planes, trains and automobiles...except for no planes...and buses suck!

Continuing from Sarah's last post, we make it to Lusaka (the capital of Zambia and the 2nd leg or our African journey) around 7pm and meet up with our Peace Corps friend there in town.  Lusaka, to us, seemed like such a nice place and was kinda like a mini South Africa which is like a mini LA or so forth...you get the picture.  There were grocery stores, endless fancy food restaurants and shopping malls.  We hit up one of the nice sandwich shops before heading to her house for the night and it was AMAZING!!!!   The next morning we were heading out on the -what we thought would be a short bus ride to Livingstone, the site were the beautiful world renown Victoria Falls is located.  That is when things started to get a little crazy.

So, we get up at 5am the next morning to start our what should have been 5-6 hour bus ride to our destination.  After making it a little over a third of the way in an SUV with some friends of our friend, we had to hop on a bus for the rest of the trip.  The driver said it would take us straight there in around 3 hours "or so".  Yea you should never ever ever trust the words of an African bus conductor unless you are in Rwanda, then they may actually be telling the truth.  We get in and the driver starts poking his way along at a snails pace which is rare for any African bus driver.  We also stopped about every 2 minutes for anything standing on the side of the road to see if they wanted to be squeezed on the bus.  And, at every town he would stop at the bus park for 45 minutes or so to just hang out.  It didn't take us long to realize we weren't going to make it there anytime soon.  And, if there is one thing I have learned really gets to me it is feeling helpless in a situation and not being able to control anything...and also inefficiency and time wasting.  So, unless you were there you can't really know how I got to this point but I was about to flip out.  I have never in my life felt so anxious and helpless.  I couldn't sit still and wanted to just get off and start walking because I felt we could get there faster that way.  Sarah was also started to get a little anxious as well and said she felt like holding a gun to the drivers head and saying, "DRIVE and don't stop for anything or anyone."  So this frustration and anxiety made the next part of the trip really tricky.  About 8 hours after getting on this bus, the driver and conductor stop on the side of the road and decide they are done driving for the day and the rest of the people in the bus can find their own way the remaining 100+ kilometers of the way.   As you can imagine this outraged us as well as the other 15 Zambians with us.  We demanded they give us at least a portion of our money back to make it the rest of the way or continue driving us but they had no interest in either.  At this point, I was becoming lethargic but Sarah had had enough and I must say got worked up and very confrontational (for probably one of the first times in her life outside of with a family member) and threatened to call the police to which the man said, "call the police, it's no problem, tell them to come" almost as if he was taunting us.  This also enraged the others even more and several men went to find the police.  I had to keep Sarah from stealing the keys from out of the ignition which she kept saying she was going to do until they gave us our money or drove us there.  Her exact words were, "he has our money so I am gonna keep his keys." At one point I mentioned jokingly to the others, there are 17 of us, we should just slap him around a little bit thinking nobody would hear or understand me to which a lady turned around and said yes, we should just slap him around a little bit, then he will cooperate.

Then, we notice the driver and conductor wanted to make a run for it but all of our things and bags and luggage were still in the bus.  So, all 17 of us run and jump in with the driver as he starts to pull away, leaving the 3 men that went to find the cops.  After making it less than 2 km down the road, the cops pull us over with the 3 men in the back and everyone starts to applaud.  At this point, things are just starting to get crazy.  The police officer seemed to have our back and argued our case but seemed to be lacking on the actual taking action side.  He told the man to give some of our money back or take us the rest of the way...the man refused.  Finally he says he will pay another bus to take us the rest of the way which didn't work because he tried to give every bus that came by very little money for 17 passengers (which they didn't have room for anyway).  At this point all of us passengers had formed a sort of bond together against the bus people.  So, when one bus said they had room for two and they tried to force the two "white people" on the bus, we refused and said we are not going without them...it was great...lol.  Finally, a bus/cargo van came by but Sarah was skeptical.  All of the windows in the back were blacked out and Sarah instantly said, "I am not getting in that bus.  That's a murder bus...my Dad taught me all about those.  Bad things happen to people in that kind of bus."  But,  it was our only option.  So, all 17 of us piled into the back of this cargo type bus/van without any seats and an hour or so later made it to Livingstone.

The rest of the time in Livingstone was amazing.  Our backpackers place we stayed at was amazing, clean, hospitable and friends and the food was amazing as well.  We went to Victoria Falls (locally known as "the smoke that thunders") which is just beyond words breathtaking.  Right now is the end of the rainy season so the falls are at their biggest and the word thundering is very appropriate for the sound it makes.  Here are just a few facts to put it into perspective.  Victoria Falls is nearly 2km wide (over a mile), around 350 feet high, sprays a mist over 1500 feet into the air and raise the water depth by nearly 20 feet when the falls is at it's peak...which it was.  The sad thing was, it was nearly impossible to see the entire thing because of the insane amount of mist/smoke it produced.  Once you enter the park they give you not one but 2 ponchos to wear...this should tell you something.  The remaining time we walked in what seemed like a monsoon as we were pelted with rain and wind produced from the shear power of the falls.  At some points we were probably a 1/2 a mile away and still being rained on.  It was truly amazing and beautiful.

Then one of the funnier moments of trip is when a baboon jumped down off the roof of a building at the park entrance when moment Sarah stepped away from her table and snatched her pineapple fanta bottle.  Then he proceeded to jump back on the roof, hold it between his legs, twist off the top and drink it right there in front of us, then throw the bottle on the ground.  Those dudes were crazy and were really walking a tight line between interesting and fun experience for tourist or just straight up annoying.  Anyway, we jokingly asked the lady in the store if we get a refund since Sarah had just opened the bottle.  She laughed and said no.  That happens all the time.

Later that day we went on what was probably the coolest part of our trip - the lion walk.  They have a rehabilitation center for lions there and after they become sexually mature, they place them back into a reserver were people will see them on safaris.  So, by interacting and being with the lions, you actually take part in the rehabilitation process.  This was really cool and we were able to spend nearly 2 hours just sitting, petting and playing with two lions.  They told us they were cubs, only 2 years old.  What we didn't know is that lion cubs are huge.  They probably weighed around 200 pounds and definitely could have had us for an appetizer that day.  Fortunately, they were really friendly and didn't mind us chilling with them for a few hours.  We will try to get some pix of this posted soon because they are amazing!

The next day we just hung out around the city and had some amazing food.  Then we hopped on the night bus back to Lusaka (which was the Mercedes Benz of all buses, literally, it was a Mercedes Benz Bus) which praise God actually took us there in a descent amount of time.  We arrived back to Lusaka around 2 in the morning and then got on the 5am bus from Lusaka to the border of Malawi.  This bus was not too bad either and made it in a descent amount of time.  After going through customs we got another bus and 2 hours later we were in the capital of Malawi to begin the third leg of our journey.   Sarah will take it from here...