Livingstone
Laura: We arrived in Livingstone early in the morning to the usual insane scramble and hustle/bustle that follows you all over Africa. Every time you rock up to a station you get mobbed by locals who will try to carry your bags or persuade you to stay at their friend’s hotel. Some of them get a bit over excited and will try to run away with your bag. We were pretty used to this so when a guy approached us and said that he was from the hostel we had booked we just ignored him. He had a shifty demeanour and smelled of wee. Turns out he did actually work there! Our hostel was called Jollyboys and it was bloody awesome! It had a huge swimming pool and chill out area with enormous cushions, great dorms and really helpful staff.
We met some great people there but the main person that stands out was Brian Koster. He was from Vancouver and had travelled all over the world and even ran his own hardcore expeditions in South America delivering medical supplies to villages. We decided to book a full day of activities when we get there. We opted for white water rafting and a booze cruise along the Zambezi River. The rafting still remains my highlight of travelling even though I thought I might drown at one point! We had to hike down this ridiculous gorge (100ft) using a ladder that looked like it was made by drunken children. I zipped down fairly easily but Ahmad (who has the balance of a drunken child) took a good while longer! There were three rafts that day; one was full of Koreans who were lovely and the other contained British and Aussies. They were dicks. The rapids were amazing but it didn’t get scary until we got to ‘The Mother’ and ‘Terminator 2’. Needless to say the boat capsized and we were all pulled under. Ahmad swallowed about 4 pints of dirty Zambezi water and I couldn’t swim out of the rapids! I kept going under and couldn’t see the boat (our guide Babyface had turned the boat around and was all ready to go again by this point). Just to defer slightly, many African men give themselves nicknames which border on the ridiculous. This might be because foreigners can’t pronounce their real names but even so, this is how they refer to each other! The best was without a doubt Happy Coconut. Eventually we all got back in and decided that we would deliberately flip the boat whenever possible which happened a few more times. At the end we climbed into a lift to take us back to the top of the gorge. We all held our breath because the wire seriously looked like it could snap at any second. This is a common theme in Africa, it’s best just to go with the flow and say TIA. After safely arriving at the top we all clambered into a van and headed back to the waterfront to get showered and go on the booze cruise. This is where the brits came into their own in terms of acting like wankers and making us ashamed to be from the same island. This one rugby boy was nailing the beers provided in one minute flat and pretty much making sure that nobody else got any! The booze cruise was very fun and picturesque. A good time was had and we all got pretty hammered. I suppose I don’t need to say that Victoria Falls was incredible. It is the most beautiful sight I have ever seen. After a great stay in Livingstone and after meeting some truly great people we headed to the capital city, Lusaka
Lusaka and Chipata
Laura: We left Livingstone on a day bus bound for Lusaka. We had met three German girls on the bus from Windhoek, saw them again in Livingstone and ended up catching the same bus as them to Lusaka. We also saw them in Malawi! When you travel from SA to Kenya or vice versa you bump into the same traveller’s quite alot because the transport connections always leave from big cities and there are so few in African countries. The German girls were certainly interesting; they were hippies, had a fair amount of body hair ([Ahmad] – pits, lips and tits), shared clothing and literally slept in a pile. There was very little to do in Lusaka so we mainly relaxed at the hostel for a few days before moving on to Chipata (the border town to Malawi). One thing worth mentioning is a guy we met called Charles. He had travelled from France to Africa on a push bike and was doing every country on the continent! I don’t think it gets any more hard core than that!
We had arranged a bus to Chipata that departed at 4.30am and took 11 hours. OR SO WE THOUGHT. The day before we headed to the bus station to reserve our seats and it was total chaos. We knew that the next direct bus to Malawi was 4 days away so we had to opt for a bus to Chipata, a taxi to the border, a taxi to the nearest local town and finally a bus to Lilongwe (the capital). Despite this, touts were swarming us and kept insisting that their company had a direct bus to Lilongwe leaving the next day. We got to the counters to discover that this was completely false. After this happened 4 times we told the touts to back off but they still continued to follow us, shouting ‘Lilongwe direct!!’ in our ears! Eventually we booked a bus to Chipata but due to the language barrier we screwed up. The bus did not take 11 hours, it arrived in Chipata at 11am. There were buses every hour but the guy behind the counter assumed that we needed the first one leaving at 4.30am! So we got up at stupid o clock, nearly got ripped off by the bus driver who wanted to charge us for luggage and then sat on the bus for 2 hours waiting for it to leave. Buses in Africa don’t go anywhere until every seat is filled so nothing is ever on time! In this two hours we had to listen to a minister literally yelling religious drivel at the bus passengers and African music playing full blast. It was 6.30am before the bus left and the music got louder! It was an absolute nightmare! We arrived in Chipata at 12pm and decided to stay for one night. We got into a taxi which was clearly broken and wouldn’t start. The driver tried to reassure us but that car was messed up and would not be going anywhere ever again. After more negotiations we got another taxi but were swarmed by this time. Even though we had accepted a lift with one guy, we were still getting hassled. One guy tried to take Ahmad’s pack off his back and I’m afraid this was the final straw. Ahmad flipped at him and an argument broke out. Luckily we hopped in the car and sped away pronto! This kind of situation is pretty much the norm in Africa. It can be very stressful and you have to know what you want, where you are going and how much tickets should be. If you don’t you’re gonna get ripped. Going through borders can also sometimes be a nightmare! When you get there you get swarmed by guys who want to change your currency. We were doing a new country roughly every 10 days so we had to change money all the time. The guys will all start shouting rates at you and crowding round. This instantly makes you confused and stressed and some travellers just agree anything so they have a bit of cash over the border to get to the first town. Also if you don’t exchange money by hand at exactly the same time, the guys will just run off with your cash! We always knew what rate we should get and we tried to change our cash at bureaus as much as possible. Going through borders officially are really straight forward; most of the time your passport just gets a quick glance and then stamped.