First, a few pictures.

Our second-class compartments consisted of six bunks, three on each side. The top bunks were about 6 feet off the ground, with nothing but this small bar. The first night we were hoping that the incessant shaking and braking and bouncing of the train wouldn't send us flying off, so I found a simple solution: use the extra room in your belt to make a safety harness!

Africa loves Obama! From Zambia to Zanzibar, they all ask us if we like him. We found this sign in Stonetown and had to take a picture with it.

And even though I'm not a big fan of seafood, it was cool to see so much for so cheap. Many of us got a plateful of all different kinds of exotic seafood for less than 6 dollars.

PART I: Kapiri Mposhi or Bust!

We were scared out of our shorts riding three different koombis to the airport in Jo'burg, but everything worked out. We got on our Zambian Airways plane and started the trek back to row 22. We got to the last row of seats, marked 20, and kept going until we ran into the toilets and attendant area. We asked an attendant where row 22 was and she said "They sold rows that don't exist again?! I'm sorry. You can just sit anywhere." Luckily the plane wasn't full. The flight was uneventful except for an apparent problem with the cabin pressurization, which caused me to be partially deaf in my left ear for the next 10 hours after landing. It was a very strange feeling.

We landed late in Lusaka and found a girl from Russia and her Zambian husband (what a strange coincidence--I haven't met any Russians in South Africa during my 9 months, but I do after 20 minutes in Zambia). The Zambian website told us we could buy visas when we reached Lusaka, but forgot to mention that they don't accept anything but dollars--not even their own currency, the Kwachaa. It was a rigamarole to get and change enough money to appease them. They didn't even know the exchange rates.

We then found that all the taxi drivers wanted way too much money. One man I had spoken with earlier said he wanted to help and offered us seats on a big minibus for much cheaper. We got to the street where a Zambian PCV lived (we met him in Mozambique and he'd given us the whole trip idea and offered to let us stay with him en route) and found that 20 Mutende Road was not a straightforward address. First we found 20x, then 20A, then a few more 20s with other letters. We knocked on one of them, only to find that we'd stumbled onto the Danish Embassy. We finally found the one place with just a plain 20 on it and all 12 of us crashed on his floor and got an early koombi to the bus station the next morning.

The bus station was one of the few horrible experiences of our trip. Our Zambian PCV friend told us that 20,000 Kwachaa (about $10--a good amount for a PCV) per person was a good price for a bus ticket to Kapiri Mposhi (where the train to Dar starts). As soon as we offloaded the koombi we were swarmed by about 50 men, all shouting and trying to get us to go on their bus. They all wanted at least 35,000 Kwachaa (about $15--the equivalent of three nights at a backpacker), so we tried to barter until someone finally said "okay, 20,000" and we followed him to a bus. That was 6 AM, when they said it would leave at 8 sharp. When 9 AM came and went, we asked again, and were told it would leave soon. After we asked all the people who looked semi-official, we figured that we were soon going to be in trouble. The train in Kapiri leaves twice per week only, and if we didn't leave the bus station by noon, we'd miss it.

We had been sitting in this stinky bus for 6 hours, watching painful Nigerian flicks on the TVs and listening to Zambian rap. They told us all to pay 35,000, and after we argued about the price they'd orignally promised, we just got fed up and paid the new price. At about 10 AM they had started the bus and were rolling it back and forth and revving the engine a lot, as we all joked that they were trying to lull us to sleep so we'd stop asking questions. The driver still hadn't shown up. We soon found that another bus company had already loaded a whole bus and had left and was filling another. They were asking 35,000, but were apparently the only ones who actually did business.

So we asked for a refund so that we could buy tickets for the working bus, but they refused. Tempers escalated and we were all soon shouting. I led the protest, as we were not about to be conned out of 420,000 Kwachaa. (Editor's note: none of us would have dared raise our voices to anyone if this were South Africa. We would have been summarily shot. But most other places in Africa are comparatively safe)

I went to the police station and got a man to come over. He talked to the guys and seemed very reluctant to do anything and soon disappeared. Most of our group gave up and got on the other bus, cutting their losses. I was not about to give up so I went to find the policeman, couldn't, and asked a policewoman to save us. As we got to the bus and I gave her our tickets and explained our plight, one of the PCVs in our group ran over and said the other bus was literally driving away and I had to run. I told the policewoman to please get our money and I'd be back in 2 weeks to get it. I ran away with no hope in the world that we'd ever see it again. I barely made it onto the other bus, as it was already out of the station and on its way. I slumped, sweaty and tired, through all the other passengers to the back, but as I sat down I was determined not to let this ruin our trip. The other volunteers were surprisingly positive and we were all ready to put it behind us.

Let me skip to our return to the bus terminal at the end of our trip. We'd had a great vacation and as we looked for a taxi back to the Zambian PCV's house I decided to go see if the Policewoman had our money. It was more out of curiosity than expectation. I entered the small office as a 'disturber of the peace' was being shoved into the rear holding cell for 'not flushing,' or something. The lady wasn't there, so I asked another cop. He had me on the phone with her soon and lo and behold! She had our money!

She soon came to work and handed us 300,000 Kwachaa (120,000 short), telling us that they had taken 10,000 per ticket for 'stationery fees.' But even this last log on the neverending fire of ridiculousness of traveling in Africa could keep us from being genuinely happy. And I have no doubt that most of that happiness was derived not from the money, but from the fact that we, who have spent the last year trying to help this continent's people, had found a grain of hope in this woman's honesty and diligence. We thanked her so profusely that she had a huge smile before we left. And I just finished an email to the Zambian Ministry of Tourism, telling them to get her a raise.

PART II: THE TRAIN

The bus from Lusaka dropped us about 2 km from the train station, so we trudged over--12 white Americans with huge backpacks in single file. Needless to say, we were ogled many times during this trip. They didn't have our reservations but we were able to get two second-class compartments and made it onto the train with 5 minutes to spare! Not even scary at all.

The train went 30-50km the whole way there and we were able to see the majority of Zambia and Tanzania from our windows. Zambia is nice, but Tanzania is beautiful. It got progressively greener as we went. And along with the huge green mountains and valleys and the beautiful little thatched huts and corn fields, we saw mangled train cars strewn along the tracks about every 200 km. It was quite disconcerting, though luckily they were only cargo cars.

The most interesting part of the train experience was the toilet. They were small rooms with squatters (a hole in the train floor with ridges on either side for your feet). I've used squatters in Ukraine before, but none of them were moving around underneath you. An added element of fun was the shallow pool of liquid that sloshed from wall to wall as the train jostled on the tracks. In order to keep from falling, I had to hold on tightly to some pipes sticking out of the wall. Not only was the train bouncing side to side, but up and down and back and forth all at the same time. All of us prayed that we wouldn't be in the toilets when the conductor decided to do a random brake check, which were performed arcanely several times an hour. In these instances, everyone slammed into whichever wall was immediately forward of them, and in the toilet, these otherwise manageable occurences could prove lethal... in an e. coli-esque sort of way.

Besides the theives and the one man who tried to assault a woman in the toilet once, the only other problem on the train were the middle bunks. The top and bottom bunks were firmly attached to the walls, but the middle ones folded down, so that we could sit comfortably during the day. The first night we couldn't figure out how to lock them into place at one end so all the jolts and the jostling were compounded at night, and every 30 minutes or so the train hit an unruly stretch of track and bounced up and down sending everyone about 3 inches off our beds. The night was full of laughter and joy. And a few screams and tears.

The next morning a PCV from the other compartment told us that there was actually a locking mechanism on the middle bunk. We tried it that night and it worked fine. We had to laugh.

To be continued...