#RolexInZambia More Dryness, and Load Shedding

by Rolex September 3, 2024, 7:14 pm 114 Views 1 Vote

The Zambia border looks neat and organized. The bus stops and a number of characters enter. The ones we were warned about. All they want is to change our money though. It’d be nice if they waited outside. The lights are not on inside the bus, the majority of us are just waking up and drowsy, and the focus is to clear immigration first. Now there’s unnecessary jam in the already luggage-packed corridor. The conductor should restrict access to his vehicle. I get my small bag and move out. Thankfully there’s no reports of stolen luggage.

There’s nary a security check as we enter the immigration premises. The luggage and people scanning machines are there but no one is bothered. I’m the last in the line and I watch as my fellow Ugandans are pulled aside at the health check. I’d been warned about this by Shiba but she’d said I might be fine if I have many stamps in my passport. We might have gone visa free thanks to the African Free Continental Trade Area but the officials must collect theirs.

All the Ugandans have issues with their docs. Apparently we should have gotten tuberculosis and cholera vaccines. They also need a covid vaccination certificate. I thought WHO had done away with covid travel requirements. Also, nothing of the sort was mentioned on the official website. And it’s just Ugandans. I’m later told we are picked on because the number of Ugandans heading South for work has increased. NRM oyee. I don’t see how this is a deterrence. Another theory is that Ugandans are meek which makes us easy targets. This sounds more plausible

The health officials want $20 from each of us to add these vaccines into our yellow fever cards. The alternative is turning back. The power dynamic is in their favour because it’stoo late on the night to call anyone and the bus won’twait for us. Even my bu passport visa stamps mean nothing. The power dynamic is in their favour. We haggle and get the vaccination clearances at group discount. Proper cash over the counter, no shame here. Nowonder no one bothers about security. I bet the cameras are dead too. We are cleared out of Tanzania and the comfort of the East African Community.

On the Zambia side, I’m told I need an address for where I’ll be staying in Zimbabwe before they can allow me in. None of the officials is willing to hotspot me to make a booking. It feels like I’m being squeezed again. A fellow traveler who also has issues with his Zambian hosts documents helps me out and I get a random place on booking.com. They stamp my passport and give me 10 days to be in the country. This can be extended from any immigration spot around town. I’m transiting anyway. And then we wait till 4 am to set off. I think they have curfew of some sort for buses.

I spent the waiting time chatting with a gentleman from Botswana heading back home from Kenya after 17 years away. He’s an obviously talented engineer whose career and life keeps on getting interrupted by alcoholism. Fresh from rehab after getting laid off from his last lucrative job, he’s headed back home to visit his family as he figures out how to get his life back on track.

And then we are in Zambia.

The flatness and dryness from Tanzania continues apart from some large scale irrigation projects that are bright green. Zambia has as many police stops as Tanzania. They also have toll roads. The road is good apart from some sections that feel like they haven’t been worked on yet because they weren’t flat enough. But otherwise good. You don’t put tolls on bad roads. Zimbabwe will fact check me on that statement later. The Zambia side is also dominated by truckers, a trade route.

At a certain checkpoint, some of the gents, myself included, are asked to take a walk through the town via a back route that takes us past the checkpoint. It’s not that we are excess passengers so it has to be a weight thing. It’s a welcome walk though. We’ve done too much sitting. We dash into an old church compound and use their toilets and the paintings inside the church roof are a pleasant surprise.

There’s only one stop for breakfast /lunch/dinner at a petrol station where instead of pumping from the station, the bus refuels from a bunch of jerry cans in the boot. What is safety anyway? The important thought to have is that they do this every time and hope luck doesn’t run out on your trip.

We get to Lusaka around 10 pm. 16 hours of almost nonstop driving. Only those continuing to Harare remain in the bus. I say bye to the other Ugandans that are continuing that way. It’s a youthful group of 6 ladies and 3 guys going to work in a saloon in Harare. I wish them luck and hope they get the better fortunes they seek.

Botswana dude, who is staying in Zambia to visit an old school friend, introduces me to a Kenyan lady who’s heading to Victoria falls like me and we join forces. Together tunawakilisha. We search around the bus park for buses heading there. It’s not too stressful because they are all in the same park we are already in. The earliest leaves at 4.30 in the morning so we look for an ATM to withdraw the fare. Our search leads us to the nearby Levis Mall which is empty save for cleaners and security. This makes me sad because I was looking forward to seeing Zambian behavior on escalators as per Trevor Noah. The first couple of ATMs are not cooperative but we are successful eventually. Imagine if we’d failed. Carry enough cash, technology isn’t always your ally.

The neighborhood also includes the police headquarters and some parastatals so it feels relatively safe. The guys hanging around the bus park are hardened working men that don’t inspire safety at night so a regular glance over the shoulder is not uncommon as we walk around. After securing our tickets, Kenyan girl and I found a restaurant at the bus park to sit in, get a bite, charge our phones and wait for our departure. A room for 4 hours doesn’t feel necessary. We’ll rest at once when we reach our destination. There was an option of sleeping on the bus but it was stuffy.

I see caterpillars on the menu but choose a more familiar sausage roll. I’ll investigate the taste of baby butterflies later. We also experienced our first Zambia electricity blackout. Later the twitter algorithm sensing my location change shares a tweet with an announcement about how the blackouts are going to be 17 hours a day. Yikes. I found out that Kenyan girl is going to an annual salsa festival happening over the weekend. The things we do for our passions. My salsa is basic because I’ve never been consistent enough to take classes past the beginner level but I make a mental note to see if I can make the time to check out the festival.

4 am arrives and we are off to Victoria. This side of Zambia is a little greener and the colors pop out more the closer we get to Victoria Falls. I like how they organize their bus parks in all the different towns. I also prefer their matatus because they have high roofs that allow you to stand as you move in and out. Not the back breaking one’s we have in East Africa. The travel culture here generally seems more robust than ours based on the number of buses I see for crossborder routes. It’s an uneventful 6 hour bus ride with more endless stretches of dry savanna vegetation. The rains have been elusive. This is probably the cause of the blackouts too.

We arrive in Livingstone, Zambia which is your typical slow paced African tourist hotspot. It feels like its has largely remained untouched since the colonial days. We are dropped at its big modern new-feeling bus park. Kenyan girl goes to the washrooms which have good showers to freshen up and I start a conversation with a taxi driver who, upon learning I’m from Uganda, starts giving me stories about his previous life as a people smuggler across the Zimbabwe-South Africa border. His main clients were Ugandans and Rwandese but he left the business after his brother got caught and he had to pull all kinds of strings to get him out of jail.

I get a lift into town with Kenyan girl, we part ways as her festival is this side and I head to the Zimbabwe border in a Toyota Wish shared taxi. The two countries are separated by the River Zambezi along the length of their border and this particular crossing is over the Victoria Falls Bridge, a one car at a time one that crosses the river over the second gorge of the famous Victoria falls. The bridge is also home to the adrenaline activities of the area. Bungee jumping, zip lining and swinging. There’s little friction clearing immigration on both sides, likely because of the tourist volumes they handle every day, and I’m now in Victoria, the tourist town of Zimbabwe.