farms – 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.

I woke up feeling so sophisticated and thought to myself what could enhance this feeling more than a horse ride. I wanted a getaway and be lost in nature so I packed my small bag and off I went to a farm called Trotover Farm which is also known as Trotover Equestrian Center.

There is no harm in going to a horse riding school and after the experience I had, I guess am revisiting my hobbies, wink wink.

The whereabouts of the farm

Planning on visiting Zambia and short of what to keep you refreshed?You could try this activity out just for the fun of it or as a set of lessons. This place is just a 50 minute drive from Kenneth Kaunda International Airport (LUN) and it will be cheaper if you got yourself a local sim card and downloaded an app called Yango so you enjoy cheaper taxi services but if that is a hustle, ask a nice person from the airport with this app on their phone to order a taxi for you.

I was not coming from the airport of course and my only challenge was the farm was showing on Google maps but not on the taxi app which made me enter on the app a nearby place to the farm then got on another private taxi which charged me more for such a short distance but anywho, I didn’t care cos it’s horses I was gonna be riding right? I forgot about the annoying taxi experience.

I did enjoy quite a bit of riding before in a small town called Chingola at a small ranch with fewer horses than these.

Arrival

For every service you get, so long you paid for it, you expect good to excellent services from staff and I must say I found a helpful person in charge who assisted with locating of the place on phone when I couldn’t find it. He, together with other members of staff had smiling faces as they cleaned up the stables and I stopped over for a short walking tour near the front area of the farm’s reception just to see what it was about.

The horse trail

I could see some poster asking for respect from the public that this was private property and that no dogs or children under 4 years were allowed. By it saying ‘clients only’ must have meant that they usually received unwanted guests. The helpful staff was there explaining to me few things about their horses but the one question I asked was whether it was easy to distinguish between a young horse and an older one. I was told that,”You can just tell.” I proceeded to the stables that had the older ones and yes, I can’t just put my finger on it but I could tell age was catching up with these horses.

After checking out the tired horses, the helper at the farm brought two white horses. They looked like twins except one had longer mane than the other. I chose Jumbo for that. We headed out of the front of the farm using a short route that had leaves falling all over until Jumbo and I headed to a small slop I heard fills up with water in the wet season. I wished I came with company but so what if I do solo chronicles?

Jumbo was calm, friendly and because the only company I had was the guide who knew the trail, I got to learn a sound he kept making trying to communicate with his horse and I picked up on it to connect with Jumbo.

I am no horse expert but I must say I love animals and connecting with Jumbo was no biggie. I have had friends that have had bad experiences with horses even as experts but I didn’t wanna dwell on that and ruin my chances of a peaceful ride with Jumbo in this trail.

After about a good 15 minutes we got to a place which was dotted with some slim trunked trees stretching over a large area and I wish I had recorded the music provided by the birds there. I bet Jumbo was also enjoying this too. The trail wasn’t so defined but clear enough to show there were more trees ahead of us. At one point, I noticed Jumbo was distracted by the grass when we paused for a bit. It was time for free tasting for him.

Jumbo and I enjoyed some slightly hilly spots as well as few depressed ones and I am happy to say he was good at what he was doing. I noticed when we get to these two places, it’s as if he would slow down and think how best he would handle these spots. Smart huh…..

By the time we finished our loop it was almost two hours and this must have been about 8 km to 10 km. I believe we could have gone further but that was where my 13 dollars ended and was already held up for the afternoon.

When I said my byes to the staff, I noticed some drawings of horses on the walls that are coming up quite well and I should be back here to see how they finish and the other was the quote hanging on the wall that I couldn’t agree more to but this ride was actually refreshing and made me reconsider my hobbies. Riding is actually good for the soul and should you be on this side of Zambia, do try this farm out and pass my regards to Jumbo.

Don’t do what I did

Not to brag but I could tell Jumbo was a calm horse and was about no funny business so I tried this ride with no protective gear on my head but I feel it’s important to wear one. The place did actually offer one and I wanted it in pink because it’s one of my fav colors but unfortunately the only pink one available couldn’t fit and I chose fashion over safety and crossed my fingers. Luck was on my side.

Tag: farms

Trotover Farm’s horse trail tour