Saturday, January 31, 2009

it's gone too far

So in case you didn't know I'm having a war with Apple products in Namibia. I'm not winning by any means. The final attack happened this week as my new (just a year old) computer (which has already been to the shop like 6 times) died. Just died. For no reason. Just won't turn on. You win Apple, you win. I'm tired of trying to sell how great Apple products are to Namibians, you have now destroyed my hope and faith in Macintosh. I'm still in shock. It's ridiculous, I've done nothing in my past life to electronics or Apples to justfy this behavior. I'm a Peace Corps volunteer for goodness sakes, I'm trying to help fight poverty and AIDS, I'm a good person, what the hell?

Dear Macintosh,

You suck.

Seriously annoyed Peace Corps Volunteer,
Dar

Saturday, January 24, 2009

favorite Obama related smses from coworkers...

1. Amanda I trusted you. How could you do this to me? I thought you would keep the secret but now everyone knows that Obama is my uncle!

2. Obama won, you can come back to work now.

3. Today we learned what Obama actually means: O-Originally B-Born In A-Africa to M-Manage A-americans.

Friday, January 23, 2009

Very Namibian

So I offer computer literacy/education for anyone who wants it. So far many people just talk about it and no one actually sits down for lessons, ok well one has. After I got a new computer everyone started asking about their lessons again. I responded, "Yeah I'm available you just tell me when you want to do it." After settling on a start date with one of my coworkers I asked ok, well what do you know how to do and what do you want to be able to do? His response, "I know how to turn my computer on and all I need or want to know is how do I open up the games and play cards." I'm sure I can teach you that and more but I was so surprised by your honesty. Thanks again friend and I hope I can continue to teach people I work with how to win at Free Cell (completely sarcastic).

Thursday, January 22, 2009

The Return: Home sweet home!

Who knew I'd be so happy to hear people talking in clicks, it's the greatest sound to me ears. I’ve been home for a week and gosh as if I needed to fall in love with Outjo all over again everyday has just reminded me why I’m so happy here. It’s rainy season and the idea of our new hospital (which is like 4 feet off the ground) flooding is really entertaining, my co-workers are taking photos. It is quite odd but then again Outjo is getting crazy rain this year so who knows what will happen. I just need to keep the rain out of my office because I have a brand new computer. The Spanish NGO, Medico del Mundo (which funds most of our HIV/AIDS projects) donated a brand new computer to my “department” so I can actually do the job I’m suppose to be doing rather than using spray paint and markers to make health education materials, thanks MDM! The rains also mean that Outjo is green, oh so beautiful. I had almost forgot that during rainy season it actually looks like what I had expected Africa to look like, lush green rolling hills, not the desert that it is. Sadly my walks have stopped as I have no desire to be bitten by a snake in a country that has like an indefinite back order for anti-venom, warning to all travelers : ) Yesterday I just ran in the puddles with the kids at the nearby school hostel, gosh I forgot how much fun that is. So vacation is over, work has started. Although I’m loving my new love affair with Outjo I’m forced to stay inside and make STD pamphlets from 8-5, eh, I guess I didn’t sign up for a two year vacation anyways, right?

African Overland Holiday...Part IV

Conclusion: Zambia again “Problems? Eh bring ‘em on!”

As promised the “new” booking agent takes us across the border at 8am. We arrive to another empty bus and just sleep. Luckily we do have Zambian kwacha so we can get food at this border town. We know we have hours until we leave so we take our time cruising the strip (the only road) and making friends with volunteers from different countries who survived the ride from Dar last night. We wait until about 4pm and our bus finally takes off, the first of the fleet of buses heading to Lusaka. Our driver is awesome, fast but safe. He is however in a weird race for first to Lusaka, do they get medals for first of the day? It’s really odd that for being in such a rush he makes frequent long stops at every little village store we pass. The best was at one point another bus passes our parked bus while he’s enjoying a coke, he drops the coke and makes a mad dash for the bus. Everyone else runs on the bus because well we know he’d leave us if it meant coming in second.

Somewhere outside of Kapri Mposhi (sorry don’t have a travel book near me to check the spelling) we run out of gas. Yes, we had been driving for like 10 hours and no we never got gas but I guess the driver just thought we’d make it, silly. Everyone else (Zambians and my friends) are upset and outraged, I just laughed and used this non-moving time to sleep. I figured well someone will walk to get gas or we’ll just wait for the bus tomorrow to pass through, I mean really after everything we’d been through this was really “no problem.” We were after all still alive and safe so I could really care less. An hour or two later our bus was moving again. I can’t really say what happened as I was sleeping but we were just 200km away from Lusaka, I could almost taste the freedom (what am I talking about).

We had no other transport problems, we made it to Lusaka and I left my stuff with my friends and ran to get us tickets for the only reliable bus to Livingstone, it was leaving in 30 minutes, perfect. In Livingstone we found Intercape tickets back to Namibia. Originally I was going to free hike this, partly because I didn’t want to spend money for something I can do for free and because I like meeting people when you are hiking. After the last month I just dreamed of the Intercape that would take me back to Namibian soil where things don’t make sense most of the time and every car ride is a death sentence but it’s what I know. It’s where I feel comfortable to jump out of a car if it’s too dangerous or demand a driver to slow down. It’s home.

I literally kissed the ground when we crossed the border. I’m weird I know and really in all my travels I never thought I would end up feeling the way I felt after this trip. I mean I love to travel, I love it. But after this trip I just thought about returning to Outjo and never leaving until I return to America (not realistic at all, I have friends coming to visit in like three weeks). Maybe next time I’ll try booking one of those expensive, worry-free safari type of trips, maybe that’s the kind of travel I’m becoming.

African Overland Holiday...Part III

Third Time’s a Charm: Tanzania – “Hakuna Matata”

We are walking through all the money exchangers, hoping to catch a glimpse of this bus. The sun has set and it’s getting dark quicker than we were expecting. Finally the booking agent points, ah see there it is. Well, he was right, it was there waiting for us just as he had promised, no problem, no problem. As we approach I begin asking, “where are all the people and when is it leaving?” The agent kinda avoids the questions and leads us on the minibus, the empty minibus. Wait, when is this leaving? The agent chuckles, “Oh, no buses are not allowed to drive at night in Tanzania, this bus isn’t leaving until the morning.” What? Morning? It’s 7:30pm, you’ve got to be kidding me! So, where are we supposed to sleep or stay until it leaves? The driver points to the bus (like a game show presenter), “here, this is where you can sleep, no problem, no problem.” Oh, sir we have a very big problem.

