Zambia Side - Road to Malawi Pt. II

Next stop, we arrive in Katima and get our group back together. We take a taxi to the border, get our visa (50 American dollars for a one time visa) and proceed on into Zambia. We find a shared taxi to take us to Livingstone (about a 190 km drive). Coincidentally we get a ride with the same guy that many of us have ridden with before (our group has been to Livingstone a few times before on separate trips). It was this dreadlocked guy with a massive bump on his forehead, very recognizable fellow, we were able to find him and work out a cheap deal for the ride. In Africa when you travel by a shared taxi it is common to squeeze as many people as you possibly can into the car. Efficient I guess, but not comfortable. I was lucky to have the longest legs of our group so I got the front seat. Packed in with our bags on our laps we began the journey to Livingstone. Dreadful trip by the way, you figure 190 km, you should be there in an hour and a half if you drive fast but it took us closer to four. The road from Shesheke (the Zambian border town) to Livingstone is a tar road but it would have been better if it were dirt. The road looks like it was bombed out, potholes literally everywhere, you would not stay on your side of the street since you would have to veer around huge 3 feet wide holes to make forward progress. We made it at around eight or nine at night, and we stayed at the Jolly Boys Backpackers in Livingstone (very nice place if you happen to be in Livingstone, cool community atmosphere, chill bar, pool table, swimming pool, and a nice vibe). Over there we met up with five other Namibian Peace Corps volunteers and we stayed the night. 

Hanging out at Jolly Boys

Kelsey and Sara were staying in Livingstone for a few extra days (hanging out with some of the other volunteers and Sara was picking up her brother from the airport) while Tim, Lindsey and I were leaving the night after we arrived. We were taking a bus at 7 p.m. that would take us overnight to Lusaka, the capital of Zambia. Since we had some time to kill my Kavango brethren and I decided to go check out the Victoria Falls National Park. Before we get in Tim says “Bra, get ready, when you are in there you will literally be inside a rain cloud its crazy! Bring clothes that you would use to go swimming” I though he was exaggerating but I put on swimming clothes anyway. We got in the shuttle (free from Jolly Boys) and rode off to the falls. The craziest part was before we even got there. The sky was completely clear that day, but there was a strange cloud, starting real low to the ground that stretched up a few hundred feet and about a hundred feet wide. Tim told me, “Dude, that’s the mist riding up from the water falls.” It was crazy, the mist went really high, it made sense to me now why they call Vic Falls Mosi-O-Tunya or Smoke that Thunders. We get there and the driver warns us about the baboons that are all over the park. Apparently the baboons are very smart, they recognize plastic bags from grocery stores and will come to you and take away whatever they think is food. Some of these baboons were pretty intimidating, the biggest one’s shoulders were waist level to me when he was walking on all fours. Big boy sauntered not three feet from me and he definitely made me feel like I wasn’t the Alfa male around these parts. 

 

The Smoke That Thunders 

We walk into the park and down the trail to the falls. You hear the falls before you get there. You also see giddy people soaked from head to toe climbing back up the trail. It looked as if they had gone swimming in their clothes, some had ponchos but even those didn’t seem to have helped much. The rainy season had just ended about a week or two before so the Zambezi River which fed Vic Falls was very high and dumping huge amounts of water down the cliffs. We get to the first look out and get our first site of the falls. Truly one of the great wonders of the world. I’ve never seen so much moving water, we weren’t even able to see how big the falls were since most of it was covered by mist. We walked down the trail further and I find out what Tim meant by being inside a rain cloud. Actually it felt more like being inside a thunderstorm, water droplets were cascading down on us and you couldn’t see the falls anymore (they were only about 50 feet away). I start giggling like a little girl because I thought it was so cool. The weirdest part was that the mist would shift. So if you were standing still all of a sudden all the rain would stop but you would see rain all around you. 10 seconds later the mist would come back again and you were back in the storm. I was able to snag a picture real quick during one of these breaks. 

 

Inside the waterfall raincloud

We finish with the park and head back to Jolly Boys. Lindsey made some delicious guacamole and we hung out until the three of us needed to leave. Around seven we walk over to the bus station. There were many people around the buses, close to three hundred is my guess, and there were about seven large tourist style buses. We get in our bus, pick a spot, Lindsey hands out some Benadryl to Tim and I and we all pass out.

