22 December

22 December

Kasane – Livingstone

48 Miles

2007 Miles!!!!

Erik:

    We got up later than we are used to, so we could take advantage of the breakfast they offered. As with most things in bots, overpriced low quality. But we got our fill, I think I ate my moneys worth in just yogurt. So HA! Take that fancy lodge place.

    It took about 30 minutes of cycling to get to the border, the last mile of which had a line of semi's waiting to cross on the ferry. Going through immigration on the bots side took about 35 minutes. A long time compared to every other crossing we've done. After that we rode down to the ferry. Only one of four was in operation. Not good for the truckers, because only one can cross on a ferry at a time. No line for us though.

    We hopped on the ferry to cross the Zambezi. This is where the chaos started. I don't know who we paid to get off the ferry, if it was the right person, or what the heck was going on, but we made it. Between the both of us we paid about 5 bucks, which is less than they said it would be online, so win?

We get off and go over to this cluster and I shoved my way to the desk (no one knows what lines are here) and got our visas. Took about 10 minutes. Meanwhile Steph was watching the bikes out front. Actually for both border crossings Steph didnt present her passport or show her face. I just did the formalities for both of us. Haha.

    Zambians are nice and smiley. There are also other cyclists. Locals that realize bikes are cheaper to ride than cars. In SA, Namibia and Bots bikes are the rich white guy sport. So it is nice to be in an area where we get props for riding bikes from locals. . . as they all shoot right by us :)

We got a standing ovation and cheers from a combi. Hilarious. We havent crossed into an area where we are called Mzungu yet. It is la-koo-a here. In bots it was lakoa. I think north of here it will turn into Mzungu though.

    So it is hilly here. It's very nice to have some down hills again. Up hills I can do without, but they aren't anything to complain about really. Just 2 hours to go and this rain storm nailed us. We could see it coming towards us. It was like having buckets continuously dumped on us. A nice change of pace. Steph giggled for like 30 minutes in the rain.

    Pulled in drenched to Fawlty Towers, a backpackers. Instantly a very cool place. Good vibes, clean, professional, cheap. Hopped over to shoprite, and holy cow. This place is stocked. I feel like we are in the US or something. Fresh veg, yogurt, anything and everything. After stocking up we met Tom (hitomu, Japanese) who is 22 and has been traveling for 2 years, and Misaka (japanese) who has been traveling for about 8 months and met tom in Nairobi. Two very cool dudes to talk to and hang out with. We got lots of info about their perspective of Kenya and Tanzania.

    For dinner a pasta with meat sauce was made. . . and it rocked. I don't expect everywhere in Zambia to be this stocked, but the people here are what is really making the difference.