Let me preface this blog post and the following by saying
that the traveling to Malawi has been nearly as exciting or more than actual
Malawi itself. So lets begin.
We planned to leave Rundu at first
daylight because we wanted to make it as far as possible. We knew this journey
would take us forever and we wanted to get it done as fast as possible. The
first leg of our trip was provided to us by three very attractive men who blew
by our outstretched hiking hand signals but then turned around and came back.
They were all teachers and one actually worked at the same school as a fellow
PCV of ours. I have found that when hiking I am most commonly picked up by
someone who knows another volunteer. “OH I saw you with your white skin and
your big bag and I knew you had to be so and so’s friend!” It provides a nice
conversation starter and I then know that if I end up in a dangerous situation
that you probably assume happens with a blonde haired girl on the side of the
road, I have a name and a location to fall back on. The guys were all really
cool, they drove fast and when we stopped for gas or food they came out to chat
with us. They also blared Top 40 from the US so when we did stop 3 large black
Namibians unloaded from the car that was blaring Miley Cyrus’s Wrecking Ball.
They also loved taking pictures with us, which I didn’t mind because I still
looked cute in my “I’m traveling across Africa gear” (This look did not last).
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| 6am sunrise and hike |
We made it
to the Zambia border much more ahead of schedule and were prepared for chaos.
When we arrived we stepped out of our cab and were bombarded by people
suggesting a cab across the border. One thing I have learned about Namibians,
and this may apply to others in Southern Africa as well, is that they hate
walking anywhere. If you didn’t know that the border was about half a kilometer
long, you would have paid a man double the normal cab rate, plus the vehicle
fee to drive across the border just to turn the corner and look at the small
border building approaching. This is probably a very useful service for people
who are doing a lot of shopping on one side or another but for a few Peace
Corps Volunteers with giant hiking backpacks, we were pretty capable of
walking. This however did not stop every car from following us or stopping next
to us asking if we would like a taxi ride. At first we politely said no, then
we began adding small comments about how we had capable legs to walk, but then
it turned into us just asking REALLY? We can see the building, its like 200m
away, are you kidding me? But I guess if you didn’t know any better you would
have fallen for it and the dude would have ripped you off. Oh well. We
effortlessly enter Zambia and make our way to a family run bus service. The bus
was scheduled to leave in a few hours so we had time to relax, make sure to
stretch our legs, and grab some Zambian Kwatcha (which did not work because the
only ATM available in the Zambian border town conveniently did not accept
VISA.)
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| Welcome to Zambia |
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When the
bus arrived I was amazed, actually we all were, at the beautiful coach bus
waiting for us to board. I’m happy my expectations were so low for the
transportation part of this trip because I was so excited to be on a comfy bus
for the next 5-7 hours all the way to the capital Lusaka. We jump on and knew
that it should only be about 2 or three hours to Livingston where we were
planning to meet up with our 4th person. Brandon was already in
Livingston with other PCVs and so we thought it’d be easy for him to just hop
on the bus we were on when it stopped. Without cell phone reception we tried
desperately to contact him and let him know the plans. If he wanted to ride to
Lusaka with us he needed to get on a specific bus. If we missed him in
Livingston, there was no telling where he would be or when we would see him
next. We all had confidence he would be fine, but if we were in his situation
we wouldn’t want to be left either.
As we soon
found out, much of the information regarding transportation to Malawi that we
got from other people was incorrect. The first being this short 147km between
the border town and Livingstone. When I see 147 km I think less than 2 hours.
Namibians dive fast. Like super fast whereas the rest of Southern Africa has
lower speed limits that are abided by, and now we are on a coach bus so we are
going slower than we anticipated. To top
it off, this road is like the road to hell or at least to a flat tire or
totaled car. I don’t know how it got to this condition but the road is littered
with potholes the size of tires and cars that are 6 inches to a foot deep. This
results in the bus and every other vehicle on the road driving on whatever side
necessary to take the best path. Our giant ass coach bus just drove on the side
of the road in the bush and on the shoulder half the time. Or at least that’s
what we thought, we couldn’t see a thing because it was already dark and there
were no streetlights. Obviously.
We arrive
in Livingston after about 4 or 5 hours and we begin to execute our plan of
finding Brandon. I am going to run to the bathroom really quick because Lord
knew how long the next leg was going to take and scan the area for Brandon,
Derek was going to jump out stretch his long legs and watch to make sure our
bags underneath stay on the bus, and June was going to hold our seats and wait
for me to hurry back so she could go out and ask around for our white person. I
climb off the bus and immediately have keys, pointing fingers, snapping
fingers, and loud noises all bombarding my senses. A white person stepping off
a giant coach bus means they are visiting and need a taxi. I needed to find a
white man and a toilet, not a taxi so I pushed them off and began my search for
both. I found the bathroom but no Brandon so I ran back to the bus to switch
with June. About 10 or 20 minutes go by and there is still no Brandon. After
talking to people around the bus station, at the ticket counter, and any other
random person who could understand our English-random Bantu words jumble we
conclude that he has definitely purchased a ticket with the company we told
him, he is supposed to be on the next bus leaving yet there is a possibility he
is walking around, maybe drunk, with other white people. There is no way to
contact him so we take this information and ask the ticket people to tell him he
is on his own, we will see him in Malawi because we are never going to find him
now.
The bus
ride was extremely efficient, every hour, on the hour we stopped at a small
town where people got off and on. The private coach busses are like the
equivalent of public transportation, its what people rely on to get them from
one city to the next. All was going good until the bus stops, the engine gets
turned off and every male on the bus steps off. No this was not a pee break, we
had broken down. It is now conveniently 2 in the morning (maybe), we don’t
actually know what time zone we are in, we don’t know how far we are from our
destination considering the previous bus ride was about 5 times longer than it
should have been, and we are at a gas station in the middle of presumably
nowhere. About an hour goes by and I think to myself well, I might as well
stretch my legs, go pee, and get some fresh air. There is a small shop at the
gas station that I think opened just for the bus being there but we quickly
realized that we actually had no Zambian currency on us. We purchased our bus
ticket in the border town and they accepted Namibian dollars and ever since
then we have been on the bus. Thankfully we packed plenty of food and in all
honesty we were fine but we were in the true literal sense of stuck. No money,
no phones, and a hammer to fix the bus. I try to find a bathroom, I have no
luck unless you consider the great outdoors the world’s largest bathroom (which
I have found out is a common mindset for many people here because civilization
is so far spread out and if you have to go, you have to go). I look to one side
of the gas station and there is bush and weeds and lord only knows what kind of
scary African wildlife and critters hidden there. I look to the other side and
there is what I assumed was a homeless man sleeping, alright straight to the
tree on the side of the road we go. This was the second of many times I wished
I was a man on this trip.
In about 2 hours we were up and
running and back on the road. It was a nice break to stretch our legs and find
a tree to pee on. This unknowingly and exhaustingly long leg of our journey was
only the beginning.
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