The Trip, part 3

Okay, so where was I?

I was on the ferry, but let me rewind.

I forgot to mention a cool story from our PCV friend in Lusaka. When he went to Zanzibar there was a hawker selling bangles and he wanted to buy one. He said "How much?" The guy replied "800 Shillings." He thought this was a fair price so he said "Okay," and handed the guy 800 Shillings. The guy immediately started waving his arms in dissent. "No, sir! You can't just give me that! Let me show you how it works: I say 800, then you say 500, then we bargain until we meet in the middle. Okay?"

The PCV was obviously incredulous, but decided to play along. The guy began again: "I give you for 800 Shillings, very nice price!" The PCV responded "Uh, howabout 500 Shillings?" The guy furrowed his eyebrows and shook his head. "No, man, that is waaaaaay too low! Look at this fine craftsmanship! Maybe 700?"
"Okay."
"No, man, say 600."
"Uh, okay, 600?"
"Oh, that is such a low price! But okay, if you insist! I will give it to you for 600."

Unfortunately I never met this awesome guy during my stay, but I hope he gets as much business as he deserves!

I also forgot to mention that before we even got on the plane to Lusaka at the beginning of our trip we'd already lost a WHO card (immunization records needed to enter some countries) and thought we'd lost our passports. That was very stressful.

And I also left out the anecdote of another PCV on our trip who went to the Jozani monkey park (and actually paid to see the monkeys). She told us that when the guide was telling them all about the monkeys he was very adamant that they ONLY lived in Zanzibar. He said "If anyone tells you that they have these monkeys, they are lying! They are photocopies!"

Anyway, fast forward back to Dar-Es-Salaam. After the fast ferry and my awful motion sickness we recuperated in Dar for a night.

The train departure back to Lusaka was delayed for about 10 hours, giving us a chance to see the downtown, dingy, gritty part that we hadn't been to yet. It was very cool. Huge indoor markets with spices and insects and all the smells you can imagine.

Because of the delay, however, the train ended up arriving at the border with Zambia after the border post closed so we had to park there until the next morning. At about 5:30 AM we heard some people barge into our room, shouting "This is Zambia! We need passports!" Some guys in some kind of uniform nearly sat on our faces as they collected our passports and got comfortable while they stamped them.

The whole ride back was fun, but not nearly as enjoyable as the initial trip. Most of us were quite ready to be done with the oily food and stinky blankets and doors that didn't lock.

On the second or third day in the train we were all EXTRA dirty because of the delays, etc. I really wanted to wash my face and hands because I don't sleep well when I'm all sweaty and sticky. So I scrounged up one of the last remaining water bottles, soaked some toilet paper, and thoroughly washed my face and arms. The cool liquid felt great in the humidity, but I still felt sticky, so I got some more toilet paper extra wet and wiped my face again. The first wad had come away dirty, but this one was clean and I had to wonder "why is my face still so sticky!?" The bottle was almost empty and we didn't have much more in our compartment, so I decided to just drink the rest. It tasted so strange I almost spit it out. Then I realized that it was Sprite. Everyone got a kick out of that. I was now even stickier than before and attracting all the mosquitoes south of the Equator. But what made it worse was that I remembered that it was my own fault. Earlier that day I poured it into the water bottle from the can so it wouldn't spill.

After the train got into Kapiri Mposhi, we only had two more legs of the trip left. And I wish I could say that it was uneventful from this point on. Alas.

The train pulled into Kapiri at about 2:00 AM and they kicked us all off. We barely got our stuff off the train before it started rolling out again. We didn't want to wait for the first bus of the day to Lusaka (at 5:00 AM or so), so we went out and found a small bus that wasn't on a set schedule. They agreed on a fair price, though they forced us to carry all our luggage in our laps. We were all extremely uncomfortable but the WORST part about it (so far) was that they had seemingly managed, somehow, to reroute the entire exhaust system so that it pumped right into our faces. It was too cold to open the windows, so by the time we got off we all had headaches and nausea (and a couple million fewer brain cells).

We all paid for ourselves en route, but they didn't give us our change and we just assumed they were waiting until they had enough to give us all our change together. When we got off 4 hours later we almost forgot to ask about the change. They said some guy went to get change to pay us back. While we waited, I decided to go talk to the Police to see if that policewoman had gotten our money from the con men back. (See first trip entry)

After that it was, comparatively, smooth sailing. We'd gotten most of our money from the con men back, giving the country of Zambia some mitigating evidence. But we had to be grateful that the seats they gave us on the flight to Jo'burg actually existed! However, we were all a bit scared when the pilot, a garrulous and wry Aussie, admitted before takeoff that the Lusaka International Airport didn't have any radar in their air traffic control. So as we took off (after dark), we were all white-knuckling our armrests, looking wide-eyed at each other as we pictured some guy on the roof of the airport, directing the pilots with some old army binoculars and a walkie-talkie.

So, in conclusion, Zanzibar rocks, Tanzania is cool, and Zambia... needs a few more years to mature. But, honestly, I wouldn't have changed a thing about our vacation. For it is the adventure, the inconsistencies, the challenges, and the hardship that make traveling in Africa so fun and memorable. Anyone can survive Paris. And everyone has seen the Empire State Building. But trekking through the African hinterland with no assurances for what the next day will bring...that's my kind of vacation.