Day 51 (21/7/11) Amsterdam/Galway

I’m home, sitting on my couch in Galway on Friday afternoon. It’s weird to be a home and kind of sad not to look out the window and see the beautiful blue skies and distinctive sights of Zambia, but at the same time it’s good to be back. The seven weeks in Zambia is something I’ll never forget, the experiences we had, the people we met and the beauty of the country I’m sure will stick with me forever. I hope to return to Zambia one day as it’s a place the does kind of get under your skin. I look forward to walking down the main street of Kaoma again, to seeing the beauty of the countryside as you drive through, meeting some of the children from the orphanages and experience places I’ve yet to see. It’s a magical place and somewhere I miss already. So last time I posted I was sitting in Amsterdam airport (I haven’t used paragraphs before so I won’t start now) waiting for our flight to Ireland. We boarded the flight without any hassle and for the first time it hit me, there was Makua’s everywhere it was the largest collection of pasty white skin we’d seen in almost 2 months (farmers tan’s by the shed load). The flight to Ireland took about an hour and a half and onboard I was reacquainted with rip off pricing with €2 for a Twix (well I’d paid €8 for McDonalds in Amsterdam, I got a whole steak dinner with beer for less in Zambia, before anyone says it McDonalds’ for breakfast is disgusting but I just needed food to keep me standing). When we touched down in Dublin it was weird looking out and seeing grey sky (why can’t it be beautiful and blue like Zambia). We made our way to baggage claim half expecting an announcement to come over the intercom like “could passenger Mark Morley please report to customer service desk so we can inform him of his bags arrival in Addis Ababa” but fortunately our bags pretty quickly made it onto our trolleys. We then wheeled our trolleys through to the arrivals hall where Dan met his girlfriend and we said our brief goodbyes. The other three of us walked towards the bus car park area, Áine with her brother (who weirdly was a Dan look alike).She departed and after another brief goodbye, Me and Jamie made our way to the Citylink buses me getting the direct one and him getting the one for Loughrea, for the first time in 7 weeks the group was separated. I asked the bus driver how much it cost and when he said €15 I was tempted to say “can you do for ten” but I knew the answer I’d get. So the bus down, I pretty much just slept through it only waking briefly in Dublin city centre and to see the sign saying Oranmore. From the bus station I dragged my 3 suitcases back up the road to Cill Ard and stepped through the front door. My trip to Zambia was over I was home. So that’s the end of my Zambia blog I really can’t believe I kept it going the whole time I was there. In the end it came to 89 pages and almost 44,000 words of a word document. At times it drove me mad to try and find the time to write it but I’m glad I did and as I sit here I have a program open to turn it into a book to keep. It’ll be a great way to remember my trip in the future (sorry about the typos but mostly I couldn't be bothered rereading what I wrote to correct it). So as I said above it really was the most amazing trip and one of the best experiences of my life. I really hope I can return to Zambia one day and the country can remain as magical a place as it was during my visit. It’s hard to sum up a trip like that in one sentence so the only thing I can think of is T.I.A, T.I.Z, That was Africa, That was Zambia. I hope to return!