It’s pitch dark outside and to make it even darker there is no electricity in the village tonight. Everyone watched the white people walk on this bus and have begun to gather to “visit” with us. As we are trying to explain to the agent how we CANNOT possibly stay here, men a jumping on the bus to proclaim their love for us, others are trying to sell random goods, ugh, this is kinda a nightmare (still thousand times better than if we hadn’t crossed the border). Smash tries to explain how it’s not safe for us to stay here, the agent returns with an 80 year old security guard who can barely see. The guard waves and points to the darken shack he’ll be sitting at; this doesn’t make any of us feel better.

After awhile the agent shares that there are some other accommodations available. JNaw and myself go and check out these accommodations and well lets be honest anything was better than the unsafe minibus. Happily we give our 2USD each for our rooms and with no money, nothing to eat except some old moldy-ant infested bread (not kidding) and peanut butter we decide it’s best to just take a shower and go to bed, this day is finally over and we are still alive. At this point we are certain we won’t make it to the airport to meet our friend but there’s not much we can do. We have NO money, local currency or other and we’ve already paid for our tickets so we just have to take the ride and pray we’ll get there.

The minibus doesn’t leave until 10 or so, it’s a 14-hour bus ride so it’s confirmed, we are not making it to the airport. The first two hours of our trip the driver doesn’t go past 40kph, seriously. At this rate we will never get to Dar. Once we finally arrive in Mbeya the driver and another guy begin to argue. The guy jumps into the bus and takes the keys out and runs off, of course, it’s kinda expected at this point. An hour later the guy returns, he’s now our driver and we continue with our trip. This guy is determined to make up for lost time and we are flying through Tanzania, we might just make it to Dar after all.

The scenery is amazing. Classic Africa and like Namibia each turn or hill provides another completely different view. As we are going through this wonderful canyon I can’t help but think gosh I’m glad I didn’t fly over all this. But, somewhere along the trip our fast but sensible driver disappears and we are left another reckless trip. I mean we are in a canyon, cliffs on both sides of the road and this man decides that passing 3 semi-trucks in a row on a turn is a great idea. As the hours pass it only gets worse. I luckily can’t see anything because so many extra people have got on our bus that I have two ladies kinda on my lap and a man’s behind next to my face, nope can’t see the road that’s for sure. Smash is right behind the driver and doesn’t have the blind is bliss opportunity that I have. I begin to attempt to just close my eyes but moments later we are air born. Beads yells “Well now we know what happens when we don’t slow down.” The Tanzanian roads are filled with speed bumps in and out of each village and our driver normally slams on his brakes to slow in time but not this time. Mach and I are just looking at each other in shock (both of us had our eyes closed) and sure enough we are in the air again, wow, this is just getting better and better. I look over at Smash and she’s in tears and JNaw is beside her and trying to comfort her but she’s frightened too. I put on worship music on my ipod and decide I will spend the next 3 hours in prayer, literally.

Somehow we arrive to Dar es Salaam, or at least the outskirts. We jump out of the bus when our new friend (guy sitting next to Beads during the trip) tells us to hoping he’s correct. We negotiate a taxi to the airport. At this time it’s around midnight but we figure maybe our friend either hasn’t got in yet or is just getting through customs and waiting for us. There are two people at the airport besides security, neither is our friend. We negotiate another trip with the same taxi driver to the YMCA. In case she’s following the itinerary I sent her she should think that’s where we are staying. We get to the YMCA and the guard not only won’t let us in (who can blame him it’s 1:30am roughly) but he is not really trying to help us out, like talking to us, just kind of shrugs. Well since there is nothing to do this early in the morning we ask the driver to take us to Safari Inn, we know it’s open late and we are praying they have rooms, which they do. When we get out the driver now has increased his price by 20,000 shilling, roughly 20USD. So yet another argument begins between us and someone dealing with transportation. The security guard for Safari Inn is trying to help us but really he’s not. To be honest I figure we will have to pay close to his ridiculous amount because although we agreed on a price (with a language barrier) if he’d left us at the YMCA or the airport we’d have to pay even more to get here. I lower him just a little and we all agree and I just want to sleep so I pay him and we’re off to our beds. Mach and I have an early morning ahead of us as we search for her friend.

At 8am Mach goes to check her email. Her friend is here, waiting at YMCA and terrified (wouldn’t you be if you just arrived in Africa and no one was there to meet you). We get a taxi and rush over there, Mach is crying and the driver keeps saying “no problem, no problem”, I try explaining to him what that phrase means to us by now and he’s not helping. We get to the YMCA find J and I just stand around for a few minutes as J and Mach have a very tearful reunion (what’s with our trip at tears?). We all head back to Safari Inn for breakfast and to plan what to do next.

It’s unanimous that we will be taking the slow ferry to Zanzibar. Our nice taxi driver from before walks us to the ferry and gets us VIP seats at no extra cost to us, such a nice man. We board the ferry unsure what VIP actually means in Africa. We board the ferry and make our way through the many, many people to the VIP section, just as crowded and a lot stuffier. The VIP section is suppose to have air conditioning I guess (doesn’t really work) and no windows that open, ugh it’s not great at all. As soon as the boat leaves the dock we realize the extra 15USD would have been worth it. This slow ferry feels every wave that hits it and I am overcome by extreme seasickness, we all are. J passes out some Dramamine and I pass out. Each time I attempt to wake up/get up I’m sick again so I just sleep through our entire trip. The slow ferry luckily isn’t too slow and we arrive at Zanzibar in three hours.

After the chaos of getting our bags going through customs (weird I thought we were still in Tanzania) we walk to where the “cheap” accommodations are, street touts have decided to accompany us for this journey, yea! Starving we settle in our rooms and immediately head out to look for food, a lot of food at that (we really haven’t eaten more than pieces of toast in days). We attempt to go to Mercury’s but they won’t serve food until 7, it’s 5pm…we continue looking. Finally we find this great place that has decent food for a good price and we pig out.

The next day we go on a classic Zanzibar Spice Tour. It was actually really cool. You get to see some of the island and learn a lot about spices and herbs that well I would have never really cared about but was glad to have been there. The best part about the Spice Tour was eating all the native fruits; they were DELICIOUS and well worth our 12USD. After a traditional lunch (was I eating tree bark in my rice?) we headed to a beach north of Stonetown to relax. Wow, the water was so clear that I could see 10 feet below me. The reef was amazing and home to such beautiful fish. It was exactly what I thought Zanzibar was going to be, white sand and crystal clear waters; I was finally on vacation.

That evening once we had returned some when to explore the town. Smash and I relaxed, did some laundry and did a casual stroll around the outskirts of town finding the best gelato on the island (we did check other places before arriving at this decision). We were really enjoying our peaceful afternoon stroll with ice cream, Internet and Obama sightings (his face and name are on everything). (We walked to dinner and for personal reasons I won’t go into detail but after this moment the trip/day went horrible. I won’t try to explain/justify or understand but needless to say that our entire group had a culture misunderstanding/lesson that we will never forget and unfortunately has not been forgiven.) We ate at Mercury’s whose food is sub par and atmosphere could not uplift our shaken attitudes.

