Luanshya Travel Guide

  A Flamboyant tree on the way to the Mine...
by Bwana_Brown
 
  • A Flamboyant tree on the way to the Mine Club
      A Flamboyant tree on the way to the Mine...
    by Bwana_Brown
  • Luanshya Pirates - 1973/74 Zambian Softball Champs
      Luanshya Pirates - 1973/74 Zambian...
    by Bwana_Brown
  • Luanshya fans visit Kabwe
      Luanshya fans visit Kabwe
    by Bwana_Brown
  • Looking from one tailings dam to another
      Looking from one tailings dam to another
    by Bwana_Brown
  • At our wedding reception
      At our wedding reception
    by Bwana_Brown
 

Explore Luanshya

Things to Do  

Get Married?

Get Married?, Luanshya

 Bwana_Brown Says:  Frankly, I never knew what hit me! I met Sue one Saturday night at a dance in the Horticultural Club (yes, I was getting desperate to spend Saturday night at a 'flower' place!) and that was that! We seemed to hit it off immediately and just wanted to be together from that... 

Go out with the Boys

Go out with the Boys, Luanshya

 Bwana_Brown Says:  It was great having these volunteers pouring into Luanshya from all over the world! Not long after I arrived, big Torben Peterson arrived from Denmark - a guy who did not say much (just my type!). I happened to be going on a driving expedition through the Congo to northern... 

Enjoy the Foliage

Enjoy the Foliage, Luanshya

 Bwana_Brown Says:  No question that Luanshya was the prettiest little town that I have ever lived in. As a former British colony, everything was done up properly! The numerical Streets ran one way and the Avenues the other, with all the Avenues being named after foliage of one kind or another... 

Dag Hammarskjöld Memorial

Dag Hammarskjöld Memorial, Luanshya

 Bwana_Brown Says:  Swedish diplomat Dag Hammarskjold was Secretary General of the United Nations between 1953-61, during the very peak of the Cold War years. Events taking place just a few miles from Luanshya were to have far-reaching consequences for him when the Congo (Zaire in my time)... 

Wide downtown streets

Wide downtown streets, Luanshya

 Bwana_Brown Says:  I liked the layout of Luanshya's wide and treed streets, they shaded you from the hot sun and there were lots of free parking spaces. On the corner where the two main banks were located (Standard Bank and Barclays Bank), beautifully-blossomed Jacaranda trees grew as shown... 

Makoma Dam

Makoma Dam, Luanshya

 Bwana_Brown Says:  One of the main weekend attractions in Luanshya was Makoma Dam, a great little man-made resort just a few miles out of town. A side benefit of one of the 'tailings dams' required as part of the copper mine refining process, the resulting small lake was one of the main social... 

Restaurants  

At home in my flat: Try some local Nshima

At home in my flat: Try some local Nshima, Luanshya

 Bwana_Brown Says:  One of the great things about having my household helper James prepare my meals was that I got to sample how the local Zambians ate. Here (in my local 'chitenge' shirt), I've returned home for a simple lunch called 'nshima', prepared by James . This is a traditional Zambian... 

Nightlife  

Rugby Club or African bars: Plenty of bars and dances

Rugby Club or African bars: Plenty of bars and dances, Luanshya

 Bwana_Brown Says:  Luanshya was quite well stocked with places to go for evening entertainment. With it being a mining town, the company had made sure there were lots of amenities to keep its hundreds of contract workers happy. They built first-class facilities including the Rugby Club, Golf... 

Transportation  

Peugeot 204 Station Wagon

Peugeot 204 Station Wagon, Luanshya

 Bwana_Brown Says:  Very shortly after arriving in Zambia, I scouted around Luanshya for a used car that I could afford to buy on my meagre 'Volunteer' salary (it had helped that, while waiting for my Zambia departure date, I was able to return to my old Canadian summer job for for about 3... 

Local Customs  

Help around my Flat

Help around my Flat, Luanshya

 Bwana_Brown Says:  On my arrival in Zambia, I was not used to the fact that having one of the locals to help around the house or in the 'garden' (outside) was a fact of life. Zambia became independent 8 years before I arrived on the scene, yet I kept getting various people knocking on my front... 

