Don’t worry, I’m not going to bore you with all the details of our amazing trip to Zambia. Hmm, well I might bore you a bit, but I’ll try to stick to the bits relevant to this blog. As such I’ve grouped things into topics rather than any sort of chronological review.
The chair
As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, choosing my chair(s) has been difficult. Choosing which would be best to take away was no easier, as each has its pros and cons.
- The Stretto has great manoeuvrability and is really comfortable on flat or moderately bumpy surfaces
- The DE08L is quite easily transportable, has good manoeuvrability, but limited on bumpy ground
- The Optimus 2 is great outdoors. It has good “all-day” comfort, although it’s not quite up to the Stretto standard. It handles rough ground really well. However, it doesn’t manoeuvre well indoors.
I took the Optimus because the DE08L just wouldn’t be comfortable enough for prolonged use on the terrain. It would be better than the Stretto out and about. In general I think I made the right decision. However, the indoor manoeuvrability did prove to be an issue in the hotels. My thinking was that I would use my sticks in doors. However, of course I needed to get the chair in for charging. Where we stayed the first week, the distance was 200-300 meters from the room to the main reception/restaurant area. Additionally, it was hilly. I got fed up with trying to get it in the room. I left it in the stairwell (nice open space) by the bedroom to charge. Not the most secure, but it was fine.
Its outdoor capabilities were definitely of benefit in a number of places. I did avoid some places. It was just too much effort to get it in and out of the car. More on the car later. The lack of manoeuvrability also meant I didn’t go into places like the markets with Ruth.
I did have a small incident with the chair. Whilst at the Victoria Falls, we were heading down a path and came across a small step. The chair was more than capable of going down and back up the step if tackled straight on. However, since we couldn’t see what was ahead, Ruth went on. She signalled back to me that there were many more steps. I therefore decided to turn around to find somewhere to park the chair off the path. Whilst doing a three (or 30) point turn, I inadvertently steered the right back wheel off the step. The chair toppled over with me in it. Ruth immediately shouted for help and a couple of blokes came rushing over. They got me up and went to lift the chair upright. Unfortunately, before I’d managed to shout that it was heavy, one of them tried to lift it by the armrest. They pulled it clean off the bolts. With a few more people giving assistance, they got it upright. Between them pushing and me using the drive of the chair, we got it back up the step. Fortunately both the chair and myself got away with a few minor bumps and scrapes. I have a short video captured on a cycle helmet camera that I had attached to the chair. Unfortunately I can’t upload it at the moment, but will hopefully get that sorted.
The loan car
We were lent a Toyota Vellfire, very similar to the Alpharetta Ruth’s brother had talked to us about. Overall it was nice and comfortable and had quite a big boot space. However, the third row of seats did not fold into the floor. They folded up to the side. This meant they impinged on the space quite a bit. The runners that they fixed to the floor with also meant my chair had to be kept in the middle. This limited the space either side for cases etc. Nevertheless, on the whole we managed to squeeze what we needed in. Unfortunately the car wasn’t reliable. It suffered 2 flat tyres in the first week. We then had another in the middle of nowhere on the way to Livingstone. Thankfully we had a very capable driver who was able to sort them. The headlights were awful on dip beam. You could barely see a few meters in front of the car, and so night driving was very slow. With the state of the roads in Zambia, not being able to see the potholes was a nightmare. For those readers in the UK, if you think our roads are in a bad condition, you should take a trip to Zambia. You’ll be surprised!
Enlightening internal flight info
I think overall we did benefit from driving around. We got to see more of the countryside. However, it did cause a lot of concern. In fact, when we got to Livingstone we decided to investigate flying back. That again turned out to be a blessing, as the driver suffered yet another flat tyre on his way back. We went into the offices of Zambia Airways at Livingstone airport to speak to them directly. We managed to sort flights back to Lusaka. We also obtained some handy information about their wheelchair policy. This was contrary to what I’d been told in my pre-holiday booking web-chats. It turns out that they do allow wheelchairs up to 40Kg to be carried for free, but then charge $3.00 per kilo over the 40Kg limit. I could therefore have taken my DE08L and flown the return trips Lusaka to Kitwe and Lusaka to Livingstone. Something to definitely consider next time we go.
A few pics 😊
I know I said I wouldn’t bore with details of our amazing trip, but here’s a few photos nonetheless. Remember – being disabled does NOT mean you are not able.
