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Tales From the Chicken Bus Comes Alive!

Monday, January 5th, 2009

Many of you have recently sent me emails asking about photos from the trip.  Well I’m pleased to say the photo update is finally here.  If you follow this link you will be led to a whack of photos from our travels.  Mostly the albums contain photos from Africa and a few from Central America.  Photos include our recently completed safari in Africa.

I should soon be updated on the blog as well as we are out of internet depreived Africa.  Stay tuned and thanks so much to all of you who actually read this.

p.s. Don’t be afraid to leave a comment once and awhile….I know you are reading, the internet stats don’t lie.

Michael

Tales From the Chicken Bus Photos

Posted in Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Rwanda, Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia | 4 Comments »

A Long Way to Lilongwe

Sunday, December 14th, 2008

Day 258

Up again at the break of dawn, this time to catch a bus to Lilongwe, Malawi. It seems like we’ve been up before 6am everyday for the last 10 days. There were always taxi drivers waiting for people at the entrance to the backpackers and even this early there was one guy there. “5000 to the bus station, right?” I knew that’s what the fare should be so I wasn’t asking how much. “No, 10,000”. He responded. No way we were paying 10,000 for such a short trip, I said 5000 again and he seemed to agree to it, or at least said get in. We began to drive and he was at it again telling us 10,000. “I think 5000 is fair”. Jordana countered. “You muzungu are all the same!” He added something else but we couldn’t understand, what a rude guy. The first really rude person we’d come across here. He was saying all white people are the same because they wont pay over the standard price for a taxi. Sorry but two tier pricing for a taxi just doesn’t cut it.

We arrived at the very chaotic bus station and lucky for us already had our tickets. Its really tough to find your bus here as they are just scattered all over a large area. Men ran at our taxi yelling out bus companies, I said, “We have tickets! Where is the bus to Malawi?” Eventually someone pointed us in the right direction and we found the bus. It was hard to miss since it had “Zambia – Malawi” painted on the side. Jordana boarded as I made sure our bags got stored away safely. When I walked on the bus I was surprised to find it full. Full of people, bags and just about everything else. The seating setup was yet again 5 seats per row, Jordana had found 2 seats in the 2nd back row. Even though the bus looked full we still waited for one hour, with our engine running the entire time. They squeezed a few more people in and about an hour and a half after the scheduled departure time we were off.

It didn’t take long before we exited Lusaka for the green, remote and beautiful countryside to return. A nice change from the dusty and noisy streets of the city. The bus had tv’s, this was a bad thing. On tv were videos of religious songs, with some of the strangest group dances in slow motion. Hands waving to the sky and weird slow motion steps that didn’t make much sense. It really didn’t do much for the thought that every black person can dance. It was actually really strange stuff, almost cult like. For the most part people are very religious here, you can thank the huge number of missionaries that have come through Africa trying to “save” people for that. As weird as it was it didn’t compare to the strange, creepy nature of the Nigerian movie they showed on our bus ride the other day. Long story short, a guy rapes a girl and gets her pregnant. He runs away, eventually cons a man into giving him money to start a business, which he does and makes a load of cash. Now being rich he contacts the girl he raped, meets her family telling them he wants to marry their daughter. The last scene is them getting married! Huh? The only message Jordana and I got was if you rape someone have the decency to get rich and come back to marry them. It was scary how casual this film was about rape. So as weird as the religious stuff was it didn’t compare to the very creepy alternative.

I was surprised how the roads were generally good out here. We drove along the roads quickly and smoothly watching the green countryside go by. The lunch break wasn’t as good as the one the other day. No fresh fries here, we stopped on the roadside in a small village. It looked like everyone was selling the same thing, huge baskets full of fried fish. People bought some and they wrapped the fish in news paper. I didn’t really see anything else for sale so we settled with the biscuits we had. As the bus pulled away it seemed everyone aboard had bought some fish. People ripped apart their whole fish and dumped the bones on the floor or out the window. In the extreme heat of the day you could guess the pleasant smell that had developed.

Late afternoon we stopped at a bus station near the border. It was really hot today and I just needed a drink as Jordana bravely looked for toilets. As usual drinks were warm, no refrigeration. I bought 2 bags of chips and drank our warm water. There were black market money changers here, so I pulled our my Zambian Kwacha to exchange to Malawian Kwacha. The rate sounded decent but our bus driver overheard and stepped in to tell the money changer it should be better. He was a funny guy the driver, “They will rip you off, be careful. Only change with this guy”. He said pointing to a changer whom he was using. I changed the Kwacha at a good rate and the driver came over to make sure everything went smoothly. We waited there for about an hour before making the 20 minute trip to the border.

The Malawi/Zambian border was a low key rural scene. We entered a small building where we had to fill in our own exit details, there were no computers here. After we were done we were stamped out of Zambia. Outside money changers asked if I wanted to change Zambian kwacha to Malawian. We walked about 200 meters and crossed the border to Malawian customs. We paid our $20 each visa fee, were stamped into the country and then waited. It wasn’t quite clear why we were waiting but we did for about 1 hour. Several young men stood around selling drinks and changing money, one approached me. “My friend, money change?” “No thanks I already have changed my money”. “OK, how about money for me then?” I told him no, I couldn’t do that. He didn’t say much but when he figured he wasn’t getting any money he just wanted to chat. We talked about Malawi, Canada and what he did around here. Before I got back on the bus I gave him some coins I had from Mozambique. Worthless, but I thought it was a good souvenir for him. He appreciated it, “We can use these for the billiards table!” He seemed pleased, shook my hand and we said goodbye.

We arrived in Lilongwe to dark city streets. There was little if any street lighting and some of the city had no power. We found a taxi and went to a budget place listed in the guidebook, all full they told me. Around the corner we tried another, also full. We just told the driver to take us somewhere that was decent and hopefully not very expensive. We arrived at the oddly named Korea Garden, which is owned by Koreans. Not exactly budget but we had little choice. We had a good room and even had some good asian food in the restaurant. We saw a few other tourists that were on our bus who were also staying here, apparently all the budget places in Lilongwe were full tonight. It poured rain yet again as we fell asleep, hopefully we could move on in the morning. There isn’t much to see in Lilongwe.

Posted in Malawi, Zambia | No Comments »

Bond in Lusaka

Saturday, December 13th, 2008
Day 257 The heavy rain that fell overnight helped both of us have restful sleeps, unfortunately it turned the much of the city into a muddy mess. Lusaka has a population of over 1 million but it looked more like ... [Continue reading this entry]

Posted in Zambia | No Comments »

Beautiful Country, Ugly City

Friday, December 12th, 2008
Day 256 We were up at 5:30am, an hour that has become quite common for us to rise at. Our bus to Lusaka left at 7am and lucky enough it was a 500 meter walk from the hostel. We ... [Continue reading this entry]

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Who Turned Off the Tap?

Wednesday, December 10th, 2008
Day 254 One of the great things about Jolly Boys is they have a free shuttle to the falls for the first 14 people who sign up each day. Its only one way but saves about 25,000 Kwacha ($7 CAD) ... [Continue reading this entry]

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A Jolly Start to Zambia

Tuesday, December 9th, 2008
Day 253 It felt a bit strange going to the airport, its only the 3rd flight we've used to get somewhere on the trip. Strange but good as well. In South America we had a clear goal, overland from ... [Continue reading this entry]

Posted in South Africa, Zambia | No Comments »