A long haul of several hours today to get to Lusaka with an interesting but generously timed competitive section of 12km, 70km or so short of Lusaka along sandy tracks and with hidden gullies to catch out the unwary.
The morning drive was on good tarmac roads, the new ones courtesy of the Chinese. There are numerous road building projects in train in most of the African countries we have passed through and we've shared hotels with Chinese contractors on several occasions. Someone said they ship in Chinese prisoners to work on the projects as cheap labour but we have seen only local labour employed alongside the Chinese managers and technical specialists. This is investment on a grand scale, no doubt tied to access rights to valuable minerals via the new roads. Many of the new roads plans seem to link areas of mineral deposits with ports. Having said that, these countries are desperately in need of new infrastructure and I guess they don't care too much who pays.
We stopped for lunch at the equivalent of roadside services 150km or so short of Lusaka. We tried meat pies though they wouldn't tell us what meat it was. Whatever it was, it was very firm in texture.
The competitive section was a relatively short 12km on sandy tracks. And had been shortened from the original 17km due to some rough roads and the proximity to a school. All the top 10 cleaned in the target time so no one gained an advantage even if they drove it quicker - odd but true according to the rules. The target set time is key and this was quite generous compared to others lately.
Then off to Lusaka and a nice Hotel. Tomorrow we have another mostly touring day to Livingstone and Victoria Falls. Zambia will not see much competition due to local heavy rains which could see the rally stranded if in the wrong place at the wrong time. Competition re-commences in Namibia in 2 days.
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