I leave Livingstone after nearly two weeks’ rest, salving my conscience by telling myself I bloody well earned it. As if to punish me for recent slacking, the midday heat is now oppressive, the flies maddening. Despite all the bad press the country often receives, the vast majority of Zambians are amazingly friendly and welcoming. While a few individuals here do show a certain weakness for plunder, and would jump at the chance of stealing everything short of your underpants, only a small percentage of the population actually wants to beat your bloody head in. Most folks back in England – even wealthy people or those living at odds with society – rarely experience anything like the temptation staring many Africans in the face. And this happens every time Africans see a foreign visitor loaded with expensive gear they could well live without. Inevitably, far more fuss is made about travellers getting robbed than of their excellent chances of keeping most of their belongings until they get home. Little attention is paid to the fact that so many desperately poor people in Africa wouldn’t dream of stealing from a stranger, however stupidly or insensitively some foreigners behave, and however obvious their comparative wealth. To many Africans, even some of the poorest, stealing is as unthinkable as giving your grandmother a good punch. And in some African countries the penalties for theft are harsh; shouting “Thief!” in the street may well result in a medieval-style hue and cry, and if bystanders catch the robber there’s a good chance he’ll get beaten to death.

So far I’ve avoided serious trouble of any kind, but walking alone I know I’m taking risks. Camping alone here is always potentially dangerous, particularly doing it night after night, often by necessity in places I shouldn’t be. It would be less of a problem if I could always pitch my tent far from human settlement, but this is becoming increasingly difficult without making huge detours. Even so, two factors work to my advantage. I always arrive at places unannounced, so potential thieves don’t know when I’ll turn up (as they do with people getting off the tourist buses) and consequently have less time to think up ways of fleecing me; and many of the locals I meet are so surprised to see a white man walking alone like this that they assume I must be some kind of tough guy. My trekking poles help bolster this image: no one here has seen anything like them before, and some people assume they’re a weapon, like Matabele fighting sticks. Later I’m mistaken for a ninja.

Overall, the vast majority of people here want to help me rather than cause me problems. I’m constantly surprised in Zambia how rarely people overcharge me, which would never have been the case had I just stepped off an overland truck. It’s only in the touristy places that I get ripped off. Everywhere else, I find myself treated not so differently from the locals, or even like one of them – one bunch of young men cooking beside the road invite me to share their dinner, even though clearly they’re already living on short rations. Shopkeepers in villages and small towns often give me small gifts of food and milk when they learn of the nature of my trip.

Part of the appeal for me of travelling in this way is the very hardship and the problems it creates. Travelling in a comfortable vehicle sets you apart from the local people; the hardship of walking means at least one barrier is lowered. It’s easy to be self-righteous, but I don’t want to follow the example of rich tourists shielding themselves from every reality. Obviously when the rich tourists in question are being kind to me – as indeed they often are – I take a more charitable view of them. It’s easy to make judgements when you’re too short of money to have much choice in the matter. But even that’s only comparative. Back in England I may be a poor man; but a poor man in England and a poor man in Africa are not the same thing. At times like this it all gets very politically correct…

‘I will try!’ claims a sign outside a hut, advertising the services of a traditional African doctor. Local schools in this part of Zambia usually have signs outside proclaiming their excellence: ‘We lead, others follow’; ‘Knowledge persued [sic] is knowledge attained.’ For me, the most endearing of these mission statements is the humblest: ‘Trying to do the best for everybody.’ Zambian buses display more strident messages painted on their sides: ‘No retreat! No surrender!’ or ‘We have the eyes of an eagle!’ One reads: ‘How am I driving?’ – presumably a rhetorical question, as no one has spray-painted some witty reply beneath it. On the back of the same bus is the message: ‘I believe in God!’, which is just as well in this case. The strangest of all reads simply: ‘Your nigger!’ – either intended as self-deprecation or possibly an inflammatory remark aimed at people travelling with rival bus companies.

Around 190km after leaving Livingstone I reach the small market town of Choma. I chat with the Indian owner of a garage shop, who tells me the road from Lusaka to the Malawi border is swarming with bandits. While I suspect he’s exaggerating, I’ll still have to be careful. He also says there’s a lot of game on the road I’ve just come along, including lions, who obviously keep a low profile during daylight hours.

