Today we were up again at 6:00am ready to hit the road to Livingstone, Zambia. We got in the car only to find an additional passenger waiting for us. Everyone was confused. Joining us on our journey today was Itay, a 26 year old man from Israel. We had no idea he was joining us, so that was a fun surprise. Our party of five turned into a party of six.
Driving across three countries is a haul. Today consisted of a three hour Indiana Jones ride up some dirt roads to get to Zambezi and Kafue. After driving along a pretty sketchy path off of the main road covered in dead trees, we appeared at this beautiful lake. Here we were stopping for breakfast. The thing is, this whole portion of the trip has been sort of shady at this point. Holly had made arrangements for us to have a Safari first then go to Victoria Falls but just before I arrived, Mophie asked if he could switch the order of events. We now think it was because Itay was looking for a ride to Victoria Falls and Mophie just wanted to make more money. Which is fine, except he did not tell us this part. So when we arrived to Kafue at this beautiful lake, to stop for breakfast, Itay stopped to do a canoeing trip. Mophie had said it was a two hour trip. All of the signs posted at this lake said it was a three hour trip.
It was a three hour trip.
So now, we had a surprise three hour break. Which, while the site we were at was absolutely beautiful, we were not so happy about. We had not planned to have a huge break and detour in our day, we were not told we would have this, and we still had a long drive to get to Livingstone. No one was happy about this at all.
Driving across three countries is a haul. Today consisted of a three hour Indiana Jones ride up some dirt roads to get to Zambezi and Kafue. After driving along a pretty sketchy path off of the main road covered in dead trees, we appeared at this beautiful lake. Here we were stopping for breakfast. The thing is, this whole portion of the trip has been sort of shady at this point. Holly had made arrangements for us to have a Safari first then go to Victoria Falls but just before I arrived, Mophie asked if he could switch the order of events. We now think it was because Itay was looking for a ride to Victoria Falls and Mophie just wanted to make more money. Which is fine, except he did not tell us this part. So when we arrived to Kafue at this beautiful lake, to stop for breakfast, Itay stopped to do a canoeing trip. Mophie had said it was a two hour trip. All of the signs posted at this lake said it was a three hour trip.
It was a three hour trip.
So now, we had a surprise three hour break. Which, while the site we were at was absolutely beautiful, we were not so happy about. We had not planned to have a huge break and detour in our day, we were not told we would have this, and we still had a long drive to get to Livingstone. No one was happy about this at all.
Mitch got lucky in that with the canoeing trip, you must book it for parties of two. Or at least pay for two. Itay paid for two and then had no one to go so he asked if anyone in our group would like to go and Mitchell jumped at the offer. At the time, he definitely did not realize he was signing up for a three hour canoeing trip around this tiny island. All he thought it was (like us) was a canoeing trip where he would see some hippos. So while Mitchell and Itay went on this little trip, the rest of us sat around killing time talking, reading, and working out why we think everything happened this way. For some of this, Mophie sat with us to talk. Holly began asking Mophie about the history of slave trade in Africa. Her point was that we are taught what we are taught by white straight American men who have only one perspective on what happened in history. Mophie began to explain in detail (in his limited scope of English) about slave trade across Africa and the influence the UK and the U.S. had on the trafficking. He explained how there were people in the North who would raid cities and capture anyone they could. They were locked up in boxes where the white men would come and select who they wanted out of these boxes to take. They would pay chiefs or whoever was in charge and bring the slaves to the U.S. Mophie says that is why so many Black people in the United States are big, strong and athletically inclined. Because slave traders would pick the biggest and strongest out of the collected to bring back. Then, after slavery was abolished, the U.S. actually brought slaves BACK to Africa and in Mophie’s words “dumped them all back into one place” which is was is now Sierra Leone. He says that before slave trade, Sierra Leone did not even exist in Africa but because there was such an influx of people back into Africa, Sierra Leone became that space and newly founded country to be occupied. He went on further to explain how sad this was (obviously for many reasons) but because people were pulled from all various parts and countries in Africa for slave trade and obviously had families, but when those people were brought back and left to live in Sierra Leone, they could actually come from a different culture and place in Africa but not know it. They have been displaced by white people. It was really sad to talk about. Mophie even wondered how we did not know about this and was surprised to find we are not taught that in school. OH! He also talked about people who were accused of being witches. If someone was captured and accused of being a witch, they were not allowed to be sold to white slave traders. They were kept as slaves, but here at a home.This entire conversation was absolutely educational, disheartening, and interesting.
While waiting, we even saw a lizard! And by lizard, I mean a GIANT lizard. I don’t know why they call it a lizard, I am pretty sure it is bigger than the size of a small cat. I was mind blown to see this lizard just in the wild, roaming around the property. I could not get a picture because when i went to get my camera, I startled it and it ran off.
All in all, Mitchell came back starving (he had to skip breakfast to kayak) and looking like a tomato. He got SO burned! I felt so bad for the guy. I gave him the other half of my sandwich to eat. Oh right, our food. We ordered coffee and breakfast sandwiches. All of our sandwiches came and there were TWO whole sandwiches on the plate! Served as one! It was so much food! FINALLY we got to head back out on the road again.
