Makes Me Wonder

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I left Zimbabwe Saturday morning with a gorgeous sun shining down for the first time in a few days…yes, I was sad to be leaving. I was heading to Zambia to catch my flight from Livingstone back to Johannesburg, South Africa and then another one to Durban. As it turned out I had a few issues this day and I’ll keep them brief cuz at the end of the day shit happens and cest la vie. The first was that my travel agent booked me to fly out of Livingstone and I didn’t know this was in another country and he never mentioned this to me…and this country apparently is not a fan of us Americans and charge us USD 100 for a visa…even if its just a transit visa to the airport…that’s a hefty fee for a few hours in one country…anyway…then when I arrived in Jo-burg I had to pay a fee for changing my ticket since I needed more time in the airport to pick up my left luggage…anyway, I was told the fee was like USD 20 to 30…again, it was close to like USD 100. And then I was supposed to be picked up in Durban by the volunteer project as they said they would if I arrived on like the 1st or 15th of the month, but apparently 8PM was too late since St. Lucia is like 2.5 hours from there. So I stayed in Durban for the night at a nicer place and got a fantastic night’s sleep, a positive from the day…then in the morning I went to find out about the buses to St. Lucia but apparently that is difficult to do on a Sunday and they all left first thing in the morning…so now I am stuck in Durban.

I really didn’t want to lose a day at the volunteer project and since I am working regular hours during the week and with it being Monday the next day I decided to try myself with a rental car. I called Avis and they said they were at the airport and nowhere in town and that I could drop the car off in St. Lucia…so I called a bus shuttle to pick me up at noon to take me to the airport and they never showed…as I’m walking away I see a sign for Avis Parking …I brought my shit there in hopes to just rent a car there even though there is NO Avis in town…well, he should know that now there is. Unfortunately, the guy closed at noon and it was now like 20 minutes later…after a few smiles and some begging he agreed to help me out…but he said there was no place in St. Lucia to bring the car to, so the closest spot is Richards Bay (a place where I should have just flown into and then African Impact would have picked me up anytime but according to travel agent it was too expensive to fly there…however I’ve now probably spent even more with all these added expenses). Anyway, so I get to Richards Bay and sure enough someone shows up shortly thereafter to take me to St. Lucia. Finally ARRIVED! Oh yea, and PS, there is an Avis in St. Lucia as I was originally told.

So PS, I have never driven on the “wrong” or left side of the road and certainly not in a car with the driver’s seat on the right side. I won’t lie I was kind of excited about it! But then I get into the driver’s seat and realize it is manual. It’s also a good thing I know how to drive stick although it was kind of tricky at first with the shift on the left side but all of the pedals, clutch, brake and gas were in the correct order. Anyway, a few other differences I learned and I was off on my 2ish hour drive to Richards Bay. The drive was really beautiful…while cloudy you could still see the lushness of the land and how green it is and all of the rolling hills along the Indian Ocean. Loving it!

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