Day 50 (20/7/11) Lusaka/Amsterdam

So the day of travelling home had arrived and as it was a day of travelling there’s not a whole lot to write about. Me and Jamie had slept in a tent with proper beds in it last night which was really nice and surprisingly warm. We got up around 8.30 and had breakfast in the hostel before doing a final pack, loading our suitcases into 2 taxi’s and heading for Lusaka International Airport. When we got out of the taxi’s there were 2 guys there who unloaded our bags and put them on trolleys and started wheeling them towards check in. Once we checked in we tipped them with what little money we had left. Lusaka airport is fairly small and has feck all in it. The waiting area was small but had lots of souvenir shops and had there been an ATM to get some dollars (they wouldn’t accept their own currency). I spent the last $10 I had and we waited for our flight. Once our flight was called we were brought through to a long galvanise shed with glass doors at the end onto the runway. The security at the door seemed so lax. It consisted of a chain with a padlock around the door handles that each person coming through didn’t even unlock to open. Finally it was time to board the flight (I don’t know why I’m so impatient to get on flights cause I can’t wait to get off once I’m on). The plane was a Kenyan Airlines flight to Nairobi and it was much bigger than our flight from Nairobi 7 weeks ago (I can’t believe it been that long). Each seat had their own TV screens. The flight was fairly empty but there were lots of Makua’s and Muslims in full gear. The flight took 2 hrs 15 minutes and during it we were served a half decent chicken meal, I asked for a beer with it and was given 3 cans of “Trunker” a Kenyan beer named after the elephant that killed the company’s founder. I decided to watch a film called Maiden Heist (the only film I thought was short enough to watch). About half way through the flight a message appeared on screen saying the entertainment system would end in 20 minutes which it did ¾ of the way through the film. The film wasn’t great anyway but when a film is called Maiden Heist and you don’t get to see the heist bit cause your TV stops working its really annoying. Everyone’s system stopped at the same time. Most of the TV screens didn’t work at all and as the flight was half empty we all had to keep moving to find a TV that worked. Finally we approached Nairobi and we could see Mount Kilimanjaro sticking out above the clouds. The approach had been quite bumpy due to the cloud cover but the heat in airport was stifling. We had 6 hours to pass so we went searching for the Economy lounge shown on the map Dan had ripped from the in-flight magazine.  We found it but were told our tickets didn’t qualify us for the economy lounge so we went back to the long corridor full of duty free and found a cafe. Shortly after arriving there was a power cut in the airport (quite strange) and all the lighting became dim and lots of the shops closed. To pass the time I started a new game of Championship Manager. Finally at 10.30pm we boarded our KLM flight to Amsterdam. This flight was to last 7 and a half hours overnight and as such there’s not much to say about it. This time the food wasn’t great and I slept most of the flight after watching “Limitless”. Finally at 5.45 am we arrived back in Europe which is where I now sit writing this. Its now 8 am and it’s time to go board the last flight to Dublin. Almost there goodday.

Day 49 (19/7/11) Lusaka

So our last full day in Zambia was finally here and to be honest I have mixed emotions. It’s been a long time so I’m really looking forward to going home but at the same time I’ll be very sad to leave Zambia it’s an amazing country and it’ll be weird to be in Ireland again. We started the day by having breakfast in the hostel where I ordered a ham sandwich to which the waitress replied “no cheese” no I don’t want cheese “ok so a ham and cheese sandwich” no no cheese and no tomato “can I put some mustard on it” no you can’t (well I just said no mustard but it was a weird way she said it). After breakfast we sat and typed some emails and blogs before me Dan and Jamie decided to get a taxi to Cairo Road and walk down it. Cairo Road is the main street in Lusaka and some people say its a place notorious for pick pockets and dangerous while others (including my guidebook) say it’s a must go area when in Lusaka. The taxi dropped us at an area called Central Park which is vastly different from New York’s version. Here central park is a small tarred shopping area which isn’t very nice. Instead we set off walking down the street. The centre of the road is a nice tree line footpath which it quite nice it’s a bit like the ramblas in Barcelona without the street performers (there’s drunks instead). We walked the length of the street and at the end saw Zambia’s tallest building (we’d been showing pictures of it in each of our school workshops so it was weird to see it for real). It was quite a nice street and I took a good few pictures. On the walk we had been looking for a tourist shop to buy Zambian flags and maybe football jerseys but there was nowhere so we went into a shopping centre on the street. It was a really weird place that reminded me of a hospital and had hardly any shops it was an odd place so we left called Patrick our taxi man and got him to bring us back to the hostel. We decide to swap our pics so we all had a complete copy so we sat in the porch area (no annoying English girls in sight). There was a white Zambian guy sitting there telling another American (they’re everywhere) where to visit in Zambia. Once the American left he started talking to Dan and Jamie. He turned out to be a bit of a racist twat. He was born and bred in Zambia and was an ex guard who was now a business man. He said he hated the way South Africans were racist towards black but then went on to say how he hated Pakistani’s and Chinese. He was full of shit telling stories of his big estate he owned where he could smoke lots of hash and have sex with his girlfriend in the garden. He also said we could have 20 women each if we went to a club but that it wasn’t “Aids Free” but “Free Aids”. He also said you could trade a bag of maize in Mongu for and RPG or AK47. He was annoying me so I let him talk to the others while I went and sat pool side and got a Mosi while surfing the net. It was really nice sitting relaxing in the sun. Around 4 we had one or 2 games of pool which I played really badly in and then we got ready and head for Rhapsody’s. Again in Rhapsody’s ordered the Mr and Mrs Smith’s (its just that good) but with wedges instead of chips and a side order of rice. It turned out to be even nicer than last time the wedged were unreal. I topped it off with a death by chocolate but was so stuffed I couldn’t finish it. During dinner we discussed our time in Zambia, how it’ll be weird to be home and if we’d return (all the time someone was Rickrolling the place cause Rick Astley’s Never Gonna Give You Up played over and over again). After dinner we haggled a price for a taxi and made our way back to the hostel. The English girls were hogging the couches practicing a Beyonce dance so again I sat by the pool searching the net. The others were wrecked so headed straight for bed. So that was our last day in Zambia tomorrow the epic 30 hours travelling home begins. I’ll write 2 more days of this to finish the trip off and then that’ll be it I won’t need it anymore. Ireland awaits!

