Getting Around Luapula Province

A strange piece of Zaire (Congo), called the Pedicle, sticks down into the middle of Zambia. This odd-looking bit of land came about as a result of the Belgian owners of the Congo realizing before the British did that valuable copper and cobalt minerals lay buried there. During negotiations over the Congo/Zambia (Northern Rhodesia at the time) border they managed to pull a fast one so they had mining access to these valuable resources. As a result of this strange border quirk, when travelling between Northern Province and the industrialized Copperbelt area of Kitwe/Ndola, the shortest way was to cut across the Pedicle.

Since the Luapula River (a tributary of the mighty Congo River) marks the boundary along one side of this anomaly, it required the use of a local ferry service to travel this route. Most of the traffic was by the locals, since Zambia was not a big tourist destination back in 1974. Although the border formalities in Zaire were always a bit of a nuisance (my rusty French from distant school days came in handy at times), it was always interesting to see what things were like as we passed through this infrequently visited country! The river here has since been bridged, so the ferries are no more.