The next day we got on a dalla dalla to a beach on the south eastern coast of the island called Jambiani. Dalla dallas are an amazing local experience and when in Tanzania I recommend everyone ride at least one way to their destination in one. We arrived in Jambiani without reservations on New Years Eve and decided to start at the south end of the village and just go to each accommodation and pray there is some vacancy, if not we have tents and there is lots of beach. The first five places led us to believe it was hopeless cause but a nice man pointed us to an inn that he figured would be the only place with any vacancy. It was our lucky day and I’m not sure if they actually had room but they gave us two, sorry if we took someone’s reservation. This place was perfect, cheaper than we expected and right on the beach. The only downfall would be no fresh water but we were only staying there for few days and who needs a shower when you have the ocean at your door?

I convince Beads and Smash to walk with me out to the water, its low tide so the water is like almost a mile off shore. As we are walking we realize we are not getting anywhere closer to the water yet farther away from the shore, ok it was a little farther than we all thought. Once we arrived at the water like 45 minutes later we thought it best to start heading back in case the tide comes it we don’t want to be way out here. Walking back took some skill and determination. The muddy reef like ground made it difficult to pick your feet up. Smash and I decided to go bare foot cause our flip flop straps had made our feet bleed with the many hard attempts to pull our feet out of the earth. After walking barefoot for a while Smash starts saying how her feet are really painful. I didn’t want to mention it but I was constantly stepping on something sharp. We couldn’t see anything in the mud so we kept walking. Finally it was unbearable and I start searching in the mud and find little starfish which I thought were cute until I realized that’s what we were stepping on. We didn’t have a choice but to continue to the island so we kept walking. As if Smash couldn’t regret this walk anymore we come across a large family of sea urchins. We had to make our way through the maze of sea urchins back to shore, and we did, just as the tide came in.

New Years we went to a hotel having a seafood buffet and once again made a fool of ourselves by stacking our plates, shoveling food into our mouths only to get stuffed in two minutes, so sad really. Beads, Smash and Mach stayed for the countdown but the rest of us walked home to hit the sack, tomorrow we had an early call time.

Swimming with the dolphins sounded like a great idea. Even after all I had read about how tourism has terrorized the dolphins on the southern tip of Zanzibar (yeah, I’m sure terrorized is the appropriate word) when asked if I wanted to go, I didn’t hesitate, of course. Early in the morning we headed to the southern tip to catch a motorboat to the dolphin conservatory offshore. We approach an area that already has five or so boats and we stop. Our guide informs us that there are dolphins around here. “When I see a dolphin I will get close and when I yell ‘Go” you jump in.” Unsure what he meant we agreed.

Dolphins. Our boat pulls to kind of cut the dolphin’s path and our guide yells, “Go, go, go!” Without even thinking I (ungracefully) fall into the water with my snorkel around my forehead. Beads is in with me and both of us are still unsure what we are in fact suppose to be doing. J jumps in with Mach’s chitange (cloth wrap) around her face and Mach goes in with her clothes on, we were all a little caught off guard. I fix my goggles and go under, dolphins. There were six of them at least, bigger than what I was prepared for. I attempted to swim above them as they dove deeper and deeper until I had lost sight of them. Above water the guide was yelling at us to jump back in the boat.

We get in (not quickly as it requires some skill to climb a ladder with fins) and wait to see another fin emerge from the water. In time it does and once again we are chasing after the dolphins. This time they are staying closer to the surface. Before the boat even stops I’m in the water. Beads is debating what to do when the guide yells, “Go, go, go!” Beads looks at him, “On top of them?” Yes, if we all did as our guide wanted we would be literally jumping on top of the dolphins, luckily some part in our brains was still working and none of us did it. This second jump was by far the best. I was able to swim next to wild dolphins for a good moment in time. At one point I come up for air at the same moment all 6-10 of them come up for air. I was literally an arms length away and when I realized this I was overcome with fear. What am I doing this close to a wild animal, even if it’s a dolphin, this doesn’t seem smart. Rather than try to grab on to the dolphins as our guide would like us to do I just sit there starring at them, wow, amazing. I’m not sure what I was thinking a dolphin looked like but from that distance I was just amazed. I was only distracted when I looked up and noticed another boat taking photos of the dolphins and me, haha I had to pose right? We (the dolphins and I) dive back into the water and I swim with them until they were out of sight again. I realize only now that I’m further from the boats than I expected. The swimmer in me kicked as hard as I could to keep up with the dolphins forgetting all else. When the boat gets me I once again ungracefully board. The guide tells me “Oh, you are a fast one, you swim with the dolphins.” Is this what they meant my swimming? Ok. J and Beads are discussing the large amount of jellyfish they saw on the last jump. Great, now instead of the dolphins on my mind I’m going to be thinking about jellyfish. We go for 1.5 more jumps, the .5 alluding to the time our guide yelled go and only J jumped in the water (I wasn’t jumping in if I didn’t at least see a fin). The last jump I have one eye on the dolphins and one eye on the water ahead of me, scanning for jellyfish. Although I once again “swam” with the dolphins I couldn’t enjoy it as I was more afraid of getting stung.

We start the trip back to the island, seasickness now overcoming all of us. When we get close to shore the boat stops and we go snorkeling for not nearly as long and we would’ve liked. I still can’t believe how clear the water was and that even in low tide there was such an abundance of things to see. I had two favorites, one the huge bright blue starfish, they were real cool and the second were these thin fish that looked like eels but super thin. These fish were hard to see, as they were kinda transparent or like a light blue but they were paper-thin. I kept trying to show Mach but there would never be anything there when she looked. Beads finally saw some so at least I know I wasn’t crazy.

That night we went to a near by place that we knew had cheap and delicious pasta. We ordered and expected a long wait even though we were the restaurants only customers (probably all day). Two hours later our food finally arrives, I’m not making this up. We think they had to go and buy the food and then find some women to cook the food. I’m guessing this is pretty accurate based on the fact that these new women were all of the sudden in the kitchen and our food came shortly after. JNaw is served chicken and chips, she is served an entire chicken, like with the head still attached. I can’t go into details about what happened next just that it was the funniest dinner we had the entire trip, Beads and I were crying for at least 15 minutes we were laughing so hard. It’s safe to say that all our cultural appropriateness that we’ve learned after being in Africa for a year when right out the window, it was a bad day for Americans, but it was hilarious.

The next day we waited for the dalla dalla and half the village’s children sat beside us. This little boy kept rubbing his penis and trying to touch Beads, without really knowing that others might not want to touch his hands. Beads finally turns to the kid (who knows no English) and says, “no I don’t want your penis hands rubbing me.” Haha, we had a lot of good one-liners on this trip.

