ZAMBIA!!!

HOW COULD I HAVE FORGOTTEN!!!!
the craziest thing about that ferry:

instead of docking at every stop (of which there were a few every day and night), the ferry just stopped about 1km away from shore, and about a dozen rickety little and slightly bigger boats rushed up to the side of the ferry. instant chaos. the people either paddling or driving the boats, and every ferry passenger who needs to get off at this stop, and everyone who needs to make a purchase to the boat, is yelling at the top of their lungs. i'm assuming they were yelling things like, "catch this rope!!!!" "take my baby!!!" "come on this boat!!!" "i need three dozen pineapples!!!"

and suddenly there are people on the second deck holding the little boats to the ferry with ropes, people are scrambling out of the first-deck windows onto the boats, throwing their suitcases and bags, passing their babies to strangers, breastfeeding while clambering down.....
the funny thing is that it simply did not get old. a few times a day, and it was the highlight of every few hours. :D

also, at one stop Gil decided to jump off the ferry. from the third deck, so a good three or four stories from water level. and he swam around for a bit before joining the boat-loading chaos. hahaha, one of the boatmen tried to make him pay for climbing onto his boat, so gil just looked at him like, "does it look like i have money on me?!" .... nope.
and two stops later sean decides to do the same. crazy folk. and the people on the boats seemed to be used to this kind of insane muzungu behavious... they must have seen it before, i guess. :D
they didn't even glance twice at sean when he was in the water, and when he got onto a boat, they were 100% business... handing him bags to pass to other boats...

ok, now -actually- on to zambia:
after having travelled half of TZ's north-south distance on the ferry, we touched down at yet another dusty lake-side town called Mpulungu.

OH YEAH!!!!
interjection! when we got onto the ferry, our plan was to get off the ferry at the last stop in TZ, and take buses from there to Malawi. the plans changed when Gil and Ben convinced us that we -had- to go to zambia because livingston was the shit and we -had- to go to zimbabwe to see the great zimbabwean ruins and and and and....
so we just kind of... stayed on the MV Liemba for another stop until we were in zambia.

okay, so now in mpulungu, zambia. our plan is to take the next bus to Lusaka, if one exists, or take it in stages depending on how far a bus will take us, or take a bus to the train station and see what happens from there. so we check in to zambia (which involves an extensive search of our bags for drugs..) and leave the ferry terminal, and this guy walks up to us and asks us if we're going to Lusaka. HOW DID HE KNOW?!?! maybe everyone getting off that ferry is going straight there.... who knows. so he set us up with a conductor (buses have both a driver and conductor, who takes care of selling tickets and loading bags onto the bus and dealing with everyone's shyte).

the bus doesn't leave for another nine hours, so we go on yet another epic search for a place that serves beans. two hours after walking down -every- street in the town, we find a little spot with picnic tables selling the best meal EVEr! chipsy maya. basically an omelet with fries in it (as if the fries are onions or tomatoes or something).

by the way, i have a bum now. and hips. i'm proud of my africa-pounds, esp since they'll double as a winter jacket pretty soon.

at a bar in mpulungu later, we end up playing cards to kill time, and get joined by six local folk, three of whom i'm fairly sure were.... ehum... ladies of the night. it was good times, because they taught us this absolutely ridiculous game that involves no strategy whatsoever, and as soon as anyone does anything, everyone yells "YOU ARE THE WINNER!!!!!" and everyone gets high-fives. it sort of became the joke of the trip with Ben and Gil and Sean and I. if any of us did something a little stupid, we'd yell "you are the winner" and have a round of high fives. :S

i've got to say, zambia was probably the most hillarious place we went. the only downside to the country is that transportation is hella expensive. and it's a huge ass country. so from mpulungu we went to lusaka, the capital, and were horribly depressed at how western the city was, but took advantage of the movie theatre to watch the latest james bond movie... is it james bond? that guy who has gadgets and fucks every woman who has a role in the movie, except his boss? in this flick, though, he barely had any gadgets, to sean's utter dissapointment. but it was pretty chill nevertheless. in every country we sort of have an obligatory all-business day when we check out the internet, a bank, a forex, and stock up on food.

