Off the Couch and On the Road

We crossed into Zambia from Malawi the following day, staying at Mama Rula’s campsite that night to break the long journey heading down to Victoria Falls, with a second long drive the next day down to Lusaka, the capital of Zambia. Driving past much of the same scenery for days was slightly mind numbing, to the point where I thought I was daydreaming and out in Sydney’s western suburbs when I glanced outside and saw the town centre in Lusaka.

‘Subway!,’ one exclaimed. ‘Fedex!’another echoed. It was truly a town; supermarket, banks, coffee shop and concrete pavement – we were so excited. Everyone split up to do their own thing, simply having space to yourself outside the truck was another luxury we were briefly afforded, especially considering earlier in the day we had encountered what I like to call the ‘Big Brother Climax’ – you know the fight that inevitably occurs between all of the housemates and is repeated in every ad and on nomination nights from them on. The fight was about the music in the truck – it’s volume, style, timing, fade levels and it’s existence in general – and being the personification of conflict avoidance I put my iPod earphones in and ignored it all.

One brave soul stood in the truck and tried to determine a truce between the two ‘groups’ of housemates, which alone deserved time in the ‘rewards room’ (the privilege of which we doled out occassionally) which made me start with a sudden panic. Was I flying under the radar? Not taking a stand?

Nope, I decided. I was just choosing my fights. Surely I wouldn’t get nomination points for that, would I?

-Sarah

If you have been reading this blog over the past 6 months (and I doubt you have. Maybe one or two of you. Hi Bel!) you may have noticed by blatant disregard of travel advice that I have ultimately regretted – I think this stems from my mother’s lassez-faire attitude to everything from illness (‘take a panadol, you’ll be fine’) to anything else remotely stressful (‘…you’ll be fine’).

So when I heard that Africa doesn’t have many ATM’s, only takes Visa and never accepts Cirrus, I took two Mastercards, a Cirrus cashcard and no travellers cheques and thought, I’ll be fine.

Until I couldn’t get any money. Anywhere. From anyone. This feeling (similar to walking down the street naked) was only lessened by the fact I was on a group tour. It was still however, quite stressful knowing you are in a random place with empty pockets, and I couldn’t help but manically run my hands through my hair when everyone else was doing their budgets and scream, ‘I would but I don’t have any money!!!’ Following which they would look at me ad say:

‘We’ll figure it out, don’t worry, you’ll be fine,’ (repeated every 10 minutes). Which I was, in the end. But listen to those travellers tips people – Visa is king! I’ll only tell you once.

That evening we met up with the Kumuka ‘white’ truck (us being the Kumuka ‘blue’ truck) who was heading in generally the same direction from Nairobi to Victoria Falls as us, albeit a little slower due to them having what they described as ‘A truck with shitty suspension’ (I’ve left out all of the technicalities). We ordered Nando’s for dinner, had a few beers and realised the most I saw of the capital of Malawi was every ATM and bank in town, the bar at the campsite, and the back of my eyelids soon after.

-Sarah

We packed up the next morning, glad to be spending two nights at our next lakeside destination – Thintheche Beach. We could technically swim in the lake, I know many did, but those of us who were continuing to travel and couldn’t have a medical check-up back home decided to play it safe and chilled out on the sand and grass instead.

It was a short drive that day, skimming the edge of the lake, so we had plenty of time that afternoon away from the truck, with most washing and catching up on reading and writing.

Because the day started early, the beer also started early, and my cooking team were in hysterics during most of the preparation of dinner. I’m sure the food wasn’t actually any better, but everyone was in better moods by the end of the night. I’m sure the beer helped.

The following day I chose to go on the local village walk, where we visited the local primary and high schools (mostly boarding schools, although only the girls were allowed to board) and listened to the girls songs and watched them play elastics to the beat of their bare hands and sticks on metal barrel drums. The only song we could all sing to return the favour was the Australian National anthem, which I am sure has never sounded worse, nor received such enthusiastic applause. The schools were filled with future nurses, engineers, teachers and dreams, and it was reassuring to know the hard work the few teachers at the schools put in for the students would surely reap rewards for their entire families in years to come.

The girls chatted and laughed and waved madly goodbye as we continued onto the nearby orphanage, where some of the children from the school were raised and where about 150 kids were taken care of daily. We sang, talked, played and laughed with the kids for a few hours before making our way back to the campsite in the sweltering heat, followed by the boys from the curio markets outside the campsite gate who had walked alongside us the entire way, trying to sell us paintings and carvings. Some of the boys grew up in the orphanage and went to the schools, so some of the profits of their stalls went back into the community. I suspect a lot of the profit also went to buying ‘Malawi wowie’ and other such drugs offered to the group as soon as they saw us coming (though the offers never extended to me…the face of innocence perhaps?!)

The group chilled out on the beach, by the pool and at the bar for the rest of the afternoon, before we were treated to an African traditional meal of maize, stew and spinach, and a talk by our leader Kanyo about the missionaries arriving in Africa, the European influence, and the division of countries within the African continent and wars that followed. Unfortunately we were too tired to take most of it in but it was very interesting, and it was an early night ready for another travel day the following day.

-Sarah

Another border crossing, another currency, another stamp on the passport, and we were in Malawi. Malawi is apparently one of the poorest countries in Africa, with 20 per cent of it’s land covered by Lake Malawi. I say apparently because my attention to facts has deteriorated rapidly the longer I travel, so by this time I was just going on what other travellers were telling me, regardless of how factually accurate it seemed (not that that has stopped me in the past…).

We drove, we pitched tents, we cooked, we ate, we drank and hung out at the bar next to the lake, overlooking stunning mountains on either side. We also held Big Brother nominations, having decided days ago that this trip was exactly like some kind of perverse mixture of Big Brother and Survivor (without the bandennas, damn it). One would walk past me, roll their eyes and mumble ‘for two nomination points…’ and Big Brother (whoever was listening) would invariably interrupt – ‘you are running out of time, you are not being clear!’ – to the point where you had to think about your nominations ahead of time, should you be approached and questioned without being adequately prepared.

It made the trip more interesting, gave us a vague idea of who was ‘flying under the radar’, and who, if evictions actually would have taken place, might have won the thing.

I know, I know, we were supposed to be admiring the stunning landscape and learning about African culture, rather than wondering if there was a mole, or who had the ‘secret relationship’. But hey, there is only so much you can do sitting in a truck all day. And besides, I really thought I had a chance…

-Sarah

It took the rest of the afternoon to recover from the boat journey from hell, and we returned to our tents as Dar Es Salaam to have a relatively early night, ready for our 4am wake up call the next morning.

It was an interesting truck ride that morning, one still so drunk we had to help her into her seat and strap her in, another so sick from a virus we had to stop every half an hour so he could throw up. Everyone was crabby and the 10 or so hours sitting in the truck didn’t help anyone’s mood. Olympic sprinters couldn’t have leapt out of that truck quicker than I once we arrive at Iringa Farmhouse that afternoon. The showers were unanimously voted ‘best ever’ which made up for the fact it had gone back to being quite chilly again, and as we sat around the hot coals that night while a few others were at the bar, we decided that we wanted to go back to Zanzibar.

Because we loved Zanzibar, we really did.

-Sarah