Eastward through Africa

To even begin to describe the past 2.5 weeks I would need days of uninterrupted computer time. Instead I will attempt to break the trip in segments, documenting each as time allows.

It must first be said that this was, by far, the most incredible "vacation" I have ever had in my life. That's not to say that all was pristine, beautiful or easy. In fact it was the sweat, grime and ever present need to barter (and fight and scream) for correct prices that made this trip incredible. It was, in my opinion, an excursion into life at its simplest and finding it immensely complicated, beautiful, raw.

Part I: Zambia.

Zambia is an average sized country North of Botswana and Zim and South of the DRC. It is, by no means, a tourist destination. It is a sparsely populated nation, part of the former Northern Rhodesia, which gained independence in 1964. Flying into Lusaka, the Zambian capitol, we were greeted by two very confused immigration personnel who would not allow us to pay for our outrageously overpriced visas into Zambia in Kwacha, the Zambian currency. So, we (and by we I mean I) argued at the immigration counter until they'd allow us to pay in Rand. Just when we thought we had that squared away they tacked on an extra 200 Rand fee, "Because the exchange rate may change in a few days and we want to be prepared." No matter how hard I tried to explain that if the exchange rate changes tomorrow it shouldn't affect the price of my visa TODAY I couldn't persuade them. So, we got a fantastically horrible exchange rate and finally bought our three year, multiple entry visas to Zambia in USD. (There are no other options for Americans) When they processed our passports and handed them back we flipped through the pages to find a nice stamp saying we'd entered Zambia and written in free-hand below it were the words "3 year, mult entry." Yes, our visas are literally written in our passports. In pen.

20 Mutende Road

We had the privilege of staying with a PCV Jason and I met briefly in Mozambique while we were in Lusaka. We gave the taxi driver at the airport the address "20 Mutende Road." They got us to the road only to find out that there were, and I do not exaggerate, 26 different 20 Mutende Roads. :).

The Bus

This segment of the trip would serve to be the most frustrating, irritating, exasperating and memorable. We left our friend's place at the unearthly hour of 05h30. As our public taxi entered the bus station filled with our things and 12 white people we were accosted by some 20 Zambian men who jumped into our taxi and all started shouting for us to come with me, go with him, ignore that man etc. As most of us were still in South African mode we thought for sure this would be the end of us, we were goners. Instead this is, apparently, a customary way to greet public taxis entering the bus station with white people...

We got out of the taxi and admittedly looked around bewildered at the chaos that surrounded us. Some 20 busses were all idling in unison and swarms of men were shouting prices at passers by. We had several bus options that would take us to our destination, Kapiri Mposhi, where we were to board the train to Dar that afternoon at 16h. Not knowing any better we went with the man who promised the cheapest price (20,000 kwacha per person) and boarded his bus.

It was approximately 06h. There we sat listening to a selection of Zambian hits and watching several 'great' Nigerian flicks for the next 4.5 hours (“I’m a Zambia man, I’m a Rasta man, I’m a Zambia man, I’m a Zambia man” and the other great hit “Kwacha, kwacha, kwacha, kwacha, kwacha, kwacha”). Every hour or so one of us would check with the driver, "Um, so when exactly are we leaving?" The driver would then spout some time, "08h, 10 minutes, 30 minutes." Etc.

Aware that we were beginning to grow restless as our several hours of buffer time to catch the train slowly diminished, different men would sit behind the driver’s seat and rock the idling bus back and forth with the emergency break on, in a pacifying motion. This would later become a running joke as it became clear that this was their attempt to, quite literally, pacify the Americans.

Then, it was time to pay. None of us wanted to pay until the bus was moving. I communicated that to the person who asked for our money. What did they do? Roll the bus forward a few feet to indicate, “look! we're moving!” So we paid...as I handed our ridiculous wad of kwacha to the ticket man I was informed that, "Um, hello dummy, the price isn't 20,000 kwacha each, it's 35,000." At which point my temper began to show itself. "The only reason we are on this bus is because we were told it was 20,000 K!" I asked other passengers what price they had paid. Unless they were also in on the scam, the price they'd paid seemed to also be 35,000k. Expressing our discontent with what seemed to be serious price gouging we were resigned to fork over the remaining 15,000k each.

As the hour neared 12 noon and our wiggle room to leave became mere minutes real frustration abounded. We began to pointedly tell the "drivers" (as our particular driver was nowhere to be found we had no choice but to talk to the group of men who collectively identified themselves as the people in charge) that we needed to leave and that we'd been told that we'd be leaving any minute for the last four hours. Each man gave us some variation of the following, "We will be leaving soon, ten minutes, three minutes, 30 minutes, we're leaving now." This quickly grew ridiculous. We told them we didn't believe them, that they'd been lying to us for several hours and we wanted to speak to the driver (we were getting really close to missing our train completely, thus spoiling the whole trip). This is when it became clear that there wasn't a driver for this bus, at least not yet. "When will he arrive?" That question was met with a bunch of blank stares. We offered to buy the remaining seats to get the bus moving, they wouldn't allow us. At this point several of us were worked up into a frustrated frenzy and began demanding to speak to the person in charge...once again the mass of men identified themselves as the people in charge.