the train
after a few days in lusaka, we jumped onto a train to livingston, which was the ultimate destination of the trip. so within a week we made it from the far north of zambia to the far south.
the train was a... supposed to be twelve but turned into 16 hours... trip to remember. it had no classes - everyone just slept on benches, which were surprisingly comfortable. and i think we made the better choice by taking this train, even though the bus was only 6hrs. the bus is 30,000Zambian Kwatcha and the train is 12,000. so $30 vs $12.
and mum you'll hate to hear this, but we found a spot ont he train where we could smoke. as soon as we were on the train, the staff brought us back to the staff car ("the train is unsafe, people will steal while you sleep"), where people who didn't have tickets were stored until the next stop to be dealth with by the local authorities (probably put in jail for a bit, or bribe their way out). and the staff car just happened to be at the very back of the train, so we could sneak to a little back spot, open the doors, and smoke with our feet dangling over the tracks.

livingston
in short, i think everyone should stay a jollyboys, beautiful lodge, awesome croud, fab.

111m bungee, 120m crater above the zambezi
the bridge you jump from is in no-man's land between zambia and zimbabwe. luckily, you don't have to pay to get back into zambia, you just get a piece of paper and walk out.
it's hillarious, because they set it up so that there's absolutely no way that you can back out of the jump. because before you see the bridge, you go to this little covered desk where you pay and sign a paper that basically says, "this is non-refundable," and then go for the jump. so as we're paying, i'm realizing that... if i don't jump, i've wasted a good chunck of money.
hahahaha, so you get to the middle of the bridge, and by this point your heart is racing, you're freaking out, and the staff there is welcoming you, explaining that this is safe, there's a 100% success rate, and they start strapping you in. they look at the numbers on your wrist (the people at the desk weigh you and write it on you) and get the appropriate bungee cord. while they're putting your harnesses and ropes on, they're telling you that this one can hold 5tons, this one can hold 6. then they start strapping sean and i to each other (we decided to go in tandum). don't worry, you're attached at three points, the bungee cord ataches at your feet and if that breaks then it will swing you right side up and you'll be attached at the chest, and two to of you are attached to each other at five points. blah blah blah. and they sit you down and start getting your feet prepped. two folded towels wrapped around each ankle, and a thing that looks like a dog leash (this can hold 5tons) wrapped around your ankles, and this is what they atach the bungee cord to.

the whole time sean and i are absolutely petrified. looking at the towels and the dog leash and the eetsy ropes, and the way the bungee cord is atached to the bridge by a little rope....
they explain to you that they will be counting "FIVE FOUR THREE TWO ONE BUNGEEEEEE4"
and on one you bend your legs, and on bungee you jump. and suddenly we're at the edge, i'm freaking out, sean's looking pale, they're trying to make us hold on to each other, which we're glad to do do in this situation. every time one of us looks down they tell us to look to the horizon. and they're still explaining the ropes and you're safe and five tons this and six tons that and keep your arms out and FIVE FOUR THREE TWO ONE
and suddenly you realize that, shit they pushed us, and SHIT THE TREES ARE RUSHING BY AND WE HAVE 100M TO FALL AND
your mind goes blank. sean said later that the whole fall i was making a suppressed "nnnnnnngggggggggg" kind of sound. and we kept looking at each other like, "what the hell are we doing, this is not the variety of thing that by brain is comfortable with." and your brain really does fully shut off. it's like, "i don't know how to deal with this, so you're going to start thinking that these trees rushing by are quite pretty, and the water rushing towards your face is quite interesting, and this person next to you seems to be screaming.... and so are you"
and that moment you realize that you're screaming is the moment you begin to think that this is just fucking dandy, and you start to laugh your ass off. probably purely in hysterics.
and of course all of this happens within 10 seconds (9.8m/s/s???), and by the end of it you start to feel the rope tightenning on your ankles and you're fully upside down and your eyeballs kind of hurt. and once again sean and i look at each other and laugh like there's something seriously hillarious about this situation, being thrust off a bridge and then right back up at it and bouncing around upside down holding onto each other, feeling the rope tugging at your ankles and getting tighter and tighter, and our faces are turning bright red, tears being forced out of our eyes,

if i had the choice, i would do it again.