Finally some Internet! What an adventure it was getting from Zambia to Malawi.

We left on Thursday morning at 7:30 and loaded onto a bus which was like a Trius bus just with no washroom. I had to only drink water when my mouth was dry because otherwise I would not have made it because we only stopped a couple times on the 7 hour bus drive. The first one went quite quickly. When we were approaching Lusaka (capital of Zambia) where we had to get another bus, Steven warned me that they were aggressive and to make sure to hold onto my bag tight because they would grab it and put it on their bus or in their taxi without you saying that's where you are going. So as I'm approaching the stairs to get out, they spot the white girl "AHHHHHH lady, lady, lady, sista, sista, sista!!!" I just kept my head down and went to get my bag. We got our bags and Steven told me to sit with the bags on a bench and he would go find out the next bus. He returned and we got up and started walkin towards the bus. As we go to give our bags to the bus a man whispers/yells in my ear "don't go with them! It will take you 18 hours!! YOU WILL CRY!!" Right there I wanted to haha but we got on the bus anyways. 

This bus was less comfortable but it was still ok. The lady in front of me insisted on having her seat back all the way which was very claustrophobic. We stop to have a bathroom break and so a guy came up to me and led me to the "toilets". A lady followed me in and I was looking around at the closet sized hut we were in with two half stalls and two holes in the ground. I turned to her and said "do I go in there?" And she looked at me like I was the biggest idiot ever and returned "what???" So I asked again and she was like "yeah" as if that was the most stupid question she ever heard. So here I am squatting beside this lady peeing into a hole between my feet! I must say, much more efficient then pee spraying up on my feet haha!! 

So as I'm getting back on the bus, I see that the bus driver is stocking his cooler up with beer and my thought it... I'm not arriving at my destination today, today is the day I die. So as I sit there pondering I drift off and am awaken my a bug crawling on my face. I obviously have a freak attack. I try to tell myself it's ok, it was only one bug.... Until I go to set my hand on my leg and set my hand on another one. So now, sleep will not happen. We finally arrive in Chipata at 2:30am and a guy asks where we are going. We say we need a place to stay. We can't see anything and have no idea where a guest house is so we have to trust this guy regardless of how sketchy it was. So we loaded our stuff into his personal car (not a taxi) and he takes us 10 feet and makes us pay him for the ride where we could of just walked. We went to this hole in the wall motel which by the way, our room literally had a hole in the wall and per protection over the mattress. 

We slept for 3 hours and headed back to the bus station. We got a taxi to the border and walked through the border. Then a guy who lived near the border but went to school in the next town we needed to get to let us ride with him which was a bit more expensive but it wasn't a bus! That took 2 hours and then we had to get onto another bus which would be 6-7 hours. It would have been ok but we sat in the bus in the parking lot for 4 hours before we left because we needed to wait for the bus to fill up. This was the least comfortable bus. We got into Mzuzu, Malawi around 8 so had to find somewhere to sleep before we could get a minivan to Nkhata Bay. We got up the next morning and loaded 17 people into a 12 passenger van. The drive was really scenic and only an hour and a half so it was tolerable. 

Then we arrived at the beautiful Nkhata Bay!