Back in Stonetown we get ferry tickets, the fast ferry this time and go to the best gelato place to eat. I pigged out and it was totally worth the money I spent! We ran into other PCVs from our group who were doing the same trip as us, more or less and they had decided to fly back to Namibia. They had just as difficult of a journey getting to Tanzania and had no intention of seeing what the return trip offered. I went to the internet cafĂ© and checked what tickets were that day and well I couldn’t part with 700USD or N$7000 (that’s more than I make in a quarter pay period) so return trip here we come.

When we arrived in Dar we checked into the YMCA and four of us attempted to find tickets to Lusaka. We had decided to cut our trip short and rather than heading north to Arusha the next day just decided to get home. Scandinavian Express sadly no longer went to Lusaka (it was the only bus company I trusted in Tanzania) so we went to the Ubongo bus station to see what we could find. Just as expected it was chaos and some booker gave us tickets even though I had a sense of de javu I knew we had to get out of Tanzania somehow.

The morning we were leaving the YMCA we had all forgot to tell reception that we would be leaving at 6am, oops. I jumped the fence/stair case and went to get the guard. He seemed very surprise to see me. After getting the rest of my friends out and into a taxi, we were a little snug in one, we headed to the bus station. Our taxi driver was really kind and tried to help us find our bus or the bus that would be taking us since our bus wasn’t actually showing up today, naturally. We got on the bus and prayed it would leave semi-on time, not kill us and somehow get us to the Zambia border. Most of the ride was fine. He was a fast driver but not crazy or reckless. We seemed to be making good time and might even make it to the border before it closes, I didn’t want to think about what happened if we didn’t make it again. This driver although safer did not have the keen knowledge about where each pot hole was on Tanzanian roads as our other one did, it was well a bumpy ride.

10-12 hours later we arrive in Mbeya. Whew, the hard part of the journey is done. We just had like 200km to go and it was still early, this was all very promising. After taking the scenic tour through Mbeya and stopping every few seconds we depart Mbeya as the sun has set, ok, don’t freak out yet, you are still ok. This is when the driver becomes another person, another person that I fear I’ve seen just days before, a crazy, reckless Tanzanian driver. He’s booking it, I mean I have no doubt the border will still be open at the rate he’s going. He’s trying to be the first bus from Dar to reach the border (there’s like 14 other buses he’s competing with). We come to a part in the road where six or so semi-trucks are pulled over on the side of the road, weird, but they all are waving us by so without breaking we continue on. BREAKS!!!! A semi-truck is flipped on its side in the middle of the road. Blocking both lanes and well there’s no shoulder. At one side of the road is a cliff, a big one and the other side is a mountain. Without even asking if people want to get out or plummet to their death the driver decides to driver around the truck. People are on the cliff throwing rocks under our tires and attempting to give us something to drive on. Holy crap. If we would have had a second to think I would have been out the window in no time. Instead the entire bus jumps to the driver’s side so that we don’t tumble down the cliff. Beads and Smash figured if they were going to die they’d want to see it so they looked down the cliff as we pass. Tires slipping. I’m sweating profusely just now recalling the story. I grab JNaw’s arm as if I could pull her higher on my side of the bus and that would prevent us from falling. We hold our breath and the 10-20 second nightmare is over. We made it. The only other driver to get around that truck jumps out and gives our driver a high-five. All of us settle back into our seats, speechless and just look at each other. Did that really just happen? Then all the stuff we had wanted to say in those 20 or so seconds just comes out and we are all in shock that we just survived that. I mean it was “seeing your life face before your eyes” close to death. Holy crap. For the remainder of our travel to the border I’m basically in tears. Not only is he now driving reckless I know how far he will go to get us to our destination (dead or alive?) and that terrifies me. I just spend the rest of the time in prayer and silent tears. I want to go home, I want Namibia.

We get to the border, shocker it’s closed. We are once again fighting off taxi drivers (not sure where they think they’ll be driving us to) while wadding through the mud, did I mention it’s still rainy season. Finally the “new” booking agent asks us what kind of accommodation do we want him to find us. We all yell “CHEAP.” He shows us the cheapest place that has room, luckily, only we don’t have enough money, haha. We thought we were going to be on a bus traveling thru Zambia at this moment we had very little shilling left. We scramble, count coins and realize we have barely enough, if they give us a nice discount. They do and so we finally have a bed, no shower, no water, no food and a squatty potty, oh Namibia how I miss thee. I fall asleep to the office on my ipod, dreaming of simpler times. Times where all I wanted to do was to be a doctor-in America, ugh that seems so far away from where I am in this crap border town hotel room. Well at least I know I’m crossing the border in the morning and Zambia is a country I understand and am ready for, and it’s the last stop until I’m home.

Sunday, January 18, 2009

Transportation Summary: anyone jealous of this?

Bus: 9
Rundu to Livingstone
Livingstone to Lusaka
Lusaka to Chipata
Dwangwe to Nkata Bay
Nkata Bay to Mzuzu
Dar es Salaam to Tanzanian border
Zambian border to Lusaka
Lusaka to Livingstone
Livingstone to Rundu

Taxis: who's to say really?
Around Lusaka
Chipata to Zambian border
Malwaian border to Mchinji
Ubongo bus station to Dar airport, to YMCA to Safari Inn
Around Dar es Salaam
YMCA to Ubongo bus station

Minibus: 3
Mchinji to Lilongwe
Salima to Nkotakota
Tanzanian border to Dar es Salaam

Minivan/combi: 6
Lilongwe to Salima
Salima to Senga Bay
Senga Bay to Salima
Nkotakota to Dwangwe
Mzuzu to Karonga to Malawian border
Zanzibar spice tour

Dalla dalla: 2
Stonestown to Jambiani
Jambian to Stonestown

Ferry: 2
Dar es Salaam to Stonestown
Stonestown to Dar es Salaam

Bicycle Taxi: 2
Around Salima
Around Mzuzu

African Overland Holiday...Part II

Round Two: Malawi - “No problem, no problem”

Things were off to a great start. At the border a nice gentleman helps us out with quick conversion rates between Zambia, Malawi, the USD and the South African Rand (yes, this trip was confusing 98% of the time). His name, Happy. Happy was very helpful and got a taxi with us at the border to Mchinji. It was nice traveling with Happy because no one tried to charge us more than what was the normal price because he knew better. Happy also got us on a mini bus to Lilongwe and once there asked the driver’s assistant to get us to the minibuses to Salima. This would be the nicest thing a stranger could do for us, as the Lilongwe bus “area” is chaos. Actually the Lilongwe bus “area” was about the size of a small Namibian city, completely foreign, no signs saying were to go just lots of buses and people. We get out and someone unzips my bag but Beads was there to slap their hand away and then we being our walk through the maze as everyone is starring at us, we are a little uncomfortable. Luckily the driver’s assistant gets us to a mini bus that’s almost full so we load up (incredibly uncomfortable-physically) and wait to leave. The few minutes we are waiting there Mach catches a guy slyly sneaking his hand into a Malawian’s purse as he distracts her with the blankets he’s selling. Yeah, my purse is moved to under my butt and my window is closed, oh Africa.

