Macha Macha Man

So, this six seater plane that we have to take around Africa is not so bad.... when you take a day or two (at least) break in between each flight.  Ascending into the air and being in the air is easy.  It's the descent that is the worst! The plane sways from side to side the entire way down.. and if the pilot has to turn... forget it! Then, to top it off, it's a lucky flight if you get a concrete landing strip! Many times for us, it was grass!

Today we had to take a flight to Livingstone.  This is the city where we will see Victoria Falls and go on a safari. Well, it turns out this happens to be the same day that some air force cadets are graduating.  On a normal day, we wouldn't even know about this, but today, is a different story.  Apparently the president, Rupiah Banda, wanted to give his well wishes upon these graduates. And, for security reasons, he shut down all activity at the Livingstone airport!

Rupiah Banda, President of Zambia, photo taken from
http://www.postzambia.com/post-read_article.php?articleId=8773

We spent a short time there, and departed for Livingstone (again!), but unfortunately it was not enough for our equilibriums to balance out.  So we were nauseous on top of being nauseous.  It was awful! Once on the ground in Livingstone, it took us a bit of time... but we hit the ground running to the falls!
Well, no big deal, we will leave later, right? Well, we did not find this out until we were already in the air! Luckily, our trusty pilot friend, Rick, had a solution for us. He landed us in a town called Macha.  It turns out there is a mission base there as well.  When we landed, a man named Guellermo was at the air strip. He is also a pilot.  He had a flight later in the day and he said that something told him to go to the air strip to prep his plane.  Even though, on a regular day, he wouldn't prep the plane until it was time to go.  When he heard the plane coming in, he got on the radio and Rick told him the situation.  Guellermo phoned his wife who had soda and muffins ready for us.