We set off yesterday at 5.30pm and have travelled through the night. The train is loud and bounces back and forth as it plods its way across the Zambian bushland, stopping at the occasional cities and towns along the way. It's an old train that has clearly seen better days but still carries many people on a regular basis.
I managed some sleep. Frank managed more of course! He's currently having a little nap on the bench/bed opposite me. I'm so jealous of his amazing sleeping abilities! My night was punctuated with the loud and jolly laugh of the guy in the next compartment, phones ringing and people alighting and boarding at different stops.
We've stopped a few times since the sun rose and each time crowds of women and children appear selling all sorts through the train windows; bananas, cassava, groundnuts, plantain, chickens or even little chairs! Some of the children spot our white faces and stand watching us for a while. One girl spent 5 minutes jumping as high as she could to see us better through the window. I fear we must be very disappointing as we sit here looking rather tired and reading books or snoozing!
The children are carefully walking along stepping only on the sleepers between the adjacent train line. The gaps between the sleepers are full of rough stones and many of the children are barefoot or wearing simple flip flops. The smooth concrete of the sleeper is much more inviting to step on!
We've been sitting at this stop for the last 3 hours or so. We had been running on time through the night but regular checks are scheduled for the locomotive, although not included in the timetable! One of them is here at Chozi. So here we are...sitting waiting for our locomotive to come back with the all-clear! Here's hoping it's not too much longer. Once we get going again we have to go through the border crossing into Tanzania and then we have another 5 hours or so to go. I'm very grateful for my Kindle, the games I packed to play and the hoard of snacks and goodies our friends sent us off with!
Time for a snooze now I think....
