The past two weeks have been a TRAIN WRECK....

I lay here tucked in bed wrapped in my fluffy crisp white feather-down comforter, I have decided that tonight will be a night to reflect and try to make sense of my past two weeks on the train tour.I can now laugh at what a whirlwind of hell it was because I am now in a better place. I am back in Camps Bay (Cape Town) living the good life for the next 7 days. And until then Zimbabwe can kiss it.
I think my journal says