My dog 'Waldo'

My dog 'Waldo', Luanshya

 Bwana_Brown Says:  Waldo was my faithful companion for almost 2 years in Luanshya. The first I saw of him was in a nightime tropical downpour not long after I arrived, whimpering at the door of my ground-level flat on the Zambia Institute of Technology campus. After feeding him, I let him... 

Warnings Or Dangers  

Liberation Movements?

Liberation Movements?, Luanshya

 Bwana_Brown Says:  The early 1970s were not a peaceful time in Central Africa. The white settlers in Zambia's (which was formerly called Northern Rhodesia) sister colony of Southern Rhodesia decided to buck Africa's trend of black-rule by declaring unilateral independence from Britain in 1965... 

Serious Break-in

Serious Break-in, Luanshya

 sroberts71 Says:  As a young child I lived in Luanshya with my family. Like Bwana Brown's story of a break-in, we had also been warned to keep the German Shepherd dogs shut in the kitchen to avoid them eating poisoned meat. One night, my mother woke up thinking that she had heard a sawing... 

Dynus saved us

Dynus saved us, Luanshya

 Bwana_Brown Says:  As I looked out at the robbers, I thought: "they know we are home, one has been chased out, phone does not work, no neighbours across the street - and yet these guys refuse to leave". A few seconds after processing this, I concluded that I was going to have to go out and... 

Off The Beaten Path  

Copper Mining

Copper Mining, Luanshya

 Bwana_Brown Says:  Luanshya was home to the Roan Antelope Mine, where copper was first discovered in Central Africa, leading to the development of major mines in both Zambia and the Congo (Zaire). The mine got its name because of a hunter who took a shot at a Roan Antelope in the 1920s, but... 

Zambia Institute of Technology

Zambia Institute of Technology, Luanshya

 Bwana_Brown Says:  The Zambia Institute of Technology campus located in Luanshya was the one place in the country where those not attending the University of Zambia (Lusaka) could receive an education in various technical trades, including electricity. I arrived here fresh from 5-years... 

Tailings Dams

Tailings Dams, Luanshya

 Bwana_Brown Says:  In the processing of copper ore to get at the minerals in it, water is added to the material brought up from the mines. Once the slurry has passed through the concentrator, the leftover watery mixture becomes waste and these 'tailings' are usually stored on the surface... 

Campus Life

Campus Life, Luanshya

 Bwana_Brown Says:  The Zambia Institute of Technology had been set up with financial help through the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) and a few of the staff members were Canadians being paid directly from Canada by CIDA (Mr. Price, and his wife at the left, was a major player... 

Sports & Outdoors  

Zambian Fast-pitch Softball Champions

Zambian Fast-pitch Softball Champions, Luanshya

 Bwana_Brown Says:  In the Copperbelt area of Zambia, softball was a big sport in the early 1970s. Teams competed from the various mining towns (Kitwe, Ndola, Chingola, Mufilira, Chililibomwe, Chibuluma and, of course, Luanshya with even a distant team from Lusaka taking a stab at it!). The... 

Tennis

Tennis, Luanshya

 Bwana_Brown Says:  As a member of the Luanshya, Zambia tennis club team, I took part in a 1973 tournament with a Zairean club located about 160 miles west of Lubumbashi (Elizabethville) in Kolwezi. I was very well looked after by my Belgian host (shown here) who worked at the copper mines in... 

The Place

Plan a Luanshya vacation with reviews, tips and photos posted by real travelers and Luanshya locals

Experience Luanshya
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The People

 
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 One of the great things about having my household helper James prepare my meals was that I got to sample how the local Zambians ate. Here (in my local... 

 

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Luanshya - what a beautiful town it was!

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 Luanshya, what can I say about this little mining town in the middle of nowhere in Zambia, Africa!? At 23 years old, I was invincible and had just graduated from university and suddenly here I was in... 

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