Livingston, Zambia 27 August 2010
I enjoyed the gross matinee this morning (sleeping in), until I realized that i was still an hour off due to the hour change. We had a great breakfast in the hotel and tried to find a flight to Livingston. Unfortunately, the guy at the hotel who helped arrange travel for the guests said that only flights available would cost $450 USD each way and the buses had already left for the day that would arrive before dark. That left was with renting a car and driver as the only option to get to Livingston by nightfall. The hotel dude arranged a driver and car for $550 USD, but when the car showed up three hours later (two hours late) we found out that we had to pay an addition $100 for the drivers food and expenses.
We finally got on the road around 2:30pm for the 500km drive to the far end of the country through some scenic country. Lots of little villagers made up of a circle of mud huts, some sprawling lush green farms with irrigation and sprinkler systems straight out of the Midwest, and lots of big trucks carrying huge crude copper ore ingots from the mines. We also ran into lots of cattle and police check points every 50km or so along the road. For the most part the roads were in great shape and we were able to cruise comfortably at 130km/hr in our new Toyota Landcruiser Prado. That was until it got dark out and the lights didn't work. The last 30 km to Livingston were pure torture as we couldn't see the edge of the road and whenever we saw a car coming towards us we had to turn on our hazard lights so they could see us.
By the time we finally got to the Zambezi Sun we were worn out. We checked in, got some dinner at the $40 USD per person buffet and fell asleep to the sounds of a local african band singing off tune covers of bob marley- "don't worry about a thing, every little thing is gonna be alright."
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