The drive to Salima is beautiful. Actually all the drives in Malawi are beautiful. It’s such a lush and green country with mountains, plateaus, farm areas; you can’t help but think it’s gorgeous, especially after spending a year in the desert savannahs of Namibia. When I first began planning our trip I was confused as to why Lonely Planet said it took so long to travel such short distances in Malawi, this mini bus explained it all. The speed limit in Malawi is 80kph (Namibia is 120kph) yet we were only at best going 60 and we HAD to stop at each village along the way. After reaching Salima, jumping on a bicycle taxi to find an ATM so we can finally have Malawian kwacha we are good to go. We got the first van (Namibian combi) we could find going to Senga Bay, twenty minutes later we had arrived. Side note: bicycle taxis…wow, fun yet a little terrifying. I’ve traveled everyway one can in Malawi!

When you pull up to Senga Bay it’s not the quintessential lake resort. I mean it’s a small, small village and not impressive and you can’t even see the lake. I honestly thought there was some mistake. Some of the locals convinced us to head over the Cool Runnings as the other places would be too expensive or too far, as it turns out they were right and we made camp (after and silly argument with the only other people camping over location, silliness really) at Cool Runnings. The weather during that time in December was not the best. Luckily it only rained during the night, we learned that our tents were not longer waterproof (the hard way) and the day lacked enough sun to actually make the water clear enough to see fish one foot from the surface of the water. We were a little disappointed but made the most of our time there touring the village for fresh fruits and vegetables, swimming out to fisherman’s boats, reading and eating the delicious (yet expensive) food served up at Cool Runnings.

One day we arranged for a trip to an island a mile off the shore to few the monitor lizards with the locals who had helped us find Cool Runnings. The water was a little choppy (not really) but JNaw had developed a newfound irrational fear of water (after the rafting incident) and began to freak out as we traveled to the island. I assured her that we were fine and if anything did happen I was a lifeguard and would swim her to shore, nothing helped and she continued to yell each time a wave touched the boat. The rest of us couldn’t help but laugh; we had no idea what the heck was going on. JNaw had grown up in Michigan, on lakes, this was a little funny. On the island we walked up, down and around. It was amazing and fun (for those of us with shoes on), totally different than the main land. When we finally saw one of these monitor lizards we all couldn’t help but laugh, the foot long lizard was nothing spectacular, oh well at least we were doing something.

A few days later Smash was set to meet us in Salima, having traveled from Livingstone by herself to meet us in time for Christmas (Zambia and Malawi were not as kind to her in the 24hours she had crossed both countries alone, she made great timing but had to sacrifice so much). I left Senga Bay hours before everyone else just in case she had good luck with rides, I didn’t want her to arrive in Salima and be alone. Good thing, as I get out of the van and white arm hanging out of another van passes and I yell “Smash!” after a tearful reunion we sit and wait for the others to show up hours later.

The five of us finally all together decide to take the local Axa bus to Nkata Bay, it leaves at like 10pm and arrives at 4am but we are hopeful. After sitting there for awhile and wondering if there will be any room on this bus a man kindly offers to take us to Nkotakota, half way to Nkata Bay, not knowing any different we take it. We probably pay double what you should but we feel good about our decision because we have a seat and we will have a place to stay tonight, not on a bus, and it’s JNaw’s birthday. In Nkotakota we go to the only place recommended by Lonely Planet (not sure if they ever visited this place and if so it’s been years ago). Another side note, this is when we no longer trust Lonely Planet, they’ve gotten everything wrong in Zambia and Malawi and we’re done with it for the rest of our time in Malawi, locals advice only, yeah, we are real trusting/stupid. JNaw and I get a room, splurging for her birthday. Our room is well, special. Our visitors are cockroaches, spiders and other things. The bed nets have holes so large a small child could get in and the bathroom doorframe was so low I couldn’t help but painfully smack my head into it twice (JNaw once). This was high class. The “restaurant” had a strong Mexican fiesta theme meets the Serengeti, it was also high class and the food was nothing to write home about. JNaw celebrated the day of her birth with a Sprite, the food looked that enticing (I’m a little sarcastic if you didn’t know).

The next morning we began our kilometer walk to the main road to get a bus to Nkata Bay. This guy Stephen I guess had found out where we were heading from a morning conversation with Beads and showed up on our walk with a van offering to drive us to Nkata Bay within the hour. It was really difficult for all of us to decide what to do, it was a legit van with a legit driver and we would probably find him on the main road had we made it there but the fact that he came looking for us made us skeptical. After getting him down to a price that seemed semi-acceptable to us we agree and load up. In the van (which was standing room only, seriously a 15 passenger van was holding 25-30 “easily” at any given moment) told Mach and I that there was no way this van was going to Nkata Bay. He said the driver isn’t allowed to go past a certain point and well he’s not going to Nkata Bay. Awesome. Mach and I prepare for what’s ahead. In the first town we get to (a third of the way to Nkata Bay) Stephen tells us “the breaks are bad and we must take it into the garage, so we can’t take you the whole way.” Hm, well ok, the breaks were fine for stopping us from ridiculously fast speeds to get people along the way, but whatever, kindly give us our money back and we will find other transportation. “Oh, no problem, no problem, see I gave you a large discount and that’s how much it actually costs to here, so I cannot give your money back, “ declares Stephen. “Oh no, no, no Stephen, there is a big problem,” declares the rest of us.

For about 45 minutes we have a heated discussion about returning our money. Stephens first offer of returning like a fifth of what we paid to him to take us a third of the way was unacceptable to us. I got a map out showed him how far we went and showed him the math and showed him the amount of money we WOULD be receiving back from him. Logic was lost on him so we tried another tactic, we refused to get out of the van. After awhile he came back ready for round 18 of negotiations. I simply stated that we would require said amount back or we will not be leaving. He kept trying to say we must come to a fair price and I kept saying, “sir, this is fair, why are you trying to steal from us, that is not right, it is very wrong.” There were many, many more silly debates on right and wrong, good business, the breaks, etc. We were not getting anywhere so I had to pull the J-card, “Sir, it is the season of Jesus are you are trying to steal from us. How can you do such a thing? Jesus and Allah (in case he was Muslim) are watching and they are not happy, you are not right and you know it.” Stephen looked at me and chuckled and left the car. My friends just laughed and said I can’t believe you just said that, what? It’s a Christian country isn’t it? After sometime Stephen returns with said amount and we gladly get out of the car which is now surrounded by minivan drivers, ugh. We run across the street and decide to wait for the Axa bus no matter how long it takes. Magically all the minivans seem to all be going to Nkata Bay as they all change their windshield signs to say so, uh-uh, not falling for it.