Today consisted of a lot more site seeing, cards, and laughing. We saw lots of small outer villages where homes were huts, people walking, and fire burning. I want to talk about two of these things. First, people walking. People walk everywhere here, which is is amazing. However, when they are carrying anything, it is almost always carried on their head. Not only carried on their head, but balanced on their head. And it is absolutely amazing what we have seen people balance on their heads while walking. Absolutely amazing. HUGE things that do not even seem possible to balance or baskets that look like the weight is not even distributed. Children, carrying buckets of water. It’s entirely all too impressive. Second, the fires. There is no trash system here in Zambia or Malawi so instead they burn their trash. There often along the road on this trip so far, have been lots of fires. People just collect, pile, and burn their trash which has been interesting to see. We also saw Baboons! We have seen some crazy amounts of baboons now. Also, we saw a goat hung by its hind legs in a tree being skinned. And, possibly a dead body. If he was not dead, he was very close to be. He was laying in the bed of a truck in front of us. The bed was down and we could see him. A leg looked destroyed but it was hard to see, it was dark. Mophie got our attention, telling us to look and see and when we did, that’s what it was.
While waiting, we even saw a lizard! And by lizard, I mean a GIANT lizard. I don’t know why they call it a lizard, I am pretty sure it is bigger than the size of a small cat. I was mind blown to see this lizard just in the wild, roaming around the property. I could not get a picture because when i went to get my camera, I startled it and it ran off.
All in all, Mitchell came back starving (he had to skip breakfast to kayak) and looking like a tomato. He got SO burned! I felt so bad for the guy. I gave him the other half of my sandwich to eat. Oh right, our food. We ordered coffee and breakfast sandwiches. All of our sandwiches came and there were TWO whole sandwiches on the plate! Served as one! It was so much food! FINALLY we got to head back out on the road again.
Today consisted of a lot more site seeing, cards, and laughing. We saw lots of small outer villages where homes were huts, people walking, and fire burning. I want to talk about two of these things. First, people walking. People walk everywhere here, which is is amazing. However, when they are carrying anything, it is almost always carried on their head. Not only carried on their head, but balanced on their head. And it is absolutely amazing what we have seen people balance on their heads while walking. Absolutely amazing. HUGE things that do not even seem possible to balance or baskets that look like the weight is not even distributed. Children, carrying buckets of water. It’s entirely all too impressive. Second, the fires. There is no trash system here in Zambia or Malawi so instead they burn their trash. There often along the road on this trip so far, have been lots of fires. People just collect, pile, and burn their trash which has been interesting to see. We also saw Baboons! We have seen some crazy amounts of baboons now. Also, we saw a goat hung by its hind legs in a tree being skinned. And, possibly a dead body. If he was not dead, he was very close to be. He was laying in the bed of a truck in front of us. The bed was down and we could see him. A leg looked destroyed but it was hard to see, it was dark. Mophie got our attention, telling us to look and see and when we did, that’s what it was.
We had some real deep conversations that branched off from “Would you rather” questions and just generally questions. We asked Itay to play cards with us and taught him how to play Asshole as well. He enjoyed it and was a good sport. We all played that for while. Eventually we switched over to that game where it’s like “I’m going to a picnic and I am bringing….” and you have some category in your head that everyone else is trying to figure out. Some people then say “I’m going to bring ________” and the person in charge tells them that yes, they are allowed to bring it, OR no they are not. This keeps going until someone can figure out the category. Some categories were: Things that are green, words ending in ING, words with two consonants, and cult leaders. After this game, we switched to Contact (shout out to Gabby!) it is a word guessing game Gabby taught me and I taught all of them. We must have played this game for SO long. Eventually everyone was falling asleep in the car. We stopped in a small town called Monze to get some food for dinner and we were back in the car.
We finally arrived to Livingstone and to our hostel that was called Fawlty Towers. It was a really nice place. They had Wifi only in the lobby and lots of couches and comfy areas to sit. We all put our stuff in the room and headed down to the lobby to check in with the world and relax after a long day. Also, we said goodbye to our friend Itay, as he was staying somewhere else in Livingstone.
Sitting in the lobby of this hostel, this giant fat cat walked by. We have seen A LOT of cats here so far. This cat was clearly loved and well fed. But oh my gosh, he started by claiming on the table near me and then on the couch near me, and the ON to me where he was tapping and padding his feet and kneading his claws into my stomach for like twenty minutes! I don’t know why this cat was so keen on me, even after I stopped petting him! He would NOT get off of me and his nails were hurting me. I seriously just wanted him to get off or lay down and stop clawing me. But he did not, so I eventually had to lift him off of me so I could get up. He cried and meowed at me for this.
Sitting in the lobby of this hostel, this giant fat cat walked by. We have seen A LOT of cats here so far. This cat was clearly loved and well fed. But oh my gosh, he started by claiming on the table near me and then on the couch near me, and the ON to me where he was tapping and padding his feet and kneading his claws into my stomach for like twenty minutes! I don’t know why this cat was so keen on me, even after I stopped petting him! He would NOT get off of me and his nails were hurting me. I seriously just wanted him to get off or lay down and stop clawing me. But he did not, so I eventually had to lift him off of me so I could get up. He cried and meowed at me for this.
After this, I ran upstairs to get disinfectant to wipe off the small scratches from the cat. I really was not worried about them being infected or causing a problem, but figured it would be better to be safe than sorry. Upon opening Meg’s backpack to get wipes, I discovered that the lid to the peanut butter had popped off somewhere along the way in all of this moving process and was now all over her backpack, the bread, and the wipes! That was a fun disaster to deal with. I cleaned off the wipes semi-wiped off the bread, and carried the backpack to Meg, to explain and see what she wanted to do. So, that was fun.
After all of that, we went to bed. Mitchell once again was placed in a room not near us, forced to sleep with strangers. Tomorrow we will for sure see Victoria Falls and cross into Zimbabwe. In the four days that I have been here, I will have been in three different countries. Thats fun to think about!
After all of that, we went to bed. Mitchell once again was placed in a room not near us, forced to sleep with strangers. Tomorrow we will for sure see Victoria Falls and cross into Zimbabwe. In the four days that I have been here, I will have been in three different countries. Thats fun to think about!
The Wandering Sandals 