Traveling in Southern Africa was eye opening to me in terms of how great we had it in South Africa public transportation wise. There were many times throughout our "road trip" where I was honestly worried for my life, and miserable. The thing about the travel was that the actual travel was crazy - but the amazing destinations made up for it.
The TAZARA Railway
Since we needed to travel on the cheap though (and airfare in Southern Africa is anything but cheap) we decided to go with what seemed the most reasonable, safe, and direct route - the train! Safe, direct, and reasonable is pretty questionable when describing the train through Tanzania but it was an unforgettable experience.
The train didn't leave on time (which we anticipated) and only left several hours after it was scheduled to (which was nothing new to us, we're used to waiting). We were in the first class section which had four beds that came with a sheet, blanket, and pillow. The first night on the train there was Sami, another Tanzanian girl, and me in our cabin. We checked out the lounge car where you could buy drinks which were cold the first day and got slowly warmer as the trip went on. There was no temperature control on the train, but we had our car window open to get a nice breeze (it was so hot in Dar!). Our first cabin-mate got off the train in Mbeya on day two of the travels. During the day on day two we got another roommate who was a business woman from Kenya who owned a business in Zambia. She was transporting two computers on the train in order to sell them in her shop.
The rest of the trip was a bit of a blur. It was four days and three nights on a train so one day of playing cards seemed exactly like the next day of playing cards and eating the same. This was our general schedule.
Wake up, eat breakfast, get a soda in the lounge car.
Morning hours: play cards or bananagrams or read.
Lunch break!
Afternoon hours: play cards or bananagrams or read.
Dinner break, get a soda in the lounge car (only if we’re feelin’ wild).
Evening hours: play cards or bananagrams or read.
Go to bed as early as we possibly could manage.
The scenery was gorgeous Sami and I spent the majority of day two in the lounge car going back and forth between playing cards, reading our kindles, and socializing with the other tourists on the train. We got to know a German couple and also became friends with a Canadian couple who were doing development work in Malawi. We ended up traveling with these couples for the rest of our trip in Zambia since it was less intimidating to travel in a pack than on our own.
Memories of the train:
-The toilet was a normal looking toilet seat, but it just opened up out onto the tracks. We weren't supposed to use it unless the train was moving. This rule Sami and I both broke. Opps.
-They had a room with two sinks in it that could be used for brushing teeth/washing faces. That was nice.
-There was apparently a shower...we did not attempt to take advantage of this.
-The train would consistently stop for long periods of time, for no apparent reason (which is why we had to break the bathroom rule).
-We had to switch trains at the boarder which was not too fun.
-We rode by overturned train cars (so comforting) and I would routinely wake up in the night TERRIFIED at how fast we were going and how the train felt like it was going to tip over sideways.
-Sami got sick for about two days so that was no good! The only bonus was that she had a bed and a toilet to use whenever she needed (good thing we weren't on a bus!).
-There was the occasional cockroach in our room.
-It was a crazy experience!
Zambia
After our arrival north of Lusaka, Zambia (where we needed to get a bus to Livingstone) we got a taxi (with other tourists in tow) to get to Lusaka. Once we got to Lusaka we discovered we could take a night bus to Livingstone and arrive quite late (or early depending on how you look at it). We arrived at our backpackers around three in the morning so happy to have arrived at our destination! It was a longggggg time coming but we finally made it!
Zambia reminded me of South Africa in a lot of ways. Partly because a lot of the same businesses that are in South Africa are in the cities in Zambia. The backpackers was the kind we were used to- it was a cool place called Jollyboys, and the people seemed similar to South Africans culturally (whereas in all the other countries we were in there was a very different vibe than in South Africa). We met a lot of Peace Corps Volunteers at Jollyboys who were PC Zambia and it sounds like their sites are MUCH more undeveloped than most of ours (they said no one had electricity or running water at site...which is very different than many of our sites in SA).
I enjoyed our time in Livingstone - it was more relaxed and we got to see Victoria Falls! That was a really cool experience. We knew we were going to get soaking wet because everyone does during the wet season (which also makes it difficult to see the falls because of all the mist but you still see them). When we crossed the bridge we did in fact get completely soaking wet! The massive scale of the waterfall is so huge - when the mist blows away for a moment and you can see how wide the falls are - it's breathtaking! We explored the park surrounding the falls and looked at them from lots of different sides - we saw massive (double) rainbows and got to dodge baboons. We did one of the hikes down to the bottom of the falls where you can watch bungee jumpers and on that walk we had to share the path with many baboons (which in case you didn’t' know, are slightly intimidating). We also went on a sunset cruise along the Zambezi River which was a blast!
The day after our trip to the falls we all flew out of Zambia back to South Africa. Sami and Mallory went to Cape Town and I flew to Pretoria. I had originally planned on traveling by bus, by myself back to South Africa but after lots of careful consideration I decided flying was both more cost effective and about a thousand times safer. I have never regretted that decision.
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