Luckily waiting for the Axa bus turned out to be shorter than we expected as it came two hours early. We jump on (not caring that we have no seats) and happily pay the extremely low price the Axa charges. On the bus we meet a Zimbabwean who runs the information center in Nkata Bay. He hooks us up with a free taxi to his recommended lodge (it was one of two places I had already decided we would stay at) and we once again set up camp. Thrilled to have this day over we just enjoy the lake, finally. We’ve made it to Nkata Bay, together and healthy, who cares about all the rest.

We make new friends with the staff and Happy Coconut and Sober, two local artists who sell their paintings at the shore, oh good times. Sometimes when we tell each other our stories of our travels we think “that’s not real”, but then we have to laugh cause really most of this a person could not make up, it’s so absurd it can only be true. So Happy Coconut wins for our favorite African name, mind you we have real friends named Speechless and Somebody in Namibia, but Happy Coconut? Awesome!

Christmas Eve we walk into town (which is not an easy walk, Nkata Bay is spread out and really hilly), use the Internet (to feel normal) and eat a buffet at Njaya (where we are staying) while enjoying a local performance of drums and dancing. Really, watching five starving Peace Corps volunteers at a buffet is probably the most disgusting animalistic display but we don’t care and just go for it. After like three minutes we can’t eat anymore, our stomachs have shrunk from the lack of food. One of the workers comes by and asks if we surrender. What? Do you surrender? Yes, we all agree, we surrender, he then grabs Mach’s goat and says, “I never surrender goat!” It was hilarious.

That night was hard. It was Christmas Eve and we were so far from home, from anything resembling home, with stomach problems that wouldn’t leave us until we returned to Namibia and as the rain began to fall I thought, ugh, I should be in Merced (my California home), in a nice bed, in a warm house-without a care in the world, this was really a different Christmas.

Christmas day we walked around with everyone else saying “Happy Christmas” to each person we saw. We walked over to Mayoka Village for their Christmas games and buffet. I went swimming and made friends with some volunteers from Norway as we sat on a jumping dock off shore. After playing some silly board games with each other dinner was served. Once again we were the first in the line, stacked our plates sky high, began to shovel it into our mouths and only ate a little, so disappointing. That evening we got a special Christmas present as our families called us, oh a moment of normalcy.

The next morning we took our time and packed up our stuff to head to Mzuzu to catch the bus heading to Dar es Salaam. The walk from Njaya to the village center at noon was NOT EASY. I thought I was hiking the Rockies, in India or something similar. My face is so sweaty that my glasses won’t stay on my face so I do it without being able to see…anything. As we get into town I see an Axa bus, drop my stuff, tell Smash to watch it and run to the bus. It’s going to Mzuzu, half the price the minivans are charging, yes, something is going our way! Although we have to stand for a good portion of this ride it’s totally worth it to not mess with anyone trying to take our money or whatever. The Axa will get you to your destination, somehow and for a discounted price and that’s all we needed.

The Mzuzu bus station is bigger than Salima’s but like 1/20 of Lilongwe so we are really relieved. Bicycle taxi again to get money to by our tickets to Dar, which luckily there is a bus coming that night. The bus is set to get there at 12:30am and arrive in Dar es Salaam midnight the next night. Ugh, we’ll cross that bridge when we get there but we’d rather get on the road as we were set to meet Mach’s friend at the Dar airport in a few days and did not want to be late. It begins to get late and there are some really classy people in this bus station. We finally wise up and move from the waiting area of the bus station (in the middle of the bus station) to against the booking office (elevated position), we are not alone in waiting so we are hopeful.

10pm everyone begins to fall asleep except me. I’ve volunteered to watch us and our stuff (not really volunteered but decided to since everyone else was asleep and we were after all in a dim lit African bus station). The others slept as much as they could between the interruptions of drunken men yelling “SISTER, SITER” at Smash trying to confess their love for her. How did she always get picked I still have no idea. At 1am I became delirious, but still awake. At 4am I asked Beads to watch our stuff (he fell asleep) and I knocked out until 5:30am when the sun came up and the bus station was open for business again and crawling with people. The booking office assured us the bus was on it’s way. We had already paid, really what could we do but wait. “The bus will be here at 10,” “12”, “ok, it hasn’t left Lilongwe yet.” At this point we are negotiating a refund and looking for other ways to get there.

The booking office assured us that they would get us to Dar es Salaam, and well at this point we shouldn’t trust ANYONE but we do just for entertainment almost. So after an argument, JNaw and myself wanted to take the money and find our own way but Beads trusted the booking company we follow, what the hell do we have to lose anyway, right? The pile us and a nice Malawian family (father works as teacher in Tanzania) in a minivan and we head to the border. We have to get to the border before it closes where a bus is “for sure” waiting for us to take us to Dar. No, problem, no problem, everyone assures us there is no problem. Clearly, there is always a problem when people say this to us.

The ride to the border is by far the most beautiful piece of land we’ve driven through yet. We are travel through a gorgeous mountain rain that butts up against the lake, it’s breathe taking, but I’ve lost my breathe for another reason, we are going to die. Our minibus driver was driving safe and just doing fine, I mean we were making good timing, we only had like an hour or so left until Karonga (I’m great with geography and maps) and he decides to become reckless. He’s driving insanely fast, yes we are still in the mountains, passing on turns, I’m in shock. When the roads levels around Livingstonia he speeds up as if he’s trying to hit all the village people going about their daily life. At this point I can’t take it and I begin telling him to slow down, I’m on the verge of tears. Finally I tell the booking agent who’s accompanying us that either he tells the driver to slow down or I get out and he gives me my money back. The driver reluctantly slows down, a little.

At the first chance JNaw and I switch seats so I can’t see the road, she knows I can’t handle reckless driving; I lose it regularly in Namibia. She begins to tell the driver to slow down. It’s getting old. There is no reason for him to be driving like this, we have enough time and no one wants to die. Eventually he listens to the booking agent and slows down, we’ve arrived in Karonga. Karonga is 45km from the border so all of us are confused when we pull into the bus depot rather than continuing to the border, oh no problem, no problem.

