Good Thing I Archive

Spaces Live is shutting down and asked bloggers if they want to migrate to WordPress.com.  Like any obedient customer, I said yes and migrated the World Adventurers site to WordPress.com before Spaces Live terminates my account.  Microsoft said it would fully migrate the blog, but only the past year moved over to WordPress!  The rest seems to have disappeared into the Great Internet Recycling Bin.  Yikes.

Good thing that I archived all of my old blog postings offline, or I would have lost them.  I may repost some of the oldies but goodies.  If I hadn’t done due diligence archiving posts over the past half decade, I would have been quite distraught over losing about five years’ worth of postings.

Thanks a lot, Microsoft, for warning us bloggers ahead of time.  Hopefully WordPress.com will treat us better.

An Epic Flight

Have you ever taken a long-haul flight?  By “long-haul” I mean a flight that takes you across a large body of water and/or to a faraway continent.  These flights typically last at least eight hours or more.  Whether it’s a trans-Atlantic, trans-Pacific, or trans-Indian flight, it’s a long haul.  If you have been on a long-haul flight, then have you ever taken an “epic” flight?  The precise definition of an “epic” flight is subject to debate, but I loosely define it as a flight that lasts at least 20 hours with multiple connections and a mixture of time spent in flight and in transit.  Many epic flights last longer than 20 hours. 

My family and I are taking just such a flight right now.  We just disembarked from Africa on a three-continent tour that will take us to Asia, North America, and back to Africa in just about five weeks.  We arrived at our current destination, Bangkok, Thailand, after an epic flight that lasted about 30 hours.  We departed Lusaka, Zambia and arrived in Bangkok via Johannesburg, South Africa and Hong Kong.  We spent about 2.5 hours in the air to Joburg; eight hours waiting in the transit terminal at Joburg’s Tambo International Airport; 13 hours and 40 minutes in the air to Hong Kong; 2.5 hours waiting in transit in Hong Kong; and 2.5 hours in flight to Bangkok.  This does not include the three hours – give or take a few minutes – we spent driving from home to the airport in Lusaka and from the airport to the hotel in Bangkok.

In a bit over a week, we will embark on the next segment on our epic flight, a short-haul flight to China.  It’s a short flight – just a mere four hours or so.  Then in a couple weeks we will depart for the United States, where we will spend another two weeks before returning to Africa via the East Coast.  The entire journey will quite literally take us around the world in five weeks.  It’s a good story to share over coffee, but I don’t recommend doing a compressed around-the-world flight if you can help it.

Epic flights put you in survival mode.  Try as they might, the airlines can do little to make your flight comfortable or enjoyable.  First class or business can make the flight more bearable, but it can still feel like a slog with a heightened state of discomfort.  Economy class is much worse.  The cabin air grows stale, and your body sits contorted in your seat leaving you feeling numb.  The airlines recommend doing body movements during the flight that exercise body parts before they begin to atrophy and leave you susceptible to blood clots, the chills, or worse.  Unfortunately, movement is limited on these kinds of flights because they’re so packed with passengers.  Attempts to walk it off up and down aisles are frequently thwarted by turbulence and living obstacles.

There is one silver lining to an epic flight – it’s an easy way to earn a lot of frequent flier miles (as long as you get credit for it with whatever partner airline you’re flying on, but I digress — that’s another tale to tell another day).

Harare, Zimbabwe

Click here for an updated version of this article with photos.

I arrived in Harare, Zimbabwe by car on the evening of May 2 after a long day on the road.  That morning I left Malawi and drove about 400 miles (700 kilometers) through Malawi, Mozambique, and Zimbabwe.  Although it was a fascinating trip with incredible sights, I was exhausted.  I didn’t know what to expect in Harare.  I read so many negative news stories about Zimbabwe that my expectations were tempered by preconceived notions.

Once known as Salisbury, the capital of the former British colony and country known and Rhodesia, Harare was at one time of the most prosperous cities in Africa.  Three decades after Zimbabwe’s founding, however, Harare had fallen on hard times.  I’d read many cautionary tales.  Hyperinflation of the Zimbabwean dollar denominated in the trillions before it went out of circulation.  Outbreaks of cholera and other pandemics.  Unavailability of basic goods, including fuel and food.  If one believed the stories told by the international media about Harare, one would think that it had nothing good to offer.

Hence, I was pleasantly surprised to find Harare a relatively modern and livable city.  Perhaps low expectations tempered my outlook, prompting me to set them lower than necessary.  My brief journey through Zimbabwe depicted a country with many challenges but on the whole in better condition than its reputation belied.

After several days of traveling in the African countryside, I stayed in Harare overnight at a very nice 4-star hotel downtown.  The high-rise hotel overlooked a city park that coincidentally hosted the final concert of the weeklong Harare International Music Festival, Zimbabwe’s premier music event.  While concertgoers paid unknown sums to spend a few hours listening to jazz, fusion, reggae — you name it – at ground level, I sat perched 15 stories above looking down on the festival and taking in the musical finale.  It was a rare treat and a melodious ending to a long, eventful trip through southern Africa.  I rested very well that night

I spent the next morning walking around downtown Harare surveying the terrain.  The architecture was eclectic; it was both modern and dated with subtle strongman embellishments.  The cityscape did not feature any quasi-public monoliths, although I sensed broad brush strokes by the hand of public design.  The locals milling about were relatively well dress and moved with purpose on their way to complete all-important tasks.  While not as cosmopolitan as other mid-sized cities, Harare held its own in the annals of urban metropolises.  Even after years of hardship and neglect, it still remains one of the nicest I’ve seen in southern Africa.  Having lived for the past year up the road in Lusaka, Zambia, my view may be a bit colored by urban life in rural Africa.  Harare struck me as more amenable than its northern twin, despite the economic challenges it has experienced during the past three decades.

After a brief tour of Harare’s city center, I departed for Lusaka.  My stay there was short but sweet.  I was impressed enough that I plan to return to Harare in the near future over a long weekend with my family.  I want to show them a place that far exceeds the low expectations set by years of negative public perceptions.

Journey from Malawi to Zimbabwe via Mozambique

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

More About Zimbabwe

ZimbabweHarare, ZimbabweIguazu Falls vs. Victoria Falls
Other Articles

World Adventurers Magazine

World Adventurers Magazine IconAfricaAsia
EuropeMideastNorth AmericaOceania
South AmericaFictional WorldsVideo (YouTube)writings