Goodbye Blue Sky

British Airways Flight #254 from Lusaka to London. Seat 33B. Clothes reek of campfire. Bandana wrapped around my head. Glass of apple juice. A great setting for my final blog post. I decided to change my flight to leave 1 day early in order to spend a couple nights in London visiting old friends. I was teary eyed yesterday when I said goodbye to everyone. When I left the GSB a month ago I didn’t feel like I was quite done. I knew that I had a month of traveling with great friends. It all came crashing down when Ben and I finally said goodbye and he gave me a one of those winks that said, “we’ll be causing trouble again soon, boy.” Not soon enough.

I’m going to fast forward from Botswana all the way to our final night in Zimbabwe. I’ve previously written about the stuff in between. The afternoon started with us taking a stroll to see the great Victoria Falls. Along the way we met a security guard with a slingshot in his back pocket. I asked him if I could borrow the slingshot and he readily agreed. The next steps were preordained. In one fluid motion a small rock found its way into the pocket of the slingshot and danced all the way to Alejandro’s leg. Whack! Alejandro did a little dance as well, though he could’ve used a bit more hip. He’s got to Latinize his post-injury dance moves. Alejandro then returned the favor. Naturally, he had to one-up me so he picked a significantly larger rock and fired it off at my chest. No problem. The dirt on my safari vest not only gives me style points but also acts as faux-kevlar. The security guard told us that he uses the slingshot to protect the baboons from the people. Apparently the people like to steal the food and trinkets that the baboons carry. Zimbabwe is nuts. The night proceeded in top form. Mariano and I played guitar and sang love songs during sunset while sipping on scotch. We then had dinner at a ridiculous tourist trap restaurant. There was a guy walking around painting faces and I asked to borrow his paint. Alejandro was a wimp and refused to let me paint his face.

Pretty much every post that I’ve written thus far has been textured with irony and laughs. This post is no different, but I’m going to throw another layer into the mix. The tragedy that is happening in Zimbabwe is simply unbelievable. There is literally no food or petrol in the country. All the gas stations we saw were closed. The streets were empty except for a few vagrant street hawkers begging for anything we could give them. I’ve been to some pretty fucked up places along the way but nothing compared to this. There was this incredible feeling of solitude and hopelessness and shame. Another great reminder of just how lucky I am.
Alright, so let’s close this blog off in style. Here are the key highlights, in random order:

· Riding quadbikes in the sand dunes of Swakopmund alongside incredible ocean views
· Salsa dancing at a nightclub in Windhoek called El Cubano
· Whitewater rafting on the Zambezi river with a guide that was so drunk from the night before that his breath still reeked of booze at 3pm
· Eating incredible food cooked by various secret gourmet chef classmates
· Bathing with hippos from a bridge along the Okavango River
· Walking up to a pack of 15 elephants as they drank water and rolled around in mud
· Having rocks thrown at us by a group of Angolan kids as we tried to canoe over from Namibia to Angola
· Burning out the clutch of one of the cars and having to tow it back 20 kms to town with a nylon rope
· Chasing hyenas around the campsite with flaming sticks of wood
· Shaving our heads in order to increase our luck playing bridge
· Drunk dialing our friends from the middle of Etosha national park and asking them to call a taxi for us
· Bird watching (I’m serious, it’s actually really cool)
· Getting the car stuck in sand and having to push it out with the threat of wild animals lurking in the background
· Alejandro throwing a spear at me that he made out of reeds
· Listening to Karina speak English without ever using an article or preposition
· Eating warthog, kudu, and a mipani worm
· Driving into Zambia after dark without having reserved a place to sleep and watching Alessandro freak out as we parked on the side of the highway calling up various lodges
· Playing guitar with Mariano

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