A more immediate problem on the road to Lusaka is that of blisters: my feet have somehow turned utterly wimpy during the rest in Livingstone. My right foot is particularly painful, and towards the end of each day’s walking feels like it’s squishing around on a bunch of overripe grapes. Whenever my blisters burst spontaneously on the road my socks are suddenly soaking wet. Blisters on my heels tend to be more incapacitating than those on my toes, especially since I’m usually wearing sandals. The worst blisters are those under hard skin, as it’s almost impossible to do anything about them. Each night in my tent I burst my prize blisters, an operation usually leaving a wet patch the size of a saucer on my groundsheet.

Experts on the subject recommend immediate action the moment you even suspect a blister might be forming; in theory this is good advice, but so far I’ve found it better not to spend too much time inspecting the damage; in any case, the sight would only upset me. Galton’s advice on the subject ranges from soaping the inside of the stocking before setting out, to changing socks to the other foot, or even to breaking a raw egg into a boot before putting it on. But apart from using sticking plasters, I let my feet sort out their own problems even if this approach brings its share of grief all the way to the Malawi border.

The nights I spend in African woods are filled with pops and cracks as dead branches fall to earth, tortured creaks and groans punctuated by the occasional pistol shot when a bigger branch parts company with the tree. Each night I have to check that no large branches are directly above my tent, even apparently healthy-looking ones. Yet African woods and forests are enchanting places to sleep. Many Africans consider them the home of spirits, often evil, from demons and ogres to malevolent ghosts. Familiarity allows me to ignore the cracking of dead branches and the noise of insects; the woods at night are often as quiet as a churchyard. But on a few evenings the wind howls through the woods like a living thing, which of course it is. I find the roaring hiss of wind through trees strangely soothing.

Less soothing is the local farmers’ habit of burning the long grass in their fields, especially alarming after dark. Some nights I’m on the point of going to sleep when I hear the distinctive crackle of flames only a couple of hundred metres away, a truly horrible sound. When I’m dead tired at the end of the day and already in my sleeping bag, the thought of having to get up again to pack my tent and gear in the dark before moving to safer ground is soul-destroying: the prospect of getting burnt to death where I lie seems only marginally worse. Fortunately I never have to move.

A casual observer might think this periodic burning a haphazard process – and accidents do happen from time to time, with perfectly sound villages reduced to ashes. But there’s wisdom behind the process. Many trees and shrubs here are long accustomed to frequent fires from natural causes such as lightning, and they’ve ingeniously adapted. After the old dead grass perishes in the flames, new flowers and seeds quickly appear, taking advantage of the greater space and available rainfall, and the field then flourishes. But while this may suit Mother Nature’s plans for the Zambian countryside, it’s really pissing me off – whenever I camp in a recently burnt field I’m black with soot by the time I climb into my sleeping bag. If this goes on for much longer I’ll reach Lusaka looking like an itinerant chimney sweep.

“You look like Neil Armstrong!”

This observation comes from a friendly middle-aged man in a village restaurant just outside Pemba. Not entirely understanding the remark, I take it as a compliment.

“You have come here to see how poor we are?” the guy continues without a trace of self-pity, his eyes twinkling as he dunks a handful of maize porridge into his watery-looking bean stew. Then he notices my trekking poles: “You are in training for some competition? Perhaps you are a skier?”

Around this time I lose my bush hat, a disaster to rival running out of sticking plasters. I console myself with the thought that it did make me look ridiculously gung-ho. Unfortunately several days without a hat leave my face the colour of new English bricks. A nice Indian guy in a general store at the village of Monze gives me a piece of material for a bandanna. This material is too thick for the job, and covered in pictures of BMX bikers; when I wrap it around my head it looks and feels like a tea cosy. But it’s better than nothing, and will have to suffice until I reach Lusaka.

