Photo essay - getting to Africa

Hello LCA and all my friends and family!

I know everyone loves pictures, so I wanted to post as many as I could and as luck would have it, the connection here is not the greatest right now.  I bought a Zambia Airtel sim card and put a bunch of data on it.  The consistency of a reliable internet connection seems to be a little less then what I am used to. Go figure...  I did have to reduce the size and image quality of the pictures to be able to upload them all...  So I hope all these pictures make it up.. Here goes!!  (For those who saw the video.. this is the blog post I was working on)  :-)

Thursday March 23, 2012

Packing screens, cables, routers and all the other equipment.

This is what it looked like while we were packing up all the stuff we were bringing.

3 done

These bags are each just under 70lbs!!

ugh... now what?!?

ALL DONE!

And we're off!!!

John and I at the airport on our way..  Can you tell I am just a little excited to go..?  

The Air Canada flight that was taking us to London ended up leaving 3 hours late!  It was a long wait at the airport.  We finally took off around midnight.

March 23, 2012

We originally had a 12 hour layover in London...  Now with the delay, we were down to 9 hours...  The plan was to get some breakfast, take advantage of the Air Canada Arrivals lounge (shower and change) and get into London for a bus tour.   John had the very wise idea to first get our British Airways boarding passes before going into London.  And its a good thing or there would have been a serious snafu with the luggage.  Luckily we were able to get all that cleared up.  We ended up with only a few hours to go, but we decided to hop on the Heathrow Express and see London anyways...

 These guys must have such a boring life...

This may sound very corny, but we walked though St-James Park from Buckingham palace to the parliament building (at least that's what we think it was being renovated...  sorry no pic) and it was all really nice.

 Had to get a shot of one of these...  :)

Cool architecture..

I'm sure, had we actually taken a guided tour, someone could have told me what this giant ferris wheel was all about next to the Aquarium...  but we didn't and I feel now like I have no culture, so I am sure one of my brit friends will be happy to enlighten me when I get back.

I would have loved to have more time here at Trafalgar Square to check things out and do some people watching...  but all in all, we did all of the above in a little less then 90min, so no extra time really.  Maybe next time..









Now back to the airport.  And a good thing too...  I thought I was going to be killed every time I crossed the street.  All these people drive on the wrong side!  Some of the more touristy areas like near Buckingham palace, there were signs on the ground in front of the cross walks, LOOK RIGHT...  At first i thought, I will... right after I look left, like I always do..   :-)

We made it back to the airport, picked up our carry-on bags we left in storage there and made the long treck from security to the gate we were at with a whole 10min to spare.  I felt we were cutting it a lot closer then I was used to, but I knew we would make it and God's hand was there all the way.

The flight into Lusaka was a long 10 hour flight.  John and I actually got split up and could not sit next to each other as it was a full flight and we checked in too late to get adjoining seats.

I did get some sleep... I think...   Possibly my brain is trying to forget the experience.

March 24, 2012

As we are landing in Lusaka I see the first signs I am in Africa!  Those trees that are straight out of the Lion King.  I have no idea what they are called and right now could not be bothered to look them up, but they are very Africa looking, tall, flat top, look like they are in the wind when there is no wind at all... trees..  I saw them as we were landing and I just felt WOW!!  We're in Africa!

Got out of the plane on the tarmac, the Lusaka International airport is a small International airport.  The planes don't have gates... they have parking spots.  We got off the plane on the tarmac and made our way into the airport to get our VISAs do immigration, customs and all that good stuff and get our bags.
The relief I felt when I saw one of our bags on the conveyor belt was astounding..  First one of the large black bags, then the blue bag, then another large black bag and finally the large grey bag.. ALL THE BAGS MADE IT!!!  I was very happy!  (I did not get any pictures of all this.  There were signs everywhere not to use our cell phone and there were guards, and a TON of people in a 2x4 space all with huge pieces of luggage.  It was quite insane.  Made it out of there without issue (Thank you again God!) and met up with Don Mann.

Got my airtel sim card and some data for my phone and we were on the road to Kitwe!

View Larger Map

These giant sticky cinnamon rolls were a very welcome breakfast in Kabwe. And the coffee was good.  Short of an arrivals lounge in Lusaka, this was the second best thing.  :-)   (Look up on the map where this is in relation to Lusaka and Kitwe...  we were REALLY looking forward to it!)

The sites i saw on the drive in were pretty shocking.  There were lots of these small roadside villages along the way.  People selling vegetables, airtel pre-paid minutes ans live rats!  (Don't ask... I did and I regret it)

 The country side is something else.

 If you know what I do for a living...  well I just couldn't help myself...  (This needs to go digital... if you look closely enough you will see...  that painted on! if they only knew, it could have been digital!...  )  :)

FINALLY!!!!  WOOT WOOT!!!!

That's about all the pictures I think I can upload safely without having my Zambia ISP bounce me off right now.

One last small note...  :)

We had a wonderful recovery day Saturday and today (Sunday) was really good too.  I am going to save all that for a future post.  I just want to add...  Last night and every night this week... This is what I am sleeping on/in...   :-)


I should add, I am very happy about the guess house we are staying in.  I have just never had to sleep under a mosquito net in a house like this before.  All things considered though... I much prefer the net to the potential of getting bitten by a malaria mosquito!  These things also keep out small lizards right?  <gulp>

As it is now almost 1:00AM local time..  I am off to bed.  The Internet Cafe setup starts tomorrow!  More to come.

Have an awesome day and thanks for reading!
GOD BLESS!