The last couple of days have been surreal – a true African adventure. We went on a 7 hour bus trip from Livingstone to Lusaka, which left Livingstone at 6.30am. After arriving in Lusaka, we were deciding whether to wait a day to head on to Chipata when we found a bus was about to leave and was supposed to take 7 more hours. Although the locals were very vague about the time, some looking meaningful at the others and saying, no it won't arrive until 3am (this would later make more sense). The bus left at 2pm. I silently breathed a sigh of relief when at the last minute 2 massive young south backpackers we'd seen down in Livingstone previously were bundled into the back of the bus (its always good to have at least one other person who can't speak Bemba trying to get to a backpackers in the middle of the night).
The bus was absolutely hauling ass (trying to drive off after 5 minute stops instead of standard half hours, forcing crippled old passengers to hobble along the side of the bus and jump in as it roared on). At about 5pm the bus pulled over to the side of the road for no apparent reason and the conductor made quite a show of opening the engine bay and making disapproving faces. The bus then drove exactly as it had been ie. fast and without omnious sounds.
At about 7pm we pulled up in front of a brothel and bar, the conductor opened the engine bay and announced that the bus was irreparably broken down, at which point all of the bus crew disappeared (hmmmmm). We were informed that we would have to wait for someone from Lusaka to drive out and have a look at it. We had the privilege of sitting stationed outside the bright lights and blaring, repetitive, crap music of the brothel, while rain dripped on Renu from the leaking roof. It was LOUD!!!! it was bright, we were wet and tired.....good times!!!
It's amazing how uncomfortable situations can give you the ability to see into the future sometimes. As per our mental script, at about 1am the bus miraculously made a recovery, which coincided with closing time for the bar, hmmmm.
After we'd bundled up the last of the mostly cheery drunk people, we lurched out of the driveway with most of the people on the bus trying to fight each other, including the ‘alleged’ goal keeper for the Zambian soccer team. He assured us he was famous and had many fans in Zambia. He followed on to spill his entire beer over someones bag, at which point the bus conductor took his coat off and wanted to start a fight with him. As people were getting back on the bus, Nathan sat down for a second in someone elses seat. Luckily, the man who had been sitting there was drunk as a skunk and had wet his seat – Nathan was gagging at the stench of his pants for the rest of the trip.
The bus driver started driving about 1am and was swaying from side to side on the road "avoiding potholes". As the potholes were mostly invisible in nature and he often chose to drive with one wheel teetering on the edge of the embankment rather than on the clear smooth central tarred road we deduced that he was - COMPLETELY DRUNK!! Thankfully we think he was aware of this (if not at first, then certainly after we, the south africans and we think some locals in Bemba yelled out to inform him of the fact), accordingly he drove very slowly for the first two hours until he started to sober up. We were really nervous and thought we would drive off the edge of the embankment – the circumstances were not good given that it was pouring rain and we were really in the middle of nowhere – otherwise we would have considered getting off the bus.
We eventually made it to Chipata at about 7am in the pouring rain. We hopped off the bus and given we had the strength of numbers we decided to push on to Lilongwe. Besides we were feeling so fresh and revitalised after our luxury coach trips.
So off in a taxi at 130km/h in the pouring rain on the muddy road to the Zambia Immigration. We walked across the border to Malawi where we were quoted $80 USD to Lilongwe - too rich for our blood! So we, then jumped in another taxi to Mchinji for $8 USD. Getting there we were told by locals that there were no mini-buses going to Lilongwe because the bus drivers were on strike. With the help of our south african friends we negotiated a ride in the back of a truck to go the remaining 120km to Lilongwe the capital of Malawi, with about 100 other local people for $2USD. We were starving on the truck so one of the South African guys traded his hat for 5 donut things that we gobbled down quickly.
Amazingly this was probably the most comfortable, cheapest and spectacular road trips we'd done! We learnt some of the local language from the Malawians on the truck. Everyone was really friendly and thankfully we didn't get taken off the truck by the army guys at one of the border posts - It didn't seem too bad though, the Zambian guy who was taken off was given back without having to pay anything. I don't know what he was doing with the two american backpackers that we picked up but either it was something or the american was the most naturally nervous guy I've ever seen. He was absolutely crapping himself from the moment he jumped on and must have chain smoked about 50 cigarettes during the trip and was even looking warily at us? We finally made it to Lilongwe with pants that smelt of urine and empty stomachs. On arrival at the backpackers, we feasted on banana pancakes, milkshakes and omelette, mmmmm.
This is the second bus breakdown we’ve experienced so far, both in Zambia. The first time, we were left in a drainage ditch to wait at about 10pm at night whilst another bus arrived to pick us up. We were actually relieved to get off this bus because we had been in it for about 15 hours and it stunk of vomit, wee and rotting fruit – we had never seen so much rubbish in a bus before! The joys of bus travel in Africa….
We didn't mention that trip in our glowing report on visiting Heniric in Kawambwa - we didn't want to kill the mood :) In fact we even got to experience our first "hand is faster than the eye trick" when did finally get back into Lusaka that night.
Given the late hour and our need to get to the backpackers before it closed we made a dash in the pouring rain to the taxis while everyone else sat it out in the bus (it never did stop in the end).
After the rather young looking taxi driver put our bags in the boot of the only taxi there he disappeared to "get the key" what the?! Turns out he wasn't the driver at all which we thankfully deduced before he had a chance to lock our packs into the boot of the car. After wrestling the bags off him, we tried to find a taxi and were offered a clearly unofficial taxi. After chatting to some of the old guys in one of the open stalls we decided that we'd take the ride as it wasn't getting any safer at the bus depot and we knew the way. We adopted our standard positions in the back seat and as we were leaving the driver got his friend in the front seat (how comforting).
So when we get to our street he wants to drive past the entrance and demands you give me money now. Of course we insisted on parking at the gate where the guard would be. After creating a confusion in pronunciation about the agreed 15,000 versus 50,000, the driver switched the 20,000 we had handed him for a 1,000 handing it back and becoming very calm and relaxed with much improved pronunciation about the 15,000 fare. All we had to do was give him the other 14,000. We called a spade a spade to them, but given the late hour, darkness and aggression we decided to beat a retreat in awe of his quick hands and craftiness, handing over another 20,000 getting our 5,000 "change" and telling that it was all bullshit!
Suckers :(
But alive :)
After all it was only 5 bucks and we did get a long winded story out of it. Aren't you glad!
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