Traveling Back to Site

When we were back in The States last, we got a lot of questions about how we get around Zambia and how we get to our village. So, I thought I'd tell you about our latest transport adventure this past week traversing the country, from south to north.

When planning our travel time, we give ourselves 1 full day for each leg our trip. In this case, we gave ourselves 4 full days to travel from Livingstone and Victoria Falls at the southern tip of Zambia to Mwense in Luapula Province in the north of Zambia. Our plan looked like this:

Monday, Day 1: Livingstone to Lusaka (capital city)

Tuesday, Day 2: Lusaka to Serenje (Central Province)

Wednesday, Day 3: Serenje to Mansa (capital of Luapula Province)

Thursday, Day 4: Mansa to Mwense and then to our village, Chebele

Often, we don't need as much time as we a lot for our travel, but we've learned after a year here that anything can happen so it's best to allow yourself time for contingencies.

On Sunday afternoon, Shaun went into town (Livingstone) and bought us tickets for Mazhandu Bus Company's “luxury class” bus to Lusaka leaving Monday morning at 09:00 and arriving in Lusaka around 15:00. This exceptional Zambian bus company is safe, clean, comfortable, on-time and requires tickets to be purchased and seats reserved a day in advance (all of which is a refreshing rarity in Zambia). Tickets for this trip were 100,00 Zkw (about $20USD) each.

We could hitchhike from Livingstone up to Lusaka instead of paying for a bus ticket because there is a lot of transport/traffic on that road. However, so far we've enjoyed the certainty of riding Mazhandu. We know we have a reserved seat on transport that departs at 09:00, which means we can have a relatively leisurely morning with breakfast rather than having to get to the road by 06:00 to flag down vehicles. We also know the bus will take us all the way to our destination (Lusaka, or even further north to Kapiri-Mposhi or Ndola), compared to the crap-shoot of hitching, where we may need to hop in several vehicles to get to Lusaka. Lastly, we feel pretty comfortable and safe in Mazhandu buses. But again, let me stress this is one of the rare instances where we prefer taking a bus in Zambia over hitchhiking. I'll go into this more in a bit.

So, on Monday we awoke around 07:00 to thunder and rain, finished packing up, breakfasted leisurely and sipped our tea, caught up on the morning's news. At 08:30, we strolled from Jollyboys Backpackers over to the bus station. We bought some cheap and fresh oranges, apples and bananas from the stand next to the bus, placed a small bag in the luggage storage under the bus, boarded and took our reserved seats. At 08:50, the bus driver honked the horn in a “all aboard” warning call. At 08:55, the conductor made sure the last 2 passengers who weren't already on the bus were herded on and into their seats. At 09:00 we were on our way as it lightly showered outside. We passed the time reading the news on our phones, watching the countryside villages and farms of Southern Province go by, cat-napping and reliving our adventure in Chobe National Park. At just after 15:00, we rolled into the bustle of Lusaka Inter-City Bus Station.

Upon arriving to Lusaka, we de-boarded the bus struggling through a small army of taxi drivers crowding the door to be the first to greet passengers and snag some business. We grabbed our small bag from under the bus and began negotiating with taxi drivers as we walked out of the station. We talked to 6 or 7 taxi drivers before one accepted our price of 25,000 Zkw ($5USD) to take us to Manda Hill, the very big and very “western” fancy shopping mall in Lusaka. There we treated ourselves to a burger, salad and iced coffee at the restaurant Mugg N Bean- yum!

Our next stop was Mogal Guesthouse where we spent the night. Mogal is convenient because there is usually a room available (albeit pricy at 100,000 to 150,000 Zkw per night), and it is close to the Peace Corps office, bunkhouse and Volunteer Lounge as well as various grocery stores and restaurants. Mogal also has a karaoke rooms that are a lot of fun. We could have requested to stay for free with one of the Lusaka households that participates in Peace Corps' Lusaka Homestay program. However, that required a level of forward-thinking we were lacking and Shaun likes Mogal because there is a puppy there he can play with.

Tuesday morning, we awoke at 06:00, showered, packed up and we checked out and on the road hailing a taxi by 06:30. The taxi took us to the petrol station near Olympic Stadium on the north side of Lusaka. We grabbed some buns and softies, and we stood at the side of the road for an hour trying to flag down a vehicle to take us 4 hours north to the Kapiri-Mposhi junction. Of the 40-50 vehicles that passed us, a handful stopped while most went by either not acknowledging us or signaling that they were just staying local. Most of those who stopped we either not going as far as Kapiri-Mposhi or they wanted too much money to take us (one driver suggested the unreasonable amount of 120,000 Zkw- $14USD- each for the ride; we declined and walked away).

Around 07:30 a graying Zambian man in a clean, well-maintained Toyota Hulux headed to Ndola pulled over and invited us to join him to Kapiri-Mposhi. He was alone in the vehicle and there was plenty of room for us and our bags in the backseat. The man, we learned, was named ba Boas; he is a medical doctor educated at University of Zambia in Lusaka and now living and working in Botswana. He is well-traveled, having visited and lived in several European countries and African countries. He grew up in Lusaka and his parents, though of very modest means, tried to give him western-style education and very much encouraged him in school. We had a wonderful ride with him, discussing the differences in American and Zambian cultures, methods of education, even parenting. The hitch transformed into a fascinating culture exchange- one of the many reasons we prefer hitching to riding the bus.

There are other benefits to hitchhiking instead of taking a bus, aside from rich cultural exchange and good networking opportunities. When hitching on more well-traveled roads we often can get rides in newer and maintained cruisers or trucks. Buses are usually old, beat-up, over-packed and overweight. Buses also tend to break down and it's very unlikely for passengers to have tickets refunded. When hitching, we talk to our driver when negotiating the ride which also allows us to gauge his state of sobriety. We hardly ever get a chance to know who is driving a bus we're on until we are on the road- and intoxicated driving is a problem we've seen in Zambia. Lastly, hitches are often free or a small cost, whereas with buses one must pay, whether the bus makes make it to your destination or not. Our friends found this out the hard way about 6 months ago when their bus broke down in the middle of the night. They were forced to sleep on the side of the road in the bus and start hitching at first light the next morning 900+ kilometers to Mansa.

But I digress...

After getting dropped in Kapiri-Mposhi we got the name and number of our new friend to connect with him if we find ourselves in Botswana again. We had lunch at the shwarma stand and then got back on the road to hitch again. We'd figured we hitch a ride to Serenje, a couple hours north of Kapiri-Mposhi, and then stay the night in Serenje. And after a short time after getting to the road, a South African miner friend of ours, who we'd gotten a ride with back in July, drove by and stopped to give us a lift to Serenje. So, we hopped in the back of his truck and away we went.

It wasn't until stopping at the petrol station in Mkushi that our friend mentioned he was driving all the way to Mansa, and he'd be happy to bring us all the way back to the Peace Corps Provincial House in Mansa. This was a big win for us. Not a lot of traffic heads to Luapula Province or Mansa which means we usually end up waiting a long, long time at the turn-off to Luapula (called Tuta or “potato” junction). So, we usually plan to stay a night in Serenje so we don't risk being stuck at that empty junction anytime near dark. In fact, this last time when we came up we saw a total of 7 vehicles on that road- counting vehicles going BOTH directions.

So, we rode with our friend Leigh from Kapiri-Mposhi 6 hours to Mansa. Leigh is a very good, safe driver, so we got a free, safe, ride up to Mansa, arriving a day early. It was great! And today we head up about 110km north to Mwense, by bus, and then hike up about 5km to our village, Chebele.