The African 'orient express': not quite the same:)
Trip Start
Nov 12, 2007
1
11
13
Trip End
Dec 17, 2007
Lusaka,
Zambia
Monday, December 3, 2007
None of us slept very well as the train stopped, jerked, squeched, roared and other thing that might keep you awake. Especially was it when the train jerked and kind of threw you around, which felt like we were going off rail. Next morning we made some of our own food and I started reading a book about Nigeria. I meet some nice Zambians and they were very helpful concerning how to get further on and where to change money and so on. The day went by and we did what we had to to keep time passing. I finished my book and watched out the window for hours, and in the evening we had ugali stew, this time with chicken (aren't we the crazy ones J). So now we had no money except my 50 $ note which was pretty much useless until we got to a new city. There were some highlight during the ride. Every time we stopped at a station people were selling stuff, and the train became a marked were people bought huge bags of potatoes, tomatoes, corn, coal, crackers and much more. All the kids were waving at us as we rode by and they asked for our empty bottles so they could collect water in them. It was really nice and the kids were running along the train asking for money, pens, or whatever they could get. Once in a while there were people trying to free-ride, but then the train stopped and let them of in the middle of nowhere, even in the game reserve where there are lions and other wild animals. Life is tough in Africa I tell you. There were police running around the train and they were pretty big and looked scary to me. As I went to the lounge I saw a police officer who had just caught a man trying to steal from a compartment. He told me that he was a thief as he smiled and smacked him pretty hard on the guy's head several times. Something tells me that this guy had some hours train ride left in a small crappy cell. The second day we crossed the boarder and we had to pay the visas, and the Americans were pissed as they had to pay 100$ and I only had to pay 25$. The younger one tried to take it out on the immigration officer, which is never a good idea. But we got our visas and were on our way. We went to sleep hoping to be at Kipiri around 8-9 AM. But faith wanted it differently and we did not arrive until about 1 PM. Taking into account the hour we lost a the boarder that meant we spent 46 HOURS!!!! on the train, and not 30-40 as expected. We were tired of the train and we decided to get to Lusaka as soon as possible. We still had 200 KM to go and wanted to get a ice cold beer as soon as we could. The three north Americans decided to join us as they were heading the same way. They had no lonely planet or anything else so they were very dependent on us. Actually they thought that Lusaka would be like a ten minute taxi drive from the train station. They could not have been more wrong.
There were a lot of mini busses, or dalla dallas at the train station, and they all wanted to get us on board. I had a 50 $ bill which I wanted to use to get to Lusaka. After getting the price down from 100 $ to 50 $ for all of us we were on our way, tired and exhausted. But the driver who promised us that he was going direct was of course lying, as they often do down here. He tried to squese as many people in the dalla dalla as he could to my great annoyment. I got to an ATM and got money for the ride, and I paid half of the price in advance and told them they get the rest on arrival. But for some reason they wanted everything right away. They said that they needed money for gas, but I told him that there was more than enough money to fill gas for. After an hour or so he became more desperate, but I told him to be patient. Then we stopped. The car broke down. Suddenly everything made sense, and we were very glad we did not pay everything in advance. The driver, who was a strange character, stopped another empty dalla dalla, and started to speak with the driver in Zambian. The driver of the other one wanted more money that the other one and we felt like we were set up big time. Here we were in the middle of nowhere and no negotiating power. At this time I was tired and upset and told the first driver to give all of the money to the next driver, something he did not want to do. I actually had to raise my voice and become a bit angry for reason to prevail. They asked everyone to get in the new dalla dalla except me, and they negotiated with me alone. I won, and we did not have to pay more for the ride, and we were on our way again. But this dalla dalla was crowded, and we sat like cattle in there. Five big westeners take a bit more space than the locals, and we just wanted the ride to end. And what do you know: three hours later it ended. 200 km in four hours gives an average speed of 50 km/hour, which is less than impressing J But the driver drove us to Lusaka and he even drove us a bit closer to where we wanted to stay than he had to. We walked for a while and came to Chachacka backpackers, dropped out backpacks and ordered a beer. After about 51 hours we where in Lusaka, a rather long journey one might say. After relaxing a bit at the hostel we went out for some food. The hostel recommended Johnny's restaurant which was a walking distance away. We got there and sat down. We hadn't eaten much this day and we were all very hungry. As we got the menu we were shocked as the prices were really steep, and not cheap as the hostel had told us. But we decided to go with it. Nick (the other Canadian) and I ordered the fillet steak (23 fucking dollars) and the rest went with chicken. When we got the food I got a nice fillet, whereas Nick got four pices of some kind of meat. He was annoyed to put it mildly. Not only did we wait for a long time, but he didn't get what he ordered, one of the pices even looked like white meat. He asked the waiter what he had got and she said it was a fillet. Nick told here that a fillet is one piece and usually from the same animal. She looked at him like a question mark. He got a new meal, but it took forever. We felt fucked, but could not do anything else than laugh about it. As we got back to the hostel at around nine PM the bar had closed, internet was shut down, the water was turned of and the place seemed to be fairly dead. We laughed a bit about that as well, as it fits perfectly into the African logic: We have ice cold beer, you have money, you want to exchange money for ice cold beer, we do not want to do that because we are tired and want to go home instead to watch bad soap operas on TV. But as we only stayed in Lusaka as it would have been to far to get to Lvingstone the same day I guess things could have been worse. We got a good nights rest and we got to relax for some hours.
Next stop is Victoria falls, one of the seven natural wonders of the world. stay tuned!
