cycling with Cowboy Cliff

My first attempts at adding photos. Apologies if they are oddly positioned but this is where my lack of computer savvy begins to show. (Mark, if you are reading this, I need you!) This morning, Saturday, I went for a 4 hour cycle ride guided by Patrick and his assistant Ezekiel.  Patrick works for "Cowboy Cliff" who I haven't met yet, but who sounds a bit like a local saint - of which I suspect there are many. Cowboy Cliff founded a pre-school for younger children which is funded partly by taking tourists on cycle rides round the parts of Livingstone you don't often see. I have the dodgy keyboard again, so won't say much here except to tell you briefly about the pictures. Number one is the two guides beside the Zambezi - you can see the spray from the Victoria Falls in the background. The next is the saddest sight I have yet seen - people (sometimes whole families)  literally breaking rocks by hand to sell for a living: 2 wheelbarrow loads for $1. Photo 3 is a termite hill. Apparently pregnant women eat the soil as it is supposed to contain minerals which are good for the growing baby. Lastly a picture of some men re-thatching the roof of a lodge which had caught fire.  I also saw a traditional village with mud huts. There are not so many of these any more as gradually people can afford to build more solid housing. The mud huts look picturesque, but have to be renewed every year after the rainy season. It reminds me a bit of what happened to the old fashioned  croft houses in the Highlands. Often the new house is built room by room, as the family can afford it and carry on living in the old house meantime.  In many ways, Zambia seems like Britain must have been maybe a hundred or more years ago.

Oh and I also saw a herd of baboons and some hippos in the river - well their backs peeping out of the water!