alone again, on the road again

Safari guide Dave and I said farewell in Blantyre, Malawi; and then there was one. Dave caught the ~28 hour bus to Jo'burg, South Africa to meet up with his work friends down there and to eventually head back to England. I took off on a 8 hour bus back to Lilongwe, Malawi's lazy capital and to start my south western migration to Victoria Falls and eventually to Cape Town. I had a great time travelling with Dave, we made a good team and had lots of fun together. He's going to spend about two months at home in England, and then will head back to Africa to work at a sweet lodge in South Luwanga National Park, in Zambia.

I had a really fun bus trip back to Lilongwe, had three seats to myself for the first couple of hours. I was reading and watching the beautiful Malawi countryside go by, then it all went so wrong. Our bus lost first gear, or something happened to the transmission. We didn't stop, but it slowed us down a lot. I had caught the 'SpeedLink' bus, not the express bus, so it was making lots of stops letting people on and off. So that was no big deal, just lots of gears griding and engine revving. Next problem: We were passed by another bus spewing dark fumes and then a few minutes later passed it on the side of the road. The other bus driver was waving his arm at our bus to stop and help, much to the protest of the passengers on my bus, we stopped. The other bus was toast so they all piled onto our bus, which was near capacity already. There went the seat to myself. I was joined by a nice older woman who had a rooster strapped to her back much the way they usually carry children here, and a couple of guys piled into the seat with us. Nice and smashed, the typical travel condition in Africa. This rooster just stared at me the whole time as if I was going to kill it, he was highly suspect of me as he should have been, i was hungry. The woman would feed it corn kernels every now and again after it would cluck a bit. I noticed she expertly had it's bum wrapped in a plastic bag, a rooster diaper if you will, to prevent it's stinky drippy poo from leaking down her back as she carried it.

The bus was super packed and we continued, gear griding away from every stop. All of a sudden, everyone on the bus erupted into shouts, whistles, screams, and pounds of their hands on windows; the usual symbol for distress. I had no idea what was going on, but figured it wasn't much, massive freak outs are pretty common and usually are caused by nothing. Well, not so in this case. Apparently, since the bus was packed, the roof had taken the overflow passengers and their cargo. Some of the cargo had not been properly secured, surprise surprise, and had flown off the roof as the bus got up to speed. So, the driver stops and a guy from the roof takes off down the road to recover said lost cargo. He returned with a bundle of tied up live chickens. They had flown off the roof, this was a big bus, and landed on the road, somehow unharmed. Tough chickens. So we continued and eventually made it to Lilongwe just after dark, and I took a taxi to a take away restaurant and ordered some chicken. It was delicious.

The next day I took a mini bus to the Zambian border and crossed into Chapata, a pleasant small town with a ShopRite supermarket, Barclays Bank, and hostel nearby. I went for a great run and got many strange looks, nobody runs around here. The next day I took a bus to where I am now, Lusaka, the capital of Zambia. I've been noticing as I progress south that infrastructure is improving rapidly. I'm loving it. Roads, there are roads! And usually they are more pavement than pothole, a welcome treat. And I'm back to the land of drinkable water, straight from the tap!

The 'plan' is to head to Livingstone, and see Victoria Falls. It's one of the 7 wonders of the world, and the 'adventure capital of Africa.' There's all sorts of stuff to do, rafting, bungee, rope swings, jet boating, helo rides, microlight flights, boat cruises, etc. I'll do something fun, not sure what yet. After that I'm thinking about heading west to Namibia and to see the Atlantic ocean again. I've almost circled the globe now, cool feeling. There all sorts of stuff to do there, including sandboarding down some massive dunes and going nuts in a dune buggy. After that, I'll try to do a hike in the Fish River Canyon, which is a second only to the Grand Canyon in size, near the South African border. Only trick with that is I need to find a group to go with, as there's a 3 person minimum to enter, it's a wild place, can't go solo. Then heading south south south to South Africa and all it's first world greatness. I'll hit Cape Town and then head up the coast to Durban, and hopefully have time for some surf lessons and then hiking in the Drakensburg range near Lesotho. Then it sadly comes to end my friends... I've booked a flight to London from Cape Town on May 22nd. I'll have a day and a half to catch up with some friends in London and then it's hop across the pond back home on the 24th of May. I have mixed emtions about coming home, definitely looking forward to seeing everyone again, and to having a return to normalcy. But I know I'll really miss the adventure of travel and life on the road. It sure has been fun, though tough sometimes, but always an adventure. Someone asked me what I would do differently if I was doing it all over again, I really couldn't think of anyhting.
I've got some short trips this summer that I'm really looking forward to, and some fun ideas of what to do with life after that... but I'm also open to suggestions. Comment away.