure they prepare crocodile in all ways possible seeing that they had a croc recipe book on display for sale.

You are gonna have a comfortable place to have your croc burgers, croc spareribs or whatever version of crocodile you choose.

We took a walk around the gardens and noticed other clients coming in at mid day. Some took their kids for a dip, others went on the swings. Others started their barbeques upon arrival, am thinking they were starved.

This place is not that big but there is lots to do around. I could see some mini golf which few people have been doing am sure because it appeared to need a facelift.

There comes that special time when your stomach protests because it wants a fill. I loved that this is a place you can have a picnic and enjoy some warm foods.

Though I didn’t have my signature adventure food, crocodile, I enjoyed the meats we had brought to the park. You will never go wrong with boerewors sausages, I just love them. I had fair shares of barbeque chicken as well. All this with a salad and my favorite being potato salad which just made my afternoon.

We had enough of this food marathon until it was time for a dip. The beauty about this trip is that if the adults (mum and auntie) wanted to be left alone to chit chat, it was the perfect place for people of that generation.

I had my sister to talk to as well. We goofed around and all but we had to make the smallest human being in our group feel part of the squad or at least make her locate her squad at Kalimba Reptile Park.

If we didn’t, she was gonna loudly be singing, “la, la, la, la!”, just so that she does not feel left out but be the one to tell all the stories. Talk about a bossy kid! Anywho, we changed into our bathing suits. The heat was at capacity but we had so much fun with this small human being who found herself her own squad.

I am recommending Kalimba Reptile Park for that relaxing day away from the usual way of life at home or away from the noisy places.

Chipata is a city and administrative centre of the Eastern part of Zambia.The city, unlike in older years, has undergone some economic and infrastructure growth, leading up to city status. It is still a work-in-progress though. Do not hesitate to add it to places you can visit for not only the laid-back life but to see the parks which have game and wild animals. When I visited Chipata for the second time, I was happy to see lots of change. Last time I visited, I didn’t know how to share my journey with the world like I do now. I loved Chipata town for simple things like:

Those mangoes!

There are many places in Zambia I have on my bucket list. I have them because of the fruits I have heard are found there. Mwinilunga has pineapples and Mazabuka, sugarcane. When I visited Chipata recently, I couldn’t help but appreciate the mangoes found in this part of the country. The season to enjoy mangoes is from late October to late January. The beauty is they are cheaper in Chipata than in other towns like Lusaka. It was mango parties everyday! I found a reason to use mangoes in things like my desserts. My favourite was custard fruit salad!

Animals at your doorstep

Whenever we want to see certain creatures, we quickly have to be the ones to make the first move to where we can find them. Of course, I don’t mean the wild animals. It was such a great moment to walk out of the house and appreciate the birds that frequently flew by or perched. I usually don’t get to see the S-necked and long-legged kind of birds where I live. It was a super cool experience to get frequent visits from this species of bird.

Because of the wet season, we also had frequent visits from crab-like creatures. I want to think those were real crabs. At least something close to mud crabs. I don’t have my facts right yet. If they are were crabs, we have delicacy on the loose!

I was in an area called Moth in Chipata and that’s were I spent most of my time. This was pretty much in the centre of Chipata. Whenever I saw creatures I was not able to see where I came from, I made sure to take a shot. The one creature I saw the most but failed to take even one shot was one in the family of ferrets. Again, I am not sure these were ferrets but they were furry and looked like guinea pig cousins. I just noticed, they don’t stay put. I tried placing some nuts in strategic places so when they pay a visit, I could take a shot but things didn’t go as planned. I found the nuts gone.

Lovely landscapes, lovely sunsets

Not that I am not a fan of mountain climbing, but in some places like Tanzania ( Mount Kilimanjaro), doing it will cost me an arm and a leg. Chipata has so many hills I could try climbing before doing a legendary mountain climb.

My first attempt goofing around on these hills was with my nieces. This didn’t do the trick but it was good enough for some memorable views. I didn’t have to climb up these hills all the time to enjoy incredible views. Sometimes, I just sat or walked around in the neighborhood enjoying the views I don’t see where I am living. Everyone living where the land is flat knows this feeling when you find elevated lands. I enjoyed my early morning or evening walks because of this.

Sunsets could have been perfect if not for the distracting hills but then again, I was in the eastern part of the country. The sun rises from the east, so says geography. This means sunrises here, should be more enjoyable than sunsets. The hills would be distracting nonetheless.

Bike city touring

Last I checked, especially in developed countries, if you wanna know a city, you have to use a tour bus. This is not the kind of stuff you are gonna find here. I loved seeing more places on motorbikes. This is one thing that has changed over the years. There were no motorbikes used for public transport some time back. This has now become the popular means of transport in this part of the country. In other parts of the country, they are used for deliveries. Here, it’s public transport. Since it’s cheaper than getting on a vehicle, it was easy to see most of Chipata. I even found hidden gems that you should try finding on your own when you tour this laid-back city.

Tag: City touring

Discovering the charm of Chipata