Chipata, Zambia
Trip Start
Jun 08, 2008
1
11
28
Trip End
Aug 15, 2008
Chipata,
Zambia
Friday, June 27, 2008
This morning I had my best breakfast of the trip as I had my own delicious bread and cereal, combined with the group's milk, bananas and fruit jam.
As we were on the truck about to depart the campsite, someone mentioned that wireless internet was available from the campsite, so I quickly seized the opportunity to check the stock market, hoping for some uplifting news to cheer me up. Well, it turned out that the market had had one of its biggest drops of the year - also hitting the low point for the year - and shaving a substantial sum off of my net worth in one of my all-time worst days ever, stock marketly speaking. What a way to start the day! Crap! This news ended up affecting my state of mind for the whole day
01-My cozy room
.We got off to a timely start from the campsite and after a stop for refueling for hard-to-find-in-Malawi diesel, we reached the Zambia border in a couple of hours. Leaving Malawi was straightforward and quick; entering Zambia took an hour and a half due to recently introduced new very high visa fees (depending on nationality) as a way to discourage much needed tourism. (As the saying goes, they never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity.)
The trip to our campsite in Zambia took only a further 30 minutes and after pitching our tents at the earliest time on the trip, we gathered for our usual lunch of sandwiches and salads at a very late 15:00.
I then was able to upgrade myself into a room (rather than the usual tent), which I needed in order to re-sort and repack my things because I will be leaving the group tomorrow in Lusaka. My things will have to be back into fewer bags in order to take a taxi from the shopping mall in Lusaka where I will be dropped off to the guest house at which I will be staying. While living out of the tour truck, we keep all of our things in a locker during the daytime but at night we have to bring the things we will need for sleeping and showering into the tent. As a result, my orderly packing is severely disrupted. But after just a half an hour in a very cozy room of my own, I was able to get everything nicely sorted and packed again.
I was still unable to post my blog - for ten days now as there has either been no internet access - or it has been too expensive. Here at our campsite, for example, one hour of internet use costs US$12 - which is almost as much as I am paying (US$18) to upgrade from a tent to a room. That's just too much to pay for internet - especially when a much more reasonably priced alternative is in sight in Lusaka in a day or so.
Comments
Wow
$12 an hour - most I have ever heard of.