I know we are in Malawi and I’m pretty sure we’re in Lilongwe, which is the capital. Yesterday we left Livingstone, Zambia at 10 a.m. on a bus proudly touted as “only three weeks old.” This meant there was plastic wrap on half the seats and the reading lights and AC vents had yet to be connected. King Kong was playing when we boarded. The new version, with Jack Black and Adrian Brody and Naomi Watts.
I actually watched King Kong pretty recently, in Bulgaria. It’s not my favorite because there are too many monster-fighting scenes that don’t really move the plot ahead, but Tony pointed out a lot of good things about it too, like how Jack Black is perfect for his role as a sleazy film director.
My favorite part of King Kong was the subtitles, or, should I say, “subiles.” There weren’t any Ts so we read lines like “Ge on he boa, before is oo lae,” and, at a few tense moments, “Chris!”
Since King Kong was about an hour in when we finally started moving, the bus guys started it over. So I’ve watched the Jack Black version of King Kong on the World Race about 2 and a third times.
After King Kong we watched Monkey Trouble, an early 90s flick about Eva, a girl who doesn’t know what to bring for show and tell and doesn’t like her baby brother Jack. Then a monkey she ends up naming Dodger somehow comes into her life (I was at a gas station bathroom during that part) and she gets caught in a web of lies trying to hide Dodger from her parents. Dodger is also trained to steal things so Eva tries to make him stop shoplifting and taking her mom’s jewelry. Eventually her baby brother Jack says his first word, “Monkeys,” and then her family understands and they take down the bad guys. At the end Eva takes Jack and Dodger to show and tell.
Other than watching monkey movies, I spent the 20 hour bus ride sleeping, talking, and learning how to take care of my new dreadlock, which Kelsey put in my hair under the light of a headlamp. It was a cramped ride since there were 70 seats, but since there were only 41 of us, we tried to spread out a little. I ended up sleeping on the floor of the bus in the center aisle, which was great because I could spread out and lie down, but scary because there were lots of feet in my face and things could fall off the overhead shelves sometimes.
Around 10 p.m. we stopped in a bustling, poorly lit marketplace. We got off the bus and headed to a public restroom across the street: a smelly squatty potty with two inch long cockroaches crawling on the doorway. We were courageous, however, like Adrian Brody when he fights the giant bugs in King Kong to save Naomi Watts, and we used those squatties. A crowd of guys appeared and started claiming we needed to pay them to use it, but then they got bored and went away.
We got to the Zambia-Malawi border at 3 a.m., and all of us staggered off the bus into the cold winter night. We waited in line to get our Zambia exit stamps, then wandered under a thousand stars toward what we hoped was the Malawi entrance point. There were buildings and trucks everywhere so it was hard to figure out, but when my group at the end of the line finally saw other bewildered white people shivering up ahead, we walked out of Zambia and into Malawi for Month 7 of the Race.
Long bus rides are some of the biggest challenges for me on the Race, but if I compare this bus ride to our first big one from Honduras to Guatemala, I can see how much easier they have become. They feel less claustrophobic (even if they aren’t), I don’t worry as much if I don’t sleep well, and I don’t really keep track of the hours anymore. When you’re driving on rough highways from Zambia to Malawi and they tell you it’ll take 16-20 hours, you just tune out the numbers and deal with it. After a while, it’s not about the hours. It’s just long.
Long, but not forever. My team still has about 7 hours more of busing to get to Mzuzu, our month’s destination, but mercifully, C Squad has just landed at this campground which is in Lilongwe (I think), and we can spend the day and night here. Tomorrow, Team Oak will head out and meet our new contact.
And that’s what I have to say about my 20 hour bus ride. Time for a nap.
