Traveling to Zambia

On Friday (the 10th) at 5:30 AM, Jodie dropped me off at the bus stop for my trip to Zambia. In typical fashion, we had to swing by the office on the way to grab a few things before heading to the bus stop. The bus left at 5:50 to begin the interminable journey. I was up until 2 packing and tying up loose ends for work, so I slept a healthy amount on the ride. I also brought a 700 page book and made a healthy dent in that. I grabbed some snacks at some of the stops along the way (it's nice traveling during fruit season so that there's an alternative to the over-priced heavily fried foods on offer) and was surprised to see glass bottles of Mountain Dew (Pepsi is a common sight, but this was the first time I've seen Mountain Dew in glass--it seemed unnaturally classy for Mountain Dew). The bus arrived in Mbeya at 11:45 PM (the first time I've had the trip take less than 18 hours). I found an all night grill and grabbed a bite before walking around town (down some dark abandoned roads) to find a hotel.

I slept wonderfully and struggled to pull myself out of bed for an early start. I decided that since I was slow, it made sense to wait for the shops to open at 9 AM so that I could exchange my Tanzanian shillings for Zambian kwacha before the border (where the hawkers offer egregiously unfair prices). Then I hopped on a small bus headed to the border (the Tanzanian border town is Tunduma). After 2 hours, we hit a huge traffic build up about 2 km from the border, so I just decided to get out and walk to the border (I wasn't carrying a sheller in my luggage this time around, so it was much easier to move around). It was a pretty uneventful border crossing, though I have to say that the Zambian entry form was one of my favorites. The top asked for Date d'Entree which it translated as Date of Exit. Also, in filling out the year, it prompted you with 19__. But it was a refreshingly easy crossing.

Across in Zambia, I was in a town called Nakonde. I bought a bus ticket and walked around a bit. I bought a sim card and walked around a bit to survey. The market was nice, though I was surprised to see almost no fruit on offer (so there were plenty of tomatoes, but that's only technically a fruit--I'm not sure I can recall any markets I've visited where I didn't see any bananas). I decided to wait on the bus. I attempted to learn a little Nyanja (one of the main languages of Zambia), tried to nap, read more of my book and paced quite a bit. After 5 hours, the bus finally set off (it was 4:30 PM at this point because of the time change when I entered Zambia).

As I quickly discovered, the seats on this bus were about two inches narrower than the width of my shoulders. And to compound matters, there were people standing in the aisles, which meant that as they leaned into the rows, we were all squished even more (though next to their plight, I certainly can't complain). It became dark pretty quickly, so I couldn't read anymore. There were lights for each seat, but they cut the power to them, so I played around with my phone and tried to catch a nap. Unfortunately, my neighbor kept sleeping in the most unneighborly fashion. At times he would put his hands behind his head so that his elbow was resting on my back if I was leaning forward or his elbow was jostling against my temple if I hazarded to lean back. I could feel my stomach revolting against my travel diet and the travel stress, but there wasn't really anything I could do at that point.

We pulled into Lusaka at 7:40 AM and after running to the toilets at the bus stop, I grabbed a taxi and had breakfast with some friends before setting off at 11 AM for Chipata, which was my final destination. This time we were riding in the back of a Peace Corps vehicle with a lot of gear, so it was less comfortable than the two Tanzanian buses, though definitely a huge improvement over my bus into Lusaka. We rolled into the guest house just after 7:30 PM on Sunday and I was thrilled that I had finally arrived.

So, to summarize the 63 hours qualitatively:
5 vehicles and just under 44 hours on the road
49,000 shillings and 145,000 kwacha in bus fare (about $62)
2 stamps and 1 visa in my passport
350 pages and 17 Economist articles read
Way too many calories and way too few vitamins in my meals
About 10 hours of sleep (not much of it was good sleep)
1 realization that my body can't take much more of this kind of travel

Anyway, there's a lot going on here and I'm slightly too busy to write about it, so by the end of the year, I'm probably going to put up a ton of posts (hopefully with lots of pictures).