Friday, June 22, 2007

so! what about africa then?

first things first. to travel, you need visas. and it ain't fun running around for those with an indian passport. if you actually manage to wangle a passport, that is. pick any mildly exotic destination and you can look forward to a maze of broken links, long obsolete 6-digit phone numbers and bheja fry travel agents. and then there's the ever ubiquitous note on foreign embassy sites: "no visas required for citizens of commonwealth countries EXCEPT india, pakistan, bangladesh, sri lanka..."

so anyhow, sapped and battle scarred, i got on the kenya airways flight to zambia. could barely lift a finger, so there was no question of excitement or enthusiasm. i exaggerate, of course. or the opposite. but you get the picture. had to change flights in nairobi. as i dragged my feet across the tarmac, i saw the sunrise. the great african sunrise. my first sunrise in decades. it was a spirit awakening moment. a life altering one even. and i fell in love with the vast, unspoiled, dark continent. NOOOOOOT! was a pretty lovely sunrise though. and that was that. welcome to africa.

my brand new buddies rescued me at the lusaka airport just as i was cursing myself for not calling ahead to find out what exactly the plan/protocol was. the three of us then stylishly rode off in mawala's chariot to meet up with the rest of the gang. and a fine, fine gang it was. and fun, fun too. a very good thing when you have three weeks of 24x7 to spend together.

the most unexpected thing about lusaka was this constant sense of deja vu. everything about it was familiar. this was NOT the africa i was promised on the discovery channel or even the BBC, come to think of it. from its street-side stores with crazy signs to its fancy multiplexed malls, lusaka could've been any city in india. the landscape was familiar. the mango trees were familiar. and most jaw droppingly, even the street dogs were familiar.



wow. such a long post. and i'm still on day one. now you know why i was stalling.

more after the break. don't touch that remote!

2 comments:

Rohit said...

On the edge of my office chair, poput.

footloose said...

get off that poor chair already!