Around 10 o’clock the bus stops for a bathroom break. We were in the middle of a Benadryl daze, everything looking cloudy and slow. We walk over to the bathroom in this tiny Zambian town (disgusting bathroom) and do our business. On the way out this short skinny man appears all of a sudden and tells us that we need to pay for the bathroom. We didn’t find it that weird since this was normal practice and the guy was also charging money from the locals. Tim didn’t have his wallet with him so he told the guy that he would go to the bus to get his money. The small man yelled back “No! No! You must pay now now!” Tim still being in a daze and tired didn’t really have patience for this guy so he told him again that he would go get his wallet. Again the little man refused. Tim started getting impatient and started walking like he was going to run over the guy. “No big man! Calm down!  I just need your money for the bathroom!” I had been watching the exchange with my mouth open, probably drooling a bit and not really registering what was going on. But when Tim started walking towards the guy and ready to go through him it snapped in my head that I had enough money to pay for both of us, so we paid the guy and continued on our way. 

 

People selling goods outside of our bus including delicious samosas

We arrived at Lusaka at 3 in the morning. Our next bus to Lilongwe (the capital of Malawi) was leaving at 5. We were still pretty zonked out but feeling a bit better. We reach the bus doors and out there are about ten men yelling “Yes boss, come with me! I take you! Taxi? Where do you go?” Not the most pleasant way to arrive in a new city at three in the morning. We picked one guy and told him we were going to Malawi on the Shalom bus. He walked us over to the ticket station and we got our tickets, we tipped the guy then started walking around the real grimy Lusaka bus station. The place seemed to be half bus station half market. Small shops where everywhere selling everything from food to cellphones. Since it was so early most of the stores were closed. All the store owners where sleeping on the ground, covered up in blankets (it was actually pretty cold there at night). We see a store that is selling some food, we get some bread, coffee, and water and we sit down and wait for our bus. The station was really run down and kind of weird. I was standing by the bathroom and I feel something on my leg and I see this older man extending his foot to poke my leg then ask for money. Strange begging technique, never seen it before. I refuse and we walk away. We hang out for a bit then head to our bus where we fall asleep, Benadryl still taking effect.

Smugglers, Big Waterfalls, Rastas, A Big Lake, Infections, and Bribery in Africa: The Road to Malawi Pt. I

Our first trimester had just ended for 2014. I only had about four months left of service (leaving in September) and by then I had been able to travel to almost all of Namibia. On the coast I got to see Ludderitz, Walvis Bay, and Swakopmund. I was able to see the amazing sand dunes in Sossusvlei, the three central towns/city of Windhoek, Rehoboth, and Okahandja. I went out east near Botswana to see Gobabis and way northwest to see the Himbas in Opuwo. I’ve been through the central north in Ovamboland, covered the Kavango (my region), and to the far east into the Caprivi Strip. So for our last large holiday before the end of service I wanted to travel outside of Namibia and visit other countries in Africa. My nearest neighbors, Tim and Lindsey have been my most consistent travel buddies so we began to plan a trip to Malawi via Zambia. Meeting us there was also Kelsey and Sara, two incredibly hilarious girls who were going to meet us at our final destination, the idyllic Nhkata Bay in central Malawi. 

 

Kelsey and Sara by the river in Shamangorwa

My journey first started when Kelsey and Sara came up from central Namibia to visit my village. It was amazing to have guests, it gets real lonely in the village and I’ve spent many a Friday night staring at the wall and being in bed by 9:30. Having them over was awesome. They came over and I cooked a bunch of food for them (I bought too many things from the grocery store and I gave us a mission of finishing all the food in the house, we put in a valiant effort but we were unsuccessful, at least the village dog got to have a hearty meal when we left). Our plan was to hitch hike to Divundu (a small town 60 km from my village where volunteers where rendezvousing before we struck out into central Africa). Problem was that the main road was 7 km away. We ate a huge lunch that day, entered a food coma and tried to wait until the sun wasn’t so high before we started walking. As soon as we started to head out the door though, one of my teachers pulls up and gives us a ride in his car to the tar road. Once we are there we start flagging down cars for about 45 minutes while Sara and Kelsey are doing Sara and Kelsey things (dancing, acting weird, talking in strange voices, all that). Two lorries (sixteen wheelers) finally stop and take us to Divundu. Next, we jump into another car, get dropped off at the volunteer’s site in Divundu, crack open a bottle of wine, ate some homemade pizza (big up Steph!) with salami imported from the U.S and had a jolly night. 