We sit in the bus depot for about 20 minutes, that’s 20 minutes we really don’t have to spare; the border is closing. The problem is I guess the driver agreed to drive all of us for 1000MK (Malawian kwacha). When we arrived in Karonga and other drivers saw that there was Mzungus (white people/foreign people) they decided 1000MK wasn’t enough and convinced the driver not to take us. After some arguing, even the teacher with us is getting angry, we drive off. We drive off to around the corner to a petrol station where we pull off and the driver and the booking agent begin yelling at each other. Eight taxi drivers surround our minivan, crap, there’s no way out. Our problem is that we gave our money to the booking agent and he’s getting us to Dar, we have no money and no room for negotiation and we can’t go anywhere without that guy. Taxi drivers are trying to convince us to get out, pointless really. They begin taking our bags so we fight for them back. As many times as we explained we have no money, that booking agent is paying for us, they didn’t understand. At this point we are more scared for our safety than the border closing. At one point the driver tries to drive off without our booking agent, as if he could drive us somewhere between here and the border and either demand the money from us or take our stuff. Luckily I was kinda out of the car already cause JNaw saw they were trapping us in the car and she pushed me out my door although it didn’t really open. So I’m standing half in and half out of the car as the driver takes off. Everyone starts yelling and the taxi drivers try to push me in the car and I hit the driver (I was behind him) and stay firmly out of the minivan (thank goodness I’m not a small girl or those taxi drivers could have successfully pushed me back in the van). After about 30 more minutes of arguing the booking agent, on the verge of tears (he has no extra money either) gets in the car and we head to the border leaving the taxi drivers at the petrol station. All of us are thinking get us the f@#$ out of this country. We get to the border, it’s open (not really), we successfully get out of Zambia and walk to Tanzania, and they’re closing. They are kind enough to stay open for us and let us use their toilets, I will forever be grateful to the men working at that border post, they have no idea what hell they saved us if we had to return to Karonga for the night.

So we are walking across the border looking for the bus that is suppose to be waiting for us to take us to Dar. Our friend will be arriving at the airport in less than 30hours…where is it, where is this bus that will take us away from the hell we’ve just been through…where is our refuge…

***Just to clarify, I don’t think I can ever put into writing how terrifying this (and the others to soon follow) transport was. I’m not irrational, our safety was in danger, we should’ve flown.


***I also apologize for never proof reading or editing these things at all, I suck at writing, sorry.

Saturday, January 17, 2009

African Overland Holiday...Part I

First stop Zambia:

My holiday started off with free hiking to Rundu, in the rain (not recommended). I didn’t have horrible luck but I also didn’t have great luck. The worst part was the odd second-degree sunburn on my shins that would result from sitting in the back of a baaki during a rainstorm (those 10 minutes of sun apparently were killer). Those 10 minutes of being uncovered from the tarp I was laying under would apparently haunt me for weeks.

The next morning at 3:45am, my friends and I walked over to the Engen station in Rundu to catch the Intercape to Zambia. The Intercape is known for being reliable and accommodating. The fact that ours was an hour late and so stuffy from the lack of air circulation on a packed bus in the rain should have led us to assume our vacation would not be easy or go as planned.

After arriving to Livingstone two hours late we got off the bus and tried to ignore every taxi driver hounding us for a lift to our accommodation. The small quite guy just approached us saying “Jolly Boys, Jolly Boys, I will take you there.” This was where we were staying but we did not need anyone to take us there and we certainly would not be paying. We kept trying to get rid of the guy saying we had no money and didn’t need his help but he was sure persistent. At one point Beads turned to him and said, “Nothing’s for free,” this would not be the last time we would be wrong. The small man followed us and attempted to “walk” us there even though I was trying my hardest to walk fast enough that he would eventually give up. When we arrived at Jolly Boys it was to our surprise that indeed the man worked there and waited for us since 11am. We felt sorry and foolish and set up our tents right before the rain came. It would be raining most of our time in Zambia.

The next day Beads, Coll and I set out to go bungee jumping and what not off the bridge that connects Zimbabwe and Zambia. Juice came for moral support and photographer, which would turn out to be priceless. Beads and I signed up for the combo, bungee, bridge swing and zip line, while Coll did the swing. She went first and it was one of the funniest things to watch. It’s the dumbest thing I think a person can do. You just walk on the bridge with a rope connected to a harness at your belly button. You fall until the rope catches and only then do you being to swing. There is no elastic part of this; it’s all or nothing. I like to tell people it’s like jumping into a pool off a high dive but the pool never shows up. Normally halfway through a person freaks out and starts peddling their feet as if they can run back to the bridge (I didn’t do this out of pure shock I think). It’s super scary. For some reason that seemed like a much bigger deal than the bungee.

Beads and I did the bungee right after Coll did the swing. I had no fear I just dove right off that bridge as if I wasn’t 110m above a shallow river. My mind went blank and after a few seconds I just thought “what am I doing?” then the rope snapped up and I began my horrific bouncing. First I had watched a Utube video of a man who went bungee jumping and as he bounced up the rope wrapped around his neck and he hung him self (don’t watch this if you intend to ever go bungee jumping). On the first bounce the rope went around my arms and I started freaking out like I was going to hang my self and just started flailing to get the rope away from me. For the rest of the bounces I kept my arms above my head (streamline position) so that if the rope wrapped around me it would only get my arms and not my neck and head (irrational at the time). Little did I know that when you bungee you should put your arms out (T position) because it slows you down and stops you from spinning. Instead I just spun, I had no doubt I was going to vomit all over myself. When the worker lowered himself to get me he asked how I was doing and I yelled, “God, how do I make it stop spinning, I’m going to be sick.” He laughed and told me to put my arms out, shocking, I stopped. When I no longer thought I was going to vomit all over myself I began to freak out about the fact that the harnesses around my feet were extremely loose, I survived only to slip out of the harness and plummet into the river, awesome. When I got back on the bridge I had a horrible case of vertigo, which did not go away for four hours, I was miserable.

Luckily the rain began so the workers took an extra long break for lunch and the rain to stop. Unfortunately that meant Beads and I would be the first off the bridge as soon as they started up again. The long break allowed my vertigo to eventually go away but as I sat there thinking about the swing I started getting really scared. I’ve done a lot of crazy things in my short life. I’m all about the adrenaline rushes, sky diving, bungee jumping, roller coasters, rafting…I’m all about it and I honestly have never gotten scared, ever. So as I sat there waiting to do the swing and this fear grew inside of me I think I began to get even more worried because if I was finally thinking something was scary maybe that was for a reason.