Frustrated beyond belief, tempers flaring on all sides we began searching all over the bus station for another bus that would take us but would leave NOW. We found one. The price was 40,000 kwacha each but it was leaving in 5 minutes. Great? So we gave the "drivers" one last option. "Leave now and we'll stay on this bus, don't leave now and we're getting off and we want our money back."

That's when things exploded; a driver suddenly materialized and continued to rock the bus. Other passengers too became exasperated at the fact that the bus simply seemed incapable of leaving and too joined in our "fight" for action.

Promises were shouted, "we're leaving in 5 minutes, 5 minutes."

"No, we need to leave NOW and I mean NOW or we're gone!"

When it became clear we were going nowhere we decided, fine "give us our money back now, we're taking another bus."

The explosion quickly deteriorated into an all out battle. Our "money" was suddenly no where to be found, the man who I paid could not be located. We looked, shouted and demanded our money back, to no avail. I finally said, "If you don't give us our money back NOW we're going to the police." Ha.

I found a police officer and brought him to our bus and explained the urgency of the situation and the scams that had occurred already. He said "if the bus doesn't leave in 10 minutes come get me and I'll make them get your money" and he promptly disappeared. So helpful.

We were all very frustrated and realized our money was gone. We made the decision to just kiss it goodbye and RUN to catch the other bus. As we exited the bus the men out front got even more riled up and began screaming even louder. Other passengers on the bus became irate at the group of drivers and too exited the bus. We soon saw that we had, in essence, staged a coup!

We ran to the other bus and literally filled the last 12 seats...but wait, where did Jason go? The bus was pulling out of the station and we had to ask the driver to stop as myself and a fellow PCV sprinted through the rows of busses looking for Jason. He had decided to give our lost money one last chance and located a female police officer who was literally moments away from getting the bus to give us a full refund. Unfortunately we had to leave that second! Jason got her phone number, gave her the receipts and said, "We'll be back in two weeks, will you save the money for us?" Positive the money was gone we sprinted after the bus that had, literally begun pulling out of the station without the three of us but with stuff.

We chased it down, pounding on the sides thinking, “seriously, this cannot be happening!” The driver slowed and opened the door.

We climbed into the back passing rows of irritated passengers on our new bus (irritated at having to wait for us, which I can't blame them). We sat down in exhaustion and utter frustration and began the 3 hours journey to Kapiri Mposhi train station.

Three hours later we arrived at a dusty, run down gas station and were told this is Kampiri, get off. We disembarked, walked the half mile to the train station, quickly discovered that the reservations we were told we had didn't actually exist, bought train tickets and boarded the train (and I do not exaggerate here) with exactly 4 minutes to spare.

FEW. What a day.

Tazara Train

The train we boarded had tracks that ran from Kapiri Mposhi, Zambia to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. The train and the tracks were a gift from the Chinese government during the 'Cold War' era. It hadn't been renovated or reworked, at all, since. We were six to a compartment, six compartments to a car, each car having two toilets which were, quite literally, two lovely squatters that soon filled with a thick sloshy liquid that bumped and splashed around your ankles while the train progressed down the tracks at lightning speeds.

That being said, that train was fantastic. I loved it. It had no running water, no option for bathing or washing ones hands, it was cramped, stinky and amazingly fun.

At each stop (and there were several) women would rush to the side of the train selling quite honestly a wide selection of everything. Fruits, vegetables, breads, chairs, socks, radios, everything. Furthermore, we were given unobstructed access to windows from which we could view the Zambian (and later Tanzanian) country sides fly by and change with the lay of the land.

Roller coaster anyone?

Our first night on the train we prepared our cabin by extending the middle bunks to create the final two beds, three on each wall. Being one of the lightest I was graciously allowed to occupy the middle bunk...which for some reason would NOT lock into the wall.

I was a bit nervous for when I climbed onto the bunk it dipped at a sharp angle making it necessary for me to squish my body against the train wall to keep myself from falling onto the poor guy below me.

No sooner had we fallen asleep than the train picked up speed. A lot of speed. Remember how I had mentioned that the train was built in the cold war...? The tracks were uneven and with the increase of speed came the increase of bumps. Remember, my bed wasn't locked into the wall, instead held in place by two weak leather straps that were loosely hooked to Jason's bunk above me. When we hit the first bump I literally caught air, was torn from a nice sleep and scrambled to grab onto the bunk above me. Jason's hand reached down and my friend's feet went up from below to keep me from crashing down on him. This same scene happened a few more times that night, at one point I was literally hanging on to Jason's bunk with both hands while mine snapped up and down on its hinges so hard I got something like a spanking on my behind.

After a crappy nights sleep we discussed the night's events to our friends in the other compartment who graciously showed us that we were idiots and quickly locked my bed into place. Ha!

Well, that's about all I have time and/or energy for now. I leave this 'story' at the border to Tanzania where the real fun begins. :)