Bus Ride from Hell

Welcome to public transportation. I love it. I enjoy the great deals, especially here in Africa. I thought $25 for 1000+km...how could I go wrong. Let me tell you. We left at 3pm on our supposed 15hr trek. A lady with a baby wrapped onto her back and a 2yr old holding her hand comes to sit next to me. There is just one seat next to me. I get up to let her in and then look at the lack of space and go ask the conductor if there are any open seats to switch to. Not a chance. He actually said, 'its fine, you just hold one baby.' Right. 15 hours I was thinking. Turns out my luck was about to change, she misread the seat numbers and was actually behind me! Hurray.

That is when the largest woman in Africa steps onto the bus. I didn't even need to guess where she was headed. She looked intently at the first few seats raising my hope and then bee lined it right to me. Yep. Right next to me. She sat and I waited for her to scoot over to her seat, then I realized she already had. Oh man. I would have had more room with the family of 3. I squeezed one cheek onto the seat and put a smile on my face. At least I had movies to look forward to.

Right. The only movie was locally done with subtitles too small to read, and sound so loud that it hurt the ears. The entire movie was people arguing. It was bad. But I guess it took my mind off something worse happening just behind me. The toddler and the 2yr old had started coughing, and of course were not covering their mouths. Guess who they targeted the germs at...right. Well as they had their competition of who can cough a lung up first I ran thru the possible outcomes... Ebola was the winner in my mind. Only 15 hours, I can handle it.

Thats when the first wheel blows. But we have a spare. That was lucky, I wonder how many of those we have. By the end I figured out we had at least 3, because that is how many tire blowouts we had. 15 hours...not even close, try 18.

At least the kids stopped coughing for a time....in order to cry. Right.

So I'm here in Zambia and I think I'll go grab a cold beer. Sometimes you just feel like you've earned it.