Nyami! Nyami! Part 1
Posted by Malaz on August 1st, 2008
As it was a long weekend in Botswana, I decided to head to Victoria Falls in Zambia to do some sightseeing before starting work. As I previously mentioned I had met a few Canadian volunteers while in Gabs. They were planning a long trip and invited me to join them up to Zambia. We headed down to the bus station to meet another volunteer. As we arrived we met up with the third member of our group heading down to Zambia. The bus station was something else! You see it was the long weekend in Botswana so everyone was hoping on the buses, the only form of transportation if you don’t have a car, other than hitchhiking. The line-up for the bus was at least a few hundred people long, with everyone pushing and scuffling trying to get their spot on a bus. We did the only thing a bunch of tourists can do, pay a local to cut us in line and get us some seats. After cutting in line and hearing an earful for it, we managed to get seats quickly.
Fives hour later, we arrived in Francistown, the second largest city in Botswana. We met the last member of our travelling posse, and spent the night, the 4 of us sleeping in her one person bedroom. Sleeping on the floor was a pleasure as far as inconvenience goes, as I would soon learn. The next day, another trip to the bus station, yet this time it was very different. With sun not yet on the horizon, we waited for the early bus to Kasane, the bordertown with Zambia, huddling for warmth from the freezing cold Botswana mornings. Well, as it is common in Botswana, the early bus came over an hour late, and then a stampede erupted. What was once an orderly line became a stampede of people storming onto the bus to secure a seat, once the door opened. Not expecting this mad rush, we found ourselves on the back of the line and worst yet without any seats. What did this all mean? Well the bus ride to Kasane is seven hours long, so that meant standing for seven of the longest hours of my life, squished into an aisle, not even able to move a muscle. Seven hours! And every time the bus made a pit stop and came past a checkpoint, it took a half hour for everyone disembark and then squish themselves back onto the bus. I’ll never think twice about riding a greyhound bus for hours on end after this!
Finally the nightmare was over and we arrived to the Kazungula border crossing. We made our way through customs and onto the banks of the Zambizi River waiting to catch the ferry to Zambia. Another remarkable sight awaited us there. A line up of trucks as far as the eye can see. With trouble up in Zimbabwe, everyone now chose this as their route into Zambia. That meant trucks trying to get their goods across were waiting 4 weeks to get across. Yes, a month to cross the border, unbelievable! As we boarded the ferry we befriended by a local Zambian. He was happy to make Canadian friends and promised us safe transportation once we arrived in Livingstone. We were slight creeped out by how forward he was, not sure whether it was hospitality or someone trying to rip us off, so we kept our guard up. We cramped ourselves yet again, this time into a combie (mini minibus) and made our way to the Jollyboys Backpackers hostel in Livingstone, an hour’s ride away.
After a quick change, we decided to head up to see the Falls. Yes it was nighttime but as our Zambian creep/friend told us, on a full moon a rainbow forms over the Falls. Yes the world’s only nighttime lunar rainbow. As I was waiting for the others to get ready I found our Zambian creep/friend come up to me as I was just sitting down minding my own business. Arrghhh, the creep had found us! A friendly discussion later, it turns out the guy wasn’t so bad and he arranged a private driver to chauffer us around, to dinner, the Falls and then back. There is no walking around at night around here. The Zambian creep was now our Zambian friend.
He took us to a nice restaurant filled with locals, you know it’s good when the locals eat there. He yanked the waitress by the arm and ordered a local meal for us, that’s how you get service around here. Five full stomachs later, we made our way to the Falls. Now you couldn’t see much of the Falls as it was night time. Victoria Falls are the largest in the world, spanning 1.7km across and are considered one of the 7 natural wonders of the world. However we were able to see one side of the Falls and lo and behold there it was, a rainbow at night, quite an incredible sight! With my camera out of power, we all tried desperately to figure out each other’s cameras, to see how we can capture this miracle. After trying in vain, we met with a group of picture takers who filled us in how to take it. Guess what, another bunch of Canadians. Hopefully I’ll get a copy of the pictures soon and upload for them everyone to see. Now it was back home with our escort to get rest for tomorrow’s battle with the Mighty Zambizi.
