BLOG 28: Public Transport in Zambia

As I'm sure you can imagine, traveling here is not as easy as it is in America. Here is an account of a trip I made from Lusaka (the capital of Zambia) to Mwange Camp. It was an adventure…



Starting in Lusaka, I walked to the minibus station near our house that always takes us to the same station in town, but for some reason this bus took me to a different station. From there I had a longer walk than expected, but I found my way to the bus station with buses headed north to Kasama. Right outside of that station, I had to cross a small stream (about 8 feet across) that had developed from the many rains this season. I was walking across the stream on the stones sticking up, but the stones were not very sturdy. When I had about 2 feet left to cross, the last stone gave out from underneath me and I fell in the stream! My pants were soaked and 20 minutes later I would board a bus for a 12-hour ride.



During the long ride, every town we stopped in was out of power because of the bad power outages in all of Southern Africa over the past few months. At 3:30am I was dropped in Kasama – this was first time a bus has ever arrived so early! I went to the hotel we always stay at, but there were no rooms. The guards said I could sit in the bar area with the other security guards and the receptionist that was resting before her early morning shift. So, we all watched BBC and I slept for a little on a couple chairs that I arranged to make a "bed."



In the morning, I left when the grocery store opened and then went to catch the minibus to Mporokoso at 2pm. Then it was 3pm, 4pm, 5pm… At 6pm the minibus still had not left, so I decided that I should play it safe and not take a bus that would arrive in Mporokoso at 1am when I had not arranged a place to stay. So, I stayed in Kasama at the Peace Corps house for the night, but unfortunately there was no power the whole time I was in Kasama so it was not a very productive or interesting.



The next evening I left on a minibus to Mporokoso with a 10 year old sleeping on one shoulder and a small baby laying half on my leg and half on it's mother. Halfway through our 6-hour trip, the bus stops, does a U-turn and backtracks for about 10 minutes. I don't know Bemba (Zambian language from this part of Zambia) very well and they were explaining everything that was happening in Bemba, so I had no idea what was going on. Finally I saw that the trailer holding all our bags had broken off the bus and our bags were all over the road. For about an hour we repacked the bus moving all the people into the back three rows and the bags everywhere else. It was cramped to say the least, but at least we had everyone's things.



When we arrived in Mporokoso, it was dark, so I had the bus driver walk me to my hotel. Then I watched some of the Africa Cup with about 20 Zambians and passed out. In the morning I packed my bike and road the two hours back to Mwange arriving safe but really tired!