Blogs from Kafunta Lodge, South Luangwa, Zambia, Africa

Next morning we were up early and walked to the bus stop to take a long distance bus (we had reserved tickets the day before) for 85000 Kwatcha each (about $17) to Lusaka, the capital of Zambia, its also the transport hub of the country. At the time of writing it was about 4800 Zambian Kwatcha to the Australian dollar but we always rounded up to 5000 for ease of counting. Lusaka is busy and dirty and not very nice!! We arrived in the afternoon and walked to Flintstones backpackers (previously kumoboko backpackers) and stayed the night there in an overpriced room (150,000Kw) that only had a bed in it, plus the bathrooms next door had no shower or hot water. We needed the internet and dinner so we asked where to go and they told ... read more

Saturday I mostly spent catching up on e-mails, blogs, and so on. I ran a solid 12 miles in the morning and felt great afterwards, got my work done, and then in the evening I crashed a Zambian wedding reception (I was working through the morning before the internet cafe closed, and missed the ceremony, but evidently it was just a traditional Catholic wedding). There were some differences from American wedding receptions, to be sure-- the bridesmaids and groomsmen had a number of rehearsed dances that they performed over the course of the party, there was a "matron" whose job seemed to consist of hovering over the newlyweds and making sure that they performed all their ceremonial duties, and the scheduled performances, rituals, and speeches took so long that there was really only about 15 minutes ... read more