Botswana side of the ferry waiting in line:
Driving into pure chaos, touts approaching all windows the moment we park the car in line, goods trucks queued up for kilometers down the road, people absolutely everywhere, lock the car, army men with very old looking guns. Ferry only takes 6 cars at a time, the race is on. This line takes no prisoners baby!
Completely open. Infinite variations of very ripe body odor that instantly disintegrates my nostrils and force my facial expression to look like a kid who is trying to look directly at the sun… except I am trying to locate a portion of fresh air to inhale. Hot heat from the sun burning down on us, strong engine fumes stinging my lungs, machine noise creating a loud ambient hum, local chatter and laughter, ticket man surrounded by frantic ferry-goers all wanting to be processed first, no one has heard of lines, a loud South African woman demanding something but I don’t know what, quick get back in the car because we have already reached the Zambian side.
Total ferry ride time: approx 7 minutes. There was a lot to take in in 7 minutes.
Zambian side:
Foot traffic swarms off the ferry all at once, cars charge down the ramp like fierce bulls to a matador and his cape. Park the car, pick a spot, anywhere, just park it! Lock it. Man selling mantelpiece ornaments approaches, army man with gun sporting a great green knitted jersey with leather elbow patches shows us where to go, the heat is hot, we line up.
Carnet de Passage does not have Zambia on it, shit, wait a long time, visas get processed, this room smells riper than a ripe thing, just when I thought nothing could be worse than the ferry. Waiting some more… Fiver goes to change money and buy insurance for car. Another ferry unloads and the visa line grows longer. Where is a toilet? Down behind another office, someone has emptied a rubbish bin into the toilet entrance, nice. A large rough looking man sitting on a rusty broken chair demands money for the toilet, I’ll hold on instead. Carnet de Passage is stamped, get back to the car and meet Fiver on the other side. Drive 10 metres to border gate, returning back to car park spot 1 minute later - Need to pay road tax, carbon tax and police tax before we can leave (10,000 Zambian Kwatcha straight into the policeman’s pocket, no need for discretion here, no point). Nothing is in order, too many separate payments to too many different little officey shop things. No more secret payment surprises, now we can leave. Meet Fiver in the COMESA office on other side of the gate, a giant wasps nest hums with activity on the ceiling while she and the insurance lady chit-chat. Twenty grueling minutes later and a terrible map drawing of Livingstone in hand (a T-junction with some scribbles and dots surrounding it) we pass a “Hakuna Matata truck” and enter Zambia.
Half an hour of driving, heads still spinning we pull over for lunch. Eat lunch, yum yum crunch crunch, get back in the car, pull back onto the road, drive 10 metres, pull over again… Flat tyre.
No comments:
Post a Comment