Hours later Beads goes off the bridge for the second time. I just look down thinking, we are SO stupid. I tell the workers that they will have to push me off, I really want to do this but I’m not going to be stepping off this bridge (the video of me attempting this is hilarious, trying to rationalize with the workers about silliness, ugh). The thing about the swing is that when they connect the rope to you, you are pulled forward off the bridge (luckily you are still hooked up to the bridge). Gravity and the weight of the ropes and the tension…everything is pulling you to the river (my death). I get to the edge and think, oh I’m going to die. As promised the workers push me off and I scream (I don’t scream, ever). The entire way down I think, “This is by far the dumbest thing I’ve EVER done!” As promised the rope catches and I begin to swing. As soon as the rope catches I start laughing uncontrollably and put my arms out and lean back. Scared? Me? No, never. It was totally worth it. It was beautiful, so beautiful swinging in that gorge. Also because I wasn’t upside down there was no sickness or vertigo that followed. I still can’t believe how scared I was. This is a month ago and I still freak out when I think about the swing, something about it terrifies me but it’s that thing that’s drawing me back to it for round two (someday). We concluded the day with the zip line, which goes by too fast to enjoy, and really it’s like the cool down after a workout, needed but you can easily skip it.

Day two of exploring Victoria Falls took us to the Zambezi River, rafting rapids 1-10. So, some of the members in our group were terrified (is there a stronger word I can use?). And the fear of this was kinda haunting each of us, you couldn’t help but get infected because it’s all people talked about, dying on this trip, it’s funny looking back. So during our safety talk they go over what happens if you get trapped under the raft, half of our groups faces when pale white, their fears were now a reality. After settling some trouble we had with our assigned guide (we had heard some bad reviews) we get a new one and become team Obama…yeah we’re American.

We walk down to the boiling pot at the base of the falls to begin our trip. Rapid one, get across the roller coaster rapids at the boiling pot. Our first attempt, haha, we didn’t even get anywhere close to the rapid. Second attempt, we are going strong and I look up to Juice because he is setting the rowing pace on my side since he’s in the front and oops, in goes Juice. I hear high left which means I have to jump to the other side of the raft and oops, in goes JNaw. We get across the rapid and due to where the others fell out Juice joins us on the correct side of the rapids but JNaw went under or behind the raft and ends up first against the rocks and then back at the beginning. As someone who was already a little nervous about this she decides not to return to the river and the five of us push on to rapid number two. For rapids two and three Juice goes in each time. I think it’s something about being at the front of the rapid or a California waterpolo player drawn to water…anyways I was thinking this is going to suck if I’m the only one here to paddle on my side. Coll went in at rapid two and three and I think that got her fears out and she was ready for the rest.

Rapid four is a level five rapid and so naturally we were all super scared but we got through it and not only did we not flip but we didn’t lose anyone, we’re champs. See the thing about these rapids is that the first seven were not just one rapid. We would successfully do one and then the guide is like this is 4.25, 4.5, 4.75….what?!? I remember rapid five being super long and rapid six being hard but by the time we even got to seven we thought we had successfully went through 10 or more. Rapid seven, the longest rapid on the Zambezi was nicer to us than it was to other boats and once again we didn’t flip or loose anyone. The trip was beautiful, the gorge is amazing and we got to see crocodiles (I now DID NOT want to get in that water). Right as I’m thinking about the crocs the head guy on the kayak comes up to me asks if I’ve gone in yet and I say no, proudly, he points out an eagle and before I can see what he’s pointing at I’m in the water, WHAT THE HECK? Nice joke, but seriously get me out of the croc water.

At rapid eight we have an option to do an easy route or do a hard one, we all (not Coll) choose to “go big or go home!” Rapid eight had our number. We are completely vertical on the left side. I was already underwater and figured we were going to flip so I somersaulted into the water so I would be ready to climb back in. We didn’t flip. In one of the pictures you see all of us underwater, the raft on its side and Mach hanging from the rope on the left side. She was the only one to not go in the water. When I lift my head out of the water I realize, oh no flip and I look up the river and see Coll, she looks like she’s going to die, (she was in no real danger but going to kill herself out of fear). I yell out, “Someone get Coll,” but the guide is a step ahead of me. We all get back into the raft and realize…THAT WAS AWESOME! Wait, not all of us. Coll says, “I wanted to go small, not big, I wanted to go small.” Good times, haha. Rapid nine is too dangerous so all rafts have to walk around it. I promise to take care of Mach as I’m in sturdy Chacos and she is barefoot on slippery rocks. I realize I’m walking to fast and turn around and just see her feet come out from under her. Her scraps and bruises from that day would not be from actual rafting but walking. I stay at her side the rest of the time; I don’t want to be a bad friend twice. We get through the tenth rapid and realize that this trip was the best-spent money probably any of us have ever spent. The trip up the gorge was killer, seriously not fun. If I ever did this again, which I would totally want to do, I would opt for the full day just because the last rapids are easier and you don’t have to climb out of the gorge, you take a tram to the top…worth it, trust me. JNaw was waiting for us at the top and we got to enjoy a cool drink and watch the hilarious video of us on a few of the rapids. Team “no-flip”!

Our last day in Livingstone was spent enjoying the falls from a distance as we just walked around the Zambia side of the falls. That evening we did the sunset booze cruise. The highlight of this for me would be realizing my meat wasn’t cooked all the way and forgetting two minutes later and offering it to Beads. We would both have food poisoning the next day, awesome!

The next day started early, 5:30am packing up our stuff and the tents (in the rain). Getting on the bus at 7am and actually departing Livingstone at 7:01am, weird. The bus ride was hard. Not only are we all probably a little hung over but it’s also dirt road and not a good dirt road. It was raining so the windows had to stay up and well there is nothing I like more than being trapped in a hot tin container full of great African smells and body odors. I have no idea how I survived the eight hours on that bus (our shortest bus ride really). I arrived in Lusaka ill, really ill. After walking (mistake) to our accommodation I help JNaw put up the tent and eat a bite of soup and knock myself out. I wake in the middle of the night (7:30pm honestly), my fever is breaking and I’m miserable. This is when Beads and I figure out what happened as we are both spending quality time with the toilets, it’s hard to imagine that we are getting on another bus at 6am.

Once again in the rain at 4:30am, JNaw and I pack up the tent and our stuff, which now smells like mold (yummy). We get to the bus and stupidly think it will leave like ours the day before, four hours later after boarding the bus we depart to Chipata, at this point all of us have upset stomachs. We arrive in Chipata at 11:30pm and find a kind taxi driver who not only found the Peace Corps transit house but agrees to drive us to the Malawi border the next morning. I take the opportunity of being at a Peace Corps transit house to treat my now infect shins. You see the second degree burn I once had got ripped off from the raft a few days before and the rubbing of my jeans and the back of bus seats now have turned my wounds and uncomfortable color. Luckily, Chipata PC house has plenty of dressings to protect my poor legs.

At 7am, as promised our taxi driver is there ready to take us to the border. Problem free we cross the border, now entering phase two of our trip, Malawi.