Advertisement
On the road (again)
and again...and again...Crossing borders is my favorite - there is nothing like watching the crossroads of 3rd world life, bureacracy, ferries, produce, products, businessmen, truckers and the odd little face of a tourist or two toting backpacks and looking out of place. Some scared, some harrassed looking, and some barely noticing that they aren't in Kansas anymore. There is always ample time to observe these myriad of things as the guantlet of forms and queues are processed and waited on, first on one side, then on the other.
Enterprising vendors make use of the bored masses by offering cold cokes and native trinkets all outrageously priced, and even then, they want the bottle back! Before boarding the ferry, entertainment was provided by a gang of Botswanan men physically threatening a man whom I assumed to be Zambian with throwing him into the river so (apparently) scum like him would get off Botswanan soil. We also got to look at the lines and lines of truckers who would be waiting days if not weeks to cross on the ferry, clearly deciding that the cost of the bribe to get yourself to the to the front of the line was still too high, and
Vested me
Me fooling around with the 1 lifevest on the ferry! waiting a week didn't much matter.
Zambian visas are now painfully expensive, particularly for Americans and Brits. It used to be that the Visas were $0. But as of Jan 2008 they went to $135. Its reciprocity, but the Zambian government doesn't seem to realize that this could hurt tourism something fierce, and they also don't seem to see the 'I'm never going home once I get in here' differences between the countries. I heard a rumor that they were going to revisit the Visa pricing issue soon. Probably like the day after I pay for mine.
Getting our vehicle through was the toughest part, it came on a different, later, ferry then we did, and seemed to have may more stops on the way to visiting legitimately than we did. Still, I think, all told, it took about 3 hours. Not terrible.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.105s; Tpl: 0.039s; cc: 12; qc: 27; dbt: 0.0486s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1mb
