Truck Life

Since I'm sometimes easily irritated, there are many times when sharing a small truck with 19 people really gets on my nerves, but for the most part I have managed not to tear anyone's head off. I find myself using all sorts of British English - loo, reckon, torch, palava... (Damn colonialists!) Generally the group is quite fun, but I know some of you want some nasty dirt so here it is. There is one woman I like to refer to as "The Nemesis" because there is no one on the truck who really likes her, apart from her bf, though half the time they fight anyway. Mostly because she is a bossy lunatic who takes herself far too seriously and has zero sense of humor, or humour. Humility still escaped her when, on our recent two day canoe safari, Nemesis and Co. couldn't figure out how to operate a canoe and had the biggest canoe zig-zag I have ever seen. They kept crashing into EVERYONE else and then pushing our canoes out of their way! Being in hippo territory on a sometimes fast moving river, well, this was not a popular move. But this is mild compared to other nonsense. The worst bit for me was witnessing Nemesis ripping a customer service rep a new one for no reason other than she was stressed and then (poorly) justifying it the next day when I tried to call her out on it. Eff off I say!

I get to see a lot of different things while traveling by truck, including my favorite - lots and lots of friendly people who like to wave at us. Especially little children. Except for one knee-high lass who threw a stick at us and pointed accusingly. I have a lot of thoughts on the different villages and poverty and various other things we see, but I will save those things for when I have more time, and haven't just ranted about evil people.

I am currently in Zambia, have survived the canoe safari on the Lower Zambezi without any terrifying hippo encounters (because seeing them 50 meters away while in a canoe was terrifying enough), and will get to do some game drives in the next few days in South Luanga. Oh, and I found it a bit worrying that I could never spot the crocs on the shoreline. But since I didn't see them, they couldn't terrify me. ;)