Chilling in Lusaka
Trip Start
Sep 17, 2007
1
249
272
Trip End
Oct 08, 2008
Lusaka,
Zambia
Sunday, August 31, 2008
Our first evening in Lusaka we decided to walk to the Shoprite that we didn't know existed because it was closer to the one that we did know existed. This is the trouble with LP maps. Turns out that the Shoprite we didn't know existed did not, in fact, exist. Fortunately we found a Subway across the street and decided to treat ourselves. Unfortunately these Zambians have no idea how to make a decent Subway sandwich. I'd avoid it and make your own, if I were you.
Evening #1 = bust.
So the second day was the day that we ought to have gone to the park, but didn't. Travis slept. I read the book Things Fall Apart, which is supposed to be one of those amazing African books, but I just couldn't get into it because the characters were in no way able to produce the remotest sympathy (as a book, however, it was much better than The Painter of Signs, which was a well written piece of unbearableness). I therefore got bored and dragged Travis to the Shoprite that we knew existed. We got piles of food for multiple days of eating and completely forgot to find an alarm clock (I broke ours in Lilongwe). Travis was tired, so I got us a taxi halfway home. Lucky for us the driver was amenable to a low fare, probably because he was new in town. Travis gave me a hard time for taking advantage, but it wasn't so bad since the distance was less than a kilometer. Finding taxis in Lusaka is not a terribly easy thing to do unless you know where they hide, which naturally we did not.
Travis went back to bed while I washed our spinach and hung it out to dry. Note - spinach sold in the grocery store in Zambia is not salad spinach. It was not a very good salad that I made myself, and I believe that cooked it would have been totally delish. I proceeded to putter and accomplish nothing except to finish Things Fall Apart. It's less than 200 pages.
Day #2 = blah.
The next morning we went early to the bus station, the better to catch a bus to Livingstone. Five hours later we were on our way. Travis was incredibly irritated by the wait, but I had a lovely time talking to Gardner, the ticket seller, and learning all about his life in Zambia. His mother lives in a distant village, his father is retired in Lusaka, and he has a studio apartment for 500,000 kwacha a month, which is probably a much better deal than our $800 apartment back home. He says he doesn't have cockroaches, and for me that sealed the deal. Also during the wait we watch a ridiculous movie 2nd half first. It's been a while since we had a movie on the bus.
Day #3 = gone!
Ah Zambia.
Erin