Day 48 (18/7/11) Livingston/Lusaka

So time had come to depart Livingston and head back to Lusaka. It was the beginning of the journey home even though that journey would take 4 days. On a side note these last few blogs have been an effort to write as I’ve struggled to find time to write them but as I write this I’m sitting beside a pool in the glorious sunshine of 3 in the afternoon with a beer in my hand, its gonna be so shit seeing rain again why can’t Ireland be sunny. So back to day 48 (or Monday as we called it) when we woke we had packed most our bags from the night before but we hadn’t cleaned the room, it was amazing how much rubbish we had generated in the short few days we’d been there. To get to the bus station Dan, Áine and our bags hopped in a taxi while me and Jamie set off walking to see Livingston for one last time and also to buy some breakfast on the way. Eventually we all gathered at the bus station and loaded our bags on the bus and set off for Lusaka. Once again the bus journey was only notable for 2 reasons only and one reason was the constant playing of the song Mandy (the bloody Westlife version) and an annoying Preacher who hopped on the bus about half way and spent about half an hour lecturing the bus by shouting about “believing in the death of Jesus” (I believe already the guys dead now shut up). Its amazing how much it sounded like attempted brainwashing. At the end he asked if anyone was willing to let Jesus Christ into their life (none of the Zambians cared either) and I was so tempted to put my hand in the air but thought better of it. Finally hopped off the bus and the journey continued with another couple of plays of Mandy before finally after 6 hours 40 minutes we hopped of the bus in Lusaka where we got a taxi back to the same hostel as before. We had booked a 3 bed dorm and a double room but when we got there these rooms weren’t available so instead we had to share so we reverted to the arrangement of the first night here with Jamie and Dan sharing and me and Áine sharing. Áine still wasn’t feeling great so she paid for a taxi to take us to Manda Hill, the fancy shopping centre. Here we bought some chocolately items and some crisps and headed back to the hostel. When we got back me and Dan sat in the only area of the hostel to have both internet connection a sockets. It was a small porch area in front of reception with a few seats. We were joined by a bunch of young English girls there was so many of them they surrounded us. They’re accents were really annoying and they were so loud. They started playing a game where two people had to face back to back and hold up either their own or the other persons show depending on what they thought the answer to each of the questions was. The game was designed to be controversial but the questions were really shit like “who’s more likely to get into Oxbridge?” Me and Dan kept slagging them off by writing message on our laptops for the others to see. The girl asking the question was really bitchy and really bossy “who’s the biggest bitch around “. Each time we laughed they thought we were enjoying the game and asked us if we wanted to join we declined their offer. We kept answering the questions with joke answers from people we knew. To make it bearable to listen to them I had a few beers and when buying one Dan asked me to check if they had “Amerula” they had so I bought to to try it. It was really really nice. It tested like melted honeycomb ice cream it was so easy to drink which is generally a bad thing. Luckily the girls went to bed and we didn’t end up ordering more (it could have ended shake shake bad). I stayed up for a bit on the internet after Dan went to bed but eventually around twelve I hit the hay. One day in Africa left, it’ll be weird to leave.