Next morning we rouse ourselves and get back on the road and start hitch hiking the 300 odd kilometers to Katima Mulilo (means burning fire), the capital of the Caprivi region which is the border town to get into Zambia. We were a group of five, so not very good numbers for hitch hiking. We waited for about thirty minutes until two lorries came by. Turns out the two drivers were brothers and came from Rehoboth, the same town that Sara was working at. So Sara and Kelsey start speaking to them in Afrikaans and they agree to take us for free. There was only one stipulation, the police where recently cracking down on lorrie drivers who carried passengers so whenever we passed a police checkpoint we would have to find a way to hide. The lorrie driver told us that the fine was 3,000 Nam dollars (300 American). We didn’t want to get the drivers in trouble but they insisted that we would be able to hide and that it would be fine. Tim and I jumped into one while Lindsey, Sara, and Kelsey jumped into the other. If you’ve been inside a sixteen wheeler you know that there is the driver seat, the passenger seat, and the bed behind the seats for where the driver can rest. That is where we were sitting. 

 

The Dream Team - Tim, Lindsey, and I

I forgot the name of our driver, very cool guy though. He had an auxiliary cord so we were able to put in my Ipod and jam out together. We were 100 kilometers out when we came across our first police checkpoint. As soon as the driver saw it he yelled “get down, get down!” As it was only a small bed I pretty much had to lay down on top of Tim to hide. His hip was poking my head, very uncomfortable. Luckily these lorries are very tall so we weren’t seen. The police woman comes up, asks the driver for his license and registration, she also asks if he is traveling with anybody. He boldly says no, flirts and jokes with the police office for a little bit then we head out. We get up and start whooping and celebrating that we didn’t get caught. First time ever being smuggled past the police! Definitely gets the adrenaline pumping. About 50 km later there is another check point. This time it’s a man in an army uniform at the checkpoint. This man actually climbs up the lorrie and takes a look inside, we get up before he sees that we are hiding therefor avoiding pissing him off. He asks us where we are going, takes a look inside our bags, then speaks to the driver in Afrikaans. Turns out that the army does not really care about lorries giving people rides, they were more looking for drugs. Funny thing was that the soldier had told the driver to watch out for us Americans, that we could be dangerous. It was strange but then we reflected later that it must have something to do with the Illuminati. People in Namibia believe that Americans are part of some secret group called the Illuminati and that they are trying to take over the world. I still have no idea where this rumor started but it’s shocking to people here when we tell them that the Illuminati does not exist. Anyway, we all had a good laugh at that once we passed through the checkpoint.

 

Victoria Falls - Our first target in our trip

We go for another 100 km and the driver tells us that there is another police checkpoint ahead. He told us that at this one the cops where a bit more thorough so he dropped us off at a bridge .5 km before the checkpoint. The plan was for us to walk up to the checkpoint, go past it, and meet up with the driver on the other side. At the time it sounded like a good idea and that we would be able to make it look normal (the check point was in the middle of nowhere, two white guys emerging from the bush, walking by the checkpoint nonchalantly and disappearing again into the bush, not really normal). So the driver drops us off and Tim and I start walking. We adhere to the philosophy of if you walk around like you own the place nobody will bother you. So we tried that. We walked up to the police checkpoint where there was a line of cars and trucks, kept walking past the police with bravado but no actual confidence, and passed the checkpoint. We made it about 15 feet before one of the cops called us and told us to come back. We smile at the officer, shake his hand respectfully (handclap included), and put our brains into overdrive. “Where are you guys going?” Asks the officer. “Oh we are just going to Katima, we have a friend that is coming from that side and he is going to pick us up around half a kilo up the road” (This is when I realized how stupid of a lie we were trying to pull off). “You can’t go over there, there are wild animals! Call your friend and tell him to pick you up here!” Says the officer. “My phone is out of battery, I can’t really call him, it will be fine, he will come close” I said. “So just stay here, charge your phone in our office and he can come pick you up here.” (Oh oh!) At this point another less friendly officer comes and starts questioning us more aggressively, “where are you coming from, where are you going, who are you?” Tim and I did not want to talk to that guy, it seemed like he noticed that we were being suspicious but luckily at the same time the friendly officer asked “so what are you doing here in Namibia all the way from Europe? America?” Tim and I talked right over the short aggressive officer and tried to continue our conversation with the friendly officer. So we chatted with him for a bit, told him what we were doing, showed our passports, made some jokes, complimented him and his country and eventually the angry officer went away. The friendly officer takes us to the office to charge my phone, we enter and our bus driver was also there charging his. We pretend not to know each other (driver gives us a wink and smile while the officer isn’t looking) and I connect my phone. The officer seemed like he wanted to help us out so I ask the driver. “Hey how you doing man? Any chance you heading to Katima?” “Yes, yes of course, do you guys need a ride?” Replies the driver. So we agree on our ride and I ask the officer respectfully, “Sir, this man is also traveling to Katima, would it be alright if he helps us out?” By that time something else had distracted the officer so he just grunted in affirmative and we were off! Another close call but we made it!