TRAVEL BLOG THURSDAYS - ZAMBIA
60 MINUTES IN ZAMBIA || LIVINGSTONE || ZAMBIA || AUGUST 2016
Wanna hear about that one time when I went to Zambia (the country) for an hour? Not sure why I felt the need to specify that it was a country but I feel like it is relevant information for those who aren’t familiar with the geography of the continent of Africa.
So, this one time, in August 2016, I was in the southern region of Africa, ya know, just hangin’ out. We were in Zimbabwe at the time (I’ll post a separate blog about that. I was there for longer than an hour). Anyway, so we decided to walk to Zambia (the country), just to see what it was like. We were close enough to the border that it wasn’t a far journey.
We got dropped off, by a taxi, at the customs office, right at the border between Zimbabwe and Zambia, near Victoria Falls. There is this meme I’ve seen where there is a guy in one line and the line next to him seemed to move faster. He then went to the shorter line and the line he left began to move faster. This is what it was like standing in line to get our passports stamped. There was no real order to the line; you just kind of had to push your way through and assert your spot in line. Eventually we got our passports stamped and we were on our way.
We walked through a space called “no man’s land”, between the borders of the two countries. It was a wide road with lots of trucks parked along the side and a few taxis driving passengers between the borders. There was a portion that allowed us to walk over the Victoria Falls Bridge to see the view of the falls from above and kind of “be in two countries at once”.
About half way through the walk we decided to take a taxi because we only had a limited amount of time to get to and from Zambia before our next activity.
We haggled for a taxi with a few men who made it a bit challenging for us. Eventually, we found someone who was willing to take us across to the other end, for a decent price. We had to catch a separate taxi once we got to the Zambia border. Once we got to the border, we had to go into the customs office, which was just a small building with a few windows with one or two people manning the stations; similar to, but a bit larger than the one on the Zimbabwe side. We had to get on arrival VISAs. They gave them to us on a separate piece of paper instead of stamping a page in our passport books directly.
We went through the whole haggling process again to get a taxi to take us into town.
The taxi dropped us at a market and we made a deal with the driver to take us back across. He told us to meet him at the same spot in an hour so we went on our way exploring until he was ready to leave again. At this point we were paying for everything in US dollars, as Zimbabwe converted to the use of the US dollar by the time we had arrived in the country. So, we were basically paying way more for stuff than we should have. Every US dollar is equal to about 5194 Zambian Kwatchas so we had to find a guy to convert our money fast!
Side Note: If you’re traveling with someone and aware of your surroundings, exchanging money from a guy on the street who happens to offer that service versus going to a currency exchange is a fee-less way of exchanging money. But as always… “be safe tho” *Taxstone voice*
So anyway, we found a guy to exchange the money with but he didn’t have enough small bills to break up what we needed for the amount of US dollars we wanted to exchange. Somehow, he trusted us enough to give us the money and allow us to bring him back his change. Crazy, right?! We had to go get change so we walked around trying to find food to purchase to break up the Kwatchas he gave us. We walked into a few food spots and retail shops before deciding on one to purchase from. Across from some shops and stalls, and around the corner from a Hungry Lion chicken joint, there was a place called Wonder Bake Munali Café in Livingstone, Zambia. We ended up eating at Hungry Lion, at one point during our two weeks in southern Africa. That, Chicken Licken and Nando’s (my favorite!!) were the places we frequented if we weren’t eating at local spots. Wonder Bake Mulani Café is in a big white building with a blue sign. It has a blue awning and an open-air feel. When we walked in there were tons of orange chairs and white tables. The bakery case was filled with meats, pastries, both sweet and savory; they had sandwiches, drinks, coffee, and a myriad of other food and beverage items.
I decided to get a fish patty and purple Mirinda which to my surprise was NOT grape flavor; it was “Fruity”? flavor. Everything was reasonably priced and it was mad good!! AND we got our change! Now we had to walk around and look for the guy who exchanged the money with us before it was time to meet our taxi driver. After 15 minutes of walking around, we finally found the guy who wasn’t even expecting to see us again but that’s not how we operate and we could tell he was shocked. Overall it was a good experience for both parties.
We walked back to the market and waited for our taxi driver for about 10 minutes. His car was still in the same spot but he wasn’t around. He finally showed up at the end of the 10 minutes with an accomplished look on his face. We assumed he’d gotten what he needed done and he was ready, as we were, to get back to the border. We paid the taxi driver in Kwatchas which we preferred but he didn’t. We ended up doing a carpool with another passenger so we split our fare up 3 ways instead of 2.
When we got to the border, we had to walk up to a guy, looking sorta official but it was iffy, so he could stamp our passport VISAs again. Once that was done, we had to find another taxi to take us to the Zimbabwe border. This took way longer than expected so we missed our appointment in Zimbabwe but I’ll talk about what that appointment was for once I post the other blog. While we waited, I still had half of my fish patty in a brown paper bag and the grease was seeping through the bottom. I forgot to mention that in the area, baboons are as prevalent as squirrels are in the states, but they are clearly much larger and more dangerous if you aren’t careful. There were a few baboons nearby, rummaging through the trash, and one of them decided he wanted my fish patty so he began to square up and I was like, “it’s your world man. I’m just a squirrel tryna get a nut” and I let him have it. I wasn’t about to fight a baboon for a half-eaten fish patty but ya know, “more life”, if you ever get in that situation and decided to stand your ground. Another one of the baboons wanted my travel buddy’s drink so she handed it to him.
He then untwisted the cap, poured some out on the ground, and lapped it up with his tongue. I’m talking about a whole baboon, NOT a human! They clearly were used to interacting with humans and manmade food packaging which I thought was pretty fascinating.
We finally found a taxi that was willing to take us back to the Zimbabwe border for a decent price. That hour of my life was definitely interesting, fun, and I got to try some food which is my favorite activity in life! I also got a new passport stamp which is the whole point of traveling anyway, isn’t it?! #TravelGoals
The take away from this is, if you ever get the chance to explore a new country, even for an hour, DO IT! And don’t square up with baboons; it ain’t worth all that bruh!
Thanks for reading all these words!
Love ya!
Taste Tutor