Zambia Recap Part 2

The second leg of our flight was a little tougher than the first. It was still British Airways, and we had the "luxury" of sitting on an exit row by the emergency exit, but the air at 38,000 feet is really, REALLY cold. We froze. Plus we didn't sleep much, because you can only get so much rest in the sitting position. 

The sun was coming up as we circled to land in Lusaka, Zambia and we saw Africa for the first time. The sky is crystal blue, and we saw small trails of smoke coming up from individual cooking/trash fires all over the city. We would later see these up close and realize they arent as charming at ground level. We landed event free and taxied to our "spot" on the tarmac. We walked down the steps and it hit us: we're in Africa! 

The lines were really long for customs, and somehow, though we were one of the first couples inside, Taylor was officially the last person through. With an all paper system you wonder why they bother with receipts, but we needed the receipt so that we could get back into Zambia from Botswana, but you'll hear more about that in a later post.

Susan, the director of Family Legacy met us at the airport door. She said the airport was the best spot to exchange our money, so K1,000,000 ($200) later, we were on a FMLI bus headed to the bus station.

For this next section it is important to review the timetable leading up to this moment: 10 hour flight, 8 hour layover that included navigating Heathrow Airport and the Underground network, 12 hour frozen flight to Lusaka, a couple of hours in line at the customs office, and now the icing on the cake, an 8 hour public bus ride through rural Africa!!! God bless Susan for her help, because Lord only knows where we'd be right now if she hadn't physically put us on the bus! She reserved us the front 2 seats on the highest level bus (TV, air conditioning, only 2 stops) but that bus didn't show up. They also had sold our same seats to 2 other couples. Its almost like they sold as much as they could, then tried to fix it just enough to get moving and hopefully come out on top. With Susan's persistence we found ourselves in the front seat of a non-air conditioned bus which intended to make about 7 stops on the way to Livingstone, Zambia. I used the restroom at one stop, Amanda (God Bless her) didn't go at all because she was worried someone would take our bags or that she would get left by the bus (both very real possibilities!). About 2 hours before our destination the road got very spotty, and we off-roaded the last 100 km or so.

But then we saw the "smoke" of Mosi oa Tunya, Victoria Falls, and we were finally there!

The next post will pick back up after the world's BEST shower (because we hadn't had one in over 48 hours) and a day and a half of sleep.