I start acquiring a taste for the local beer, Chibuku. Brewed from maize and millet, it’s also known as ‘Shake Shake’ – before quaffing it you’re supposed to agitate its pale-brown murky contents into something palatable. It’s sold in one-litre cardboard cartons, appropriately known in Zimbabwe as ‘scuds’. In taste it’s slightly acidic, and in texture more like kefir than normal beer. Westerners often find it disgusting, but I become rather fond of it. It’s popular in all the African countries I cross, and most towns and villages have special bars that serve nothing else. Its strength varies; sometimes it gets you pissed remarkably quickly, at other times you could sink ten litres with impunity, although you’d be sick anyway if you did that. The small brown chewy bits floating in its murk are the sort of thing English food manufacturers add to their wholefood ranges to suggest rustic charm; on one occasion I get halfway through a carton before finding a drowned false eyelash.

The first time I buy a Chibuku the cartons are swelling in the heat to the point of explosion, although the man selling it has carefully packed bottles of Coca-Cola and Fanta in cooler boxes under his stall. Naïvely, I ask if he has a cold Chibuku for sale. He gives me a funny look, followed by an anxious whispered conversation with his friend. Later I realise that asking for a cold Chibuku is like an English wino buying a bottle of meths at a hardware store asking the shopkeeper if there’s a cold one out the back.

I may be drinking too much, but at least I’m managing to keep off the cigarettes temporarily, which is just as well as the local brands are as rough as sawdust. The non-smoking Livingstone noticed the same thing: “The Batoka tobacco is famed in the country for its strength, and it certainly is both very strong and very cheap: a few strings of beads will purchase enough to last any reasonable man for six months. It caused headache in the only smoker of our party, from its strength, but this quality makes the natives come great distances to buy it.” Significantly, the region today still suffers a high incidence of lung cancer.

I reach the outskirts of Mazabuka, a small farming town surrounded by sugar plantations. I’m so tired that a field of sugar cane seems as good a place as any to sleep. But although the sugar plants stand several metres tall, I still find it difficult to find somewhere out of sight. To draw less attention to myself I try for once to get to sleep without bothering with a tent; within minutes the seething cloud of mosquitoes is so unbearable that I have to get up and pitch my tent anyway.
The following morning I spend ages trying to get served at Mazabuka post office. When the postmaster finally appears behind the counter he’s a little strange. “We’re not serving the public today,” he tells me in a confidential whisper. “We’re waiting for a bus.” I can think of no logical interpretation of what he just said – unless he’s working out his notice, having been sacked for being mad. I hope his bus arrives for him before the van does.

On a more practical level I simply must rest for a day; since leaving Livingstone I’ve walked around 350km without a break. Unfortunately the only guesthouse I can find is a horrible run-down slob of a building. While council rest houses in Zambia are reasonably cheap, they’re gloomy places and so noisy that rest is the last thing you get for your money. A roof and a bed are all I need, but there’s something about these places oppressive to the human spirit. The room here is dismal and stinky – an en suite toilet sounds fine in theory, but in a cheap African guesthouse the reality is awful. The overall impression of crumbling decay is encouraged by the rats and mice scurrying above the ceiling, playing some game with a chase theme. And the walls are painted in horrible colours, murky blues and sludgy browns; whoever chose this colour scheme must have been on some form of medication at the time.

I’m also feeling very unwell; more accurately, I feel dreadful, as though I’ve been put through a giant mangle. I can’t even breathe properly. I wish I was still smoking, so I could give up and feel better. I spend the day lying in bed moaning like a sick cow, and the next morning I still feel ill and exhausted. But this guesthouse is so depressing I decide to carry on anyway, so I continue east.

Whenever I camp near any settlement I’m woken in the middle of the night by cocks crowing; obviously no one has explained to them that they’re not supposed to start until just before dawn. Similarly, late-night drumming is popular at almost every village I pass. With these two factors combined I’ve no idea how anyone ever gets any sleep. Livingstone remarked of the natives on the Tamba river: “some thrum a musical instrument the livelong day, and, when they wake at night, proceed at once to their musical performance”.

The night after Mazabuka I camp next to the railway track. In the dark the trains seem about to thunder right over me, and they’re loud, like Thor driving home after a good night out, and the earth trembles. As one train passes it gives a terrific hoot, like an inexpert blast on an alpine horn. I can hear drums from a couple of tiny villages a few hundred metres away; before long I’m convinced their rhythms are deliberately mimicking the sound of a train, which makes a weird kind of sense; or maybe I’m just tired. Every African village has at least one drum, and they’re often surrounded by ritual. The spirit of the tree from which the drum is made lives on in the finished instrument, and the sound the drum makes is the voice of the spirit. When dancers become completely involved in the rhythm of the dance, the drum’s spirit has entered them and the spirit itself dances.

In the morning I wake to find I’ve been sleeping on top of some big hairy caterpillars who somehow sneaked into my tent while I was putting it up. My back and arms have come out in an itchy stinging rash, like War and Peace written in braille, which I can only put down to the caterpillar hairs. After walking for an hour or two I discover yet another giant caterpillar squashed against my back, and we part company immediately.

By midday I reach the town of Kafue. The overhead sun is intense; even the street market traders lie snoozing in the shade beside their stalls, reclining in wheelbarrows. It strikes me that if a stallholder wanted to eliminate the competition he could remove sleeping rivals by simply trundling them away in their own wheelbarrows. Arriving everywhere unannounced like this is for me one of the joys of travelling alone; my sudden appearance at Kafue causes barely a raised eyebrow from the shady depths of the vendors’ wheelbarrows. Had I arrived in a tourist bus the scene would have changed to pandemonium, every trader pouncing on me to sell me their woodcarvings, everything from tiny masks to giraffes only slightly smaller than life-size.
I’m now halfway across Africa.

To continue east I have to pass through Lusaka, but I’ve no great desire to stop here – much as I like reaching towns and cities, I can’t justify another rest break so soon after the last. Lusaka is one of Africa’s fastest-growing capitals, sprawling over 70km2. It’s home to around 2.5 million people, the recent population explosion caused mainly by the hundreds of Zambians arriving daily from the countryside in search of a better life. Whether they find it or not is open to doubt; over sixty per cent of Lusaka’s inhabitants are unemployed, and many journeys here end in a life of poverty in the city’s growing shanty towns – a general drift from the countryside to the capital has turned in recent years into an unstoppable flood. The city has a reputation as an excellent place to get mugged or else to take part in a riot – the overcrowding and poverty here mean that crime is higher than in other parts of the country.

Just outside the centre a wealthy-looking black woman stops her 4WD. “You mustn’t go into Lusaka,” she insists breathlessly. “There’s rioting all the way down the Chachacha Road … they’re a lot of savages!”

I can’t face making a huge detour around the city, at least not until someone confirms her report or I hear screams and shouts dead ahead. If the worst comes to the worst and I become involved in a riot, I can always abandon my rucksack and run off myself in the opposite direction. But I suspect that once again Zambia has had an unfairly bad press, and that most of the people in Lusaka are as friendly and law-abiding as anywhere else.

As it turns out, instead of violence and disorder I find Lusaka extraordinarily busy, crowded and vibrant even by African standards – compared to any other African town I’ve passed through on the journey, it’s full of frenetic energy, a world apart from quiet, reserved places like Windhoek or Swakopmund. The impression is heightened by the peace and quiet of months on the road – but despite the warnings there are no flying missiles today, or people breaking one another’s heads. I walk right through the city, from the desperately poor outskirts, past the rich modern shopping malls of the centre and back through the shanty towns on the other side. In all this time I don’t see anything that could be described as rioting, apart from a couple of kids fighting over a game of marbles in the dusty street.

As I leave Lusaka’s eastern outskirts, I wash my face in a garage toilet and see my reflection properly for the first time since leaving Victoria Falls. It strikes me that apart from excruciating blisters the main problems I’m encountering at this stage of the journey are cosmetic rather than life-threatening. Walking east day after day in the southern hemisphere can leave a white-skinned person looking slightly odd. Most of the time the sun is to my left, which has resulted in a very curious suntan: the left side of my face has turned dark but the right side has remained comparatively pale and pasty. If this process continues I’ll reach the Indian Ocean looking decidedly With The Beatles.