Bad vs. Good, Travel Edition

Anyone who has traveled knows that setbacks can occur. Sometimes flights get cancelled or luggage gets lost. Sometimes the hotel is so noisy that you're awake all night. Or maybe the person next to you on a long flight is snoring so loudly that you can’t get any sleep yourself. Also, there are those rainy days when a bus window just won’t close all the way and you get rained on for hours.

Indeed, everyone has had a little setback when traveling, right? But, has anyone had all of the above (and more) in just a few short days? My last couple of blog posts have been showing you the honeymoon side of traveling; I mean, I seduced you with baby elephants and lion-petting. But now it's time to see how the seduction of the honeymoon stacks up against the ugly. That's right, it's time for a match of Bad vs. Good, Travel Edition.

Saturday, 10 December 2011

With bus ticket in hand, early this morning I walk the 10 minutes in the rain to the bus station from the hostel in Livingstone. I spent more money to buy a ticket for the ‘executive’ bus today (which basically just means I get an assigned seat instead of having to get to the station hours early to grab a good seat). I board the bus, hand the conductor my ticket, and sleepily watch him change my seat number. “Huh…I wonder why he did that,” then sit down in the new seat which is completely wet. I jump up, look at the window; it's opened a bit and when I try to close it, no luck. It’s stuck. So I take my towel out of my backpack and put it on my seat. Problem solved. I think I’m pretty clever…

And then…it doesn’t stop raining. I’m getting wet, with the rain coming in the window that won’t shut all the way, but I think it’s not so bad: my iPod is charged, and I had coffee this morning. All is good, albeit slightly wet. And then, at another bus stop, I get a new seat neighbor. He smiles, looks at my towel on the seat, reaches across me, and shuts the window. Huh. So it closes after all. Imagine that.

He is a Lebanese guy who lives in Zambia; he talks to me most of trip, buys me Pringles and loads of chocolate, and is genuinely nice. (Did I mention he bought me chocolate?)

Nice guy: 1. Rain: 0.

Once in Lusaka, I go to the hostel where I stayed just a few days earlier, when I was on my way to Livingstone. However, when I find out my room is the same room as last time, I almost leave. It’s early – just 2 p.m. at this point – which means a few hours to find a new place before dark. Seeing me about to leave, the staff member assures me – in fact, she promises me – that it will be quiet tonight. Last time wasn’t too too bad; it’s just that this particular room is a stone’s throw distance away from the bar (actually, more like a feather’s throw). With no A/C or fan in the room, the windows need to be open, just to cool down the room enough to sleep. 

Once she makes the promise, I trust her – mistake of my life #193,400,201. So I stay. I make arrangements with a taxi driver to pick me up at 3:30 a.m. to take me to the bus station the next day, for the 5 a.m. bus to Lilongwe, Malawi. Thus, by 10 that night, I want to be able to get some sleep. But there’s loud dance music playing and people talking at the bar. It is Saturday night after all. I close the windows, but it doesn’t help much. Around midnight, the music stops. “YAY!” I think for about five seconds, right before the huge TV above the bar is turned on to a soccer match – and based on the continuous yelling and booing and cheering from the people at the bar, it is quite a soccer match.  Around 2, it finally quiets down, just in time for me to get an hour of sleep. Except at this point, I can't sleep.

Noisy hostel: 2. Sleep: 0.

Sunday 11 December 2011

A couple hours later, at 4 a.m., I am on a bus slated to leave at 5. But it doesn’t wind up leaving until 6:30. Now that’s the Africa I know! I’m super grumpy for most of the morning (no sleep + no coffee + an extra 2 ½ hours on a bus does that to me…okay, mostly just the lack of coffee), so I just try to nap and listen to music. At the Zambian/Malawian border, with most of the trip behind me, I start to perk up and actually talk to some people. But first, I discover something sad. Really, really sad. 

At immigration, there is a huge book that each person must write in before showing his/her passport to an official. The book is like the biggest wedding guest book ever, if guest books asked for passport numbers and nationalities and addresses and length of visits. And, because I’m on a bus with a lot of other people, there’s a chaotic mass of people waiting to write in the book. No line. No order. You just sort of politely nudge your way in when you can. Except, because I went and peed when I first got off the bus, I’m now behind about ten nuns and five old ladies, and I don’t feel right about nudging them even slightly. So, I give up and assume I’ll be the last to sign the book. 

I’m trying so hard to be patient, but it is taking so long, and I start wondering why it's taking so long. As I get closer and watch several people trying to write their information, I realize something: they can’t read or write very well. Or at all. So it takes them at least five minutes apiece to read and write what I am able to do in seconds. 

You'd think that realization makes me more patient. But sadly, no.  Not wanting to wait any longer, thinking the bus will leave without me, and wanting so badly to get out of the cramped little room that houses this book and away from the realization (and guilt) that I’ve been getting impatient because of illiteracy, I do something kind of rude: as an elderly woman is slowly writing her name on one page of the book, I find a space at the bottom of the opposite page, draw in my own boxes, and write my information. It takes me less than 30 seconds. I leave as the woman is still writing her name. A couple of people look at me and smile. But I think the whole thing is sad.

Illiteracy rate: 10. Language teacher: 0.

But then I meet Ru-shan.

Funny Dutch guy: 1. Bad day on the bus: 0.

And I find out my friend (also an English Language Fellow, or ‘ELF’ if you will) will pick me up at the bus station in Malawi…and I discover that the Dutchman is staying at the same lodge in Lilongwe that night, as is the other ELF...and I get completely dissed by a Brit later that night (if you’d talked to the guy, you’d agree this is a plus).

Late night drinks with an ELF and a Dutchman: 10. Exhaustion from staying awake for over 40 hours: 1.

And then, after a very lovely Monday spent in Lilongwe, I assumed the competition was over. Until Tuesday. When the opposition came back. And came back strong.