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We left camp late this morning at 8am, funny how 8am has again become late and 6:30am has become a sleep in. I woke up in my room at Eureka and packed up the minimal amount of stuff I had brought in with me from the truck. I went and had breakfast and helped pack up the truck. I had the misfortune this morning of getting one of the very back seats on the truck for one of the most bumpy rides of my life and coming from me that's saying a lot.
I made the best of it though and put some heavy metal on to listen to, the bumps then became quiet enjoyable. I bounced around listening to Metallica, Disturbed and Marylin Manson for the next four hours until we reached the border with Zimbabwe, a country in Africa I had never been to. The border is literally the huge Kariba dam, which had made lake Kariba, the third largest man made lake in the world. I wonder was the second largest is, I've now been on the first (Lake Nasser) and the third.
We stamped out of Zambia, which was one of the quickest processes ever and then drove across the dam to go through the Zimbabwe side. This process was one of the longest ever as they had to hand write all the visas and there are twenty six of us. Well, I'm probably being a little overdramatic there, it took two hours which isn't even close to the longest border crossing I've ever endured, considering Russia/Mongolia is ten hours and Mongolia/China is six hours.
We eventually got over the border and drove down the hill away from the spectacular dam and boarded the house boat and transferred all our food and belongings over. The house boat was quiet big, two or three to a room, George and I shared a room up the back of the boat. The rooms were on the lower floor and the upper floor was a viewing deck with a bar and a Jacuzzi which, when we got going was filled with water from the lake. As we cruised along and I sat in the Jacuzzi, I yet again, could not believe that this was the card I had pulled out of the deck. Life is good, life is really good, I thought.
The captain stopped in the middle of the lake so we could have a swim, you can't stop near the shore as there are hippos and the lake is completely Croc infested, they don't go into deep water though. Everyone proceeded to jump from the second floor into the water, Georg climbed up onto the roof and jumped from there, as did a few other people. I don't know why all of a sudden I was scared to jump, I'd jumped from a boat higher than this one. I jumped from the front of the Turkish gulet, into choppy water not three months ago. I was standing there contemplating it and George came up behind me and attempted to push me, which I resisted. Eventually, I worked up the courage and thought, Oh screw it, and stepped off the edge.
We parked the boat in a bay and then the drinking began. It was a very loud night, I danced behind the bar with Ash for most of it and George and I finished three quarters of a bottle of Gin and three quarters of a bottle of Captain Morgan's Rum (which I had bought in Zambia for about $7, I love Africa) between us, I definitely mostly had rum. I think I went to bed about 2am.
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