Something was just different about this travel day, and it’s not the simple fact that it was the longest. We started off in Livingstone, Zambia and ended in Nkhata Bay, Malawi. The scenery while driving thru these countries was absolutely breathtaking. Exactly what you would picture after you watched Mighty Joe Young.
This is the break down for you to understand a little better what the days looked like:
* You must note that every African bus driver believes he is that freaky Voodoo bus driver character in Harry Potter that drives the double decker bus. Exactly how you would imagine the feeling of being in that bus, is exactly what you experience in Africa. They speed down the rocky roads, at least 100 miles an hour, break at any moment to a complete stop and swerve in and out of lanes they shouldn’t ever cross over onto *
MONDAY
-Left Livingstone @ 10:30 am (an hour and a half later than schedule, T.I.A.)
-Around 2:30 pm my bladder almost popped from all the water I drank waiting for the bus to come (needless to say, I didn’t drink anymore water for the rest of the bus ride).
-The bus was featuring a special on primate/African movies, so I watched King Kong/ Monkey Trouble/ Welcome to America… back to back
-Since my 2008 iPod touch decided to erase all my music, I spent a good portion of the bus ride cradling my laptop and playing my iTunes on shuffle… my squad mates were questioning me… haters gon’ hate
-We hit the halfway point, Lusaka, around 7:30 p.m. I ate a quick apple and peanut butter and went to sleep
TUESDAY
– Around 2:30 a.m. we arrive at the Zambia/Malawi border, where the entire squad had to get down and get our passports stamped (sketchiest place EVER)
-Around 3:00 a.m. I started to feel extremely nauseous. I was dehydrated and threw up in my ShopRite bag that had a hole at the bottom and … yeah… I chucked it out the window. Desperate times call for desperate measures.
Tip: Never eat an orange when feeling nauseous, something with the acid, it’s just not good.
-Then I fell asleep until the sunlight came up around 6:30 a.m., at this point the driver is blasting some Zambian Novela, I’m guessing his favorite, so he can stay awake.
-We don’t arrive to Lilongwe, Malawi until 8:30 a.m. when we all got down at a campsite and set up our tents
* Only my team and another team are actually continuing on to north Malawi, the rest will be staying and doing ministry in Lilongwe*
– Once our tents were set up for the night, my team walked into town to take out cash and buy groceries.
-This will be the point when my team would witness a man on a bike become airborne from the car that just hit him and walked straight into a riot… Let me not put this lightly… We Were Pooping Our Pants… The riot was heading one way and the only group of white girls went running the opposite way straight into a building. “OMG, DID THAT JUST HAPPEN?” Men with Machetes, the whole 9 yards people!
-We made it to “U-SAVE”, Malawi’s version of ShopRite, and the guard told us that we should take a taxi straight back… So we did.
-The rest of the day and night was taken to ourselves, resting and reflecting on what just happened.
-This night everyone, not me, stayed up to watch USA lose. B0O0!
WEDNESDAY
-Our team leaders leave around 9:30 a.m. to go into town to buy our bus tickets to Mzuzu, Malawi
-Around 10:30 a.m., they return and book with the campsite to have 2 taxis take us at 11
-At 11:30, No taxis in sight, we have to ask the owner of the Camp site to take us… LUCKILY he had a heart and felt bad for us
-We arrive at the bus station just in time to make it for our “12:00” bus…. Again, T.I.A. The bus didn’t roll in until 12:45
-When we got on this PACKED African bus, there weren’t even enough seats for everyone who bought tickets… The white group
– The seat checker found the ones who didn’t pay for their seats… 1 hour and 40 minutes into this ride (thankfully I had a seat). Some people had to sit on the hard floor during the bumpy/fast roads
-Around 3:30 p.m. the bus came to a complete stop (not a strange occurrence), but the seat checker said in his soft voice “The belt broke”…. I’m sorry WHAT?! We had to pull over on the side of the road and wait for another African bus from Lilongwe or Mzuzu to come out and get us- E.T.A. in America: 3 hours. E.T.A. in Africa: 8 hours.
– Around 4:30 p.m. we witness all of our bags get thrown into a microbus, which is suppose to seat 9, but T.I.A. The seat checker tells us to take the micro buses and the company will reimburse us for the extra charges to get to Mzuzu. The microbus driver squeezes ALL 13 of us PLUS our huge packs (which all equal another person), PLUS himself and his helper in this 9 person “micro bus” (please picture a 3 row white van for me)!!
-We hit the road and are all very uncomfortable/exhausted/frustrated/hungry/dehydrated/nauseous etc.
-The van is SO heavy we hardly make it over the little hills they have throughout this road we are taking the entire ride
-It’s around 7 p.m. now and it’s about 2 hours into the ride, our driver pulls over on the side of the road and tells us “we are out of gas”…. OHHHH! ALRIGHTTT! NBD.
He walks off into the darkness and leaves his mute helper with us.
– We sit on the side of a sketchy African road, with cars flying by us, in the pitch black for 45 minutes
-He thankfully pulls up on this mystery 16 wheeler and hops off the back with a gas container! He must have made a friend to speed up this process.
-We drive 30 minutes more into Mzuzu where the other team meets their contact and our team is suppose to continue on to Nkhata Bay
* The original plan was to arrive in Mzuzu around 4:30-5 so we can find another bus into Nkhata Bay. Since we arrived after 7, the bus drivers heading that way were trying to charge us triple the price*
– Our other team’s ministry host offers to let us stay at his ministry for the night and he’ll bring us back in the morning. WOOP WOOP, SLEEP.
THURSDAY- STILL TRAVELING-
-We woke up and had breakfast with the other team and their host around 7:30 a.m.
-Around 10:30 a.m., the “refund” that we were suppose to get for the micro buses we took, turned into a wonderful quarrel
-The other ministry host got our team the last and final microbus to take us into Nkhata bay, they told him 1000 Kwacha (about $2.50) would be fine
– The entire bus ride over to Nkhata bay, the bus driver was trying to charge us double the amount he told the host… He really thought he could get away with that since the host wasn’t with us. Eventually we just ignored him.
– If the driver and helper weren’t nagging us, they were focused on cramming more people onto this microbus, picking up whoever and however many people along the way for the extra money.
– Around 11:30 we arrived in Nkhata bay and ended up paying 1600… -_-
92.5 hours later
We are staying on Lake Malawi, where we will be volunteering with Butterfly Space (the name of the hostel- GOOGLE IT). There are endless amounts of volunteer opportunities that we can participate in, but my numero uno passion is being met this month!
I‘m going to be able to teach the local women how to start their own businesses to sustain themselves! SO EXCITED! I can already tell this month is going to fly by, I need to live in the moment and not wish any of this time away.
All in all, the rough travel day is always worth it in the end. I will be writing a blog about the details that come along with “camping on a lake.”
It’s not all pretty.
I can tell you that much.
Enjoy & Give Joy
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