T.I.A. (This is Africa)

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Thus far, I've been a little disappointed with the overall efficiency we've witnessed on this continent. I will admit that I expected a bit more chaos, discontent, and blatant government corruption.

We finally got the show of shows today!

We awoke very early so that we could reach the Botswana-Zambia border when it opened at 6AM. We arrived to the Botswana border station to see a line of people about 300 meters long, most of whom were balancing huge loads of bedding, bamboo wall rolls, and cooking utensils on their heads while small children. I felt a solid dose of white guilt as we popped off our shiny truck at the entrance and sashayed up to the "Tourists Only" desk with no delays.

We hopped back on Umfolozi (our trusty truck) and drove to the border, eager to cross and see the wonder of Victoria Falls. That would've occurred quickly had there been a lovely bridge crossing the wide river between these two countries. However, these governments decided that a far superior solution would be to run two ancient ferries back and forth.

We encountered one of the truly great clusterjams of the world on the river bank: dozens of irate drivers trying to position their trucks closest to the shoreline, "security"* blocking traffic to allow drivers with fists full of cash to sneak ahead in the line, hundreds of pedestrians milling around, vendors loudly peddling goods, women cooking full meals over open fires, and a group of children playing a spirited game of 'throw rocks at the smallest kid.'

Jaco (our tour guide and driver) learned that only one of the rusty deathtrap ferries was scheduled to run that day, but it was temporarily grounded because someone had stolen the fuel from it during the night. New fuel was found within the hour (or two), and the ferry slowly began chugging its way toward our shore.

When the ferry was still about 20 feet from shore, scores of passengers began leaping over the side and sloshing through the water to the banks. A girl next to me snarked, "do we really want to go to a country people are that desperate to leave?"

We weren't among the lucky three trucks that made it on board the first ferry, but Jaco managed to "befriend" security and got us onto the second boatload. Nearly three hours after we arrived at the border, we entered Zambia!

Update: the return journey wasn't nearly as eventful. We arrived at the ferry to learn that the wait would be several hours at least. While we giggled at the border signs that proudly proclaimed "Zambia accepts taxes, not bribes," our trusty driver approached the guards with a few bills to ask where the Bureau de Change was.

He returned to the truck and announced that we needed to hustle because we were on the next boat. I hope the "taxes" weren't too high.



* Actually just a few guys who managed to find ball caps with 'Security' emblazoned across the front and thus created lucrative new professions for themselves.

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