Starting Out

Thursday 3rd December 2015 – Having left Aaron’s mum and dad at Gillingham Station (they got up at the crack of dawn to take us there!) we got our first train to Waterloo, next a train from Euston to Holyhead in Wales where we got the ferry over to Dublin.
Had a great evening in Dublin but it was wet and very cold. Ate at a fab authentic Greek restaurant called Corfu in central Dublin who give you a free shot at the end of your meal to warm your cockles!

Friday 4th December 2015 – We couldn’t check our tickets online so got to the airport early to sort it all out. Luckily everything was fine and we flew with Ethiopian airlines first to Addis Ababa in Ethiopia then on to Lusaka in Zambia! Our first flight was delayed by two and a half hours so it was really tight managing to get on our connecting flight to Zambia…but we did it wondering wistfully whether our bags had managed to get on too!

Saturday 5th December 2015 – Amazed and delighted we arrived at Lusaka Airport at one in the afternoon and our bags had made it! We were so happy. We’d arranged for someone from our B and B to collect us and there he was Zambian Paul, a warm sunny smile formed across his face and he had Aaron’s name boldly written on a placard. It was half an hours drive to where we were staying called Natwange Backpackers. We met Anita, a lovely, warm lady who showed us our room with a super mosquito net covering the whole bed…then we slept…and slept. Waking up at around 9pm we realised the kitchen at our backpackers was closed. Anita came to the rescue and walked us down the road where we hailed a taxi to the Mall. There we got some Kwacha(Zambian currency) out and ate fish and chips at Fishaways…yum, we were starving! We returned to the hotel and flopped into bed again.

Sunday 6th December 2015 – Woke up to beautiful sunshine, tweeting of birds and breakfast alfresco in the beautiful garden. Yummy full English breakfast and a great cup of tea…we were now ready for the day! We walked into town passing busy Zambians as we went. Arrived at a small market first where a drunken Zambian tried to befriend Aaron and offered to show us around town! We politely declined and headed off to a shopping mall where we went to our first Zambian supermarket. We wanted to cook our own food that night so bought tilapia, veg and lots of fruit to keep us going in the Zambian heat. Back at our backpackers we enjoyed a feast of fresh mangoes and nectarines. The electricity had gone off by the evening and the three lovely ladies who worked at our backpackers showed us the open coal fire in the dark we were going to cook on. We decked ourselves out with our head torches, put Aaron’s wireless speaker on full blast and we all danced by the light of the coal fire…a Zambian cooking party! The fish was delicious and we felt we really were part of Africa!