We were all sleeping like babies until 6:30am when everyone in the hostel started to get ready for their morning adventures. The walls are thin and all noise just escalates in our rooms. After a few hours of tossing and turning, Steph and I decided to wake up. We were excited that we got our own bathroom and shower, but that's only for two nights before we switch to a quad with community bathrooms...but really we were most excited about getting our clothes laundered!!!! Once again the little things you learn to appreciate in life when you travel.
Steph and I have been wearing the same clothes over and over again. I wore the same pair of pants for 6 days, the same beach wear and the same dress at night in Zanzibar 5 times. What a change from me washing everything after wearing it once in New York. By this point we were just lucky to be able to shower and feel halfway clean and not smelly.
We decided that we would wash everything, even if we hand washed it. It cost 20,000 kwacha for 1 kilo, no idea what that meant at first but realized it was roughly $5.70 for 2.2 pound, which I heard is pretty expensive. We tried to scam the system by asking if there are laundromats in town or cheaper places, but most people just hand wash so we were lucky we could launder period.
Steph and I weighed all the stuff and it came up to 5 kilo, which is roughly $30...very expensive. So we reconsidered and just washed our essentials and will wait for Beijing to do the rest of our wash. In the end it turned out to be $15 in the end, manageable. Poor Alan, boys clothes are so much bigger and washing just a few boxers and t-shirt cost him $10. Good thing girls' clothes are a lot smaller.
We then went to the reception to settle our room bill and excursions for the week. We decided to go white water rafting on the zambezi river on the 20th, steph on the lion walk on 21st then chill for the day, Alan and I bungee jump and all of us go to Livingstone Island in the 22nd, and we depart for Capetown on the 23rd.
Lunch time! We went for some cheap local Zambian food at Annie's Kitchen. We were their first customers of the day and tried the pork chops with rice and greens and chicken with rice and salad. It costs us only $3 each, which included a soda each (there were no diet sodas). It was once again, very chinese-like. By now Steph and I are dying for some really good Chinese food.
In effort to cut back since we spent so much on excursions, we decided that we would cook as many meals as possible. We then went grocery shopping for Alan's chicken curry and rice. Alan bought the curry spice on the zanzibar spice tour. All our groceries at shop-rite cost $4 per person...pretty good deal for homemade food.
We were all pretty surprised that the cost of groceries was almost the same as the States, but the wage comparison must be significantly lower. No wonder most people were only buying eggs, bread and baked beans.
As you know by now, my blackberry doesn't work at Zambia, so we went to the internet cafe to do our last posting for zanzibar. We spent two hours there before going back to jolly boys for some chill time reading and chatting before making dinner.
Alan made an awesome curry. It had tomatoes, carrots and chicken in it. Steph and I were his sous chefs. We drank wine along with chatting with other backpackers while we were cooking. It was actually a lot of fun. I was quite surprised the other travelers were all older than us and travelling longer than us. Doesn't make me feel so bad for taking time to do this. This is quite an eye opening experience so far and I can only imagine it gets better as days pass by.
One Israeli couple told us China will be more exotic than Africa, and the culture is so different and they love Americans. It will be interesting to see how they will view Chinese Americans because we look like them but are so different at the same time. I'm so excited to go see my origin.
Alan's curry was delicious. We were all satisfied to have something yummy that wasn't pizza and french fries. We also chatted with our newly made Kellogg friends. We played the good old asshole card game combining rules from different schools. It was a lot of fun.
After boozing and playing till midnight, we all decided to call it quits since we have a long day of rafting tomorrow. We heard a hilarious rafting story while we were playing asshole.
Some girl who just went to the rafting trip told us to make sure we wear bathing suits and tight pants. Supposedly her raft got capsized and while she was holding on for dear life on the safety rope of her raft, her panties and pants floated off her to her ankles. She was having quite a dilemma thinking whether she should pick her life or her integrity. Gosh I hope that won't happen to me. Steph and I decided the tight buttoned up north face convertibles would be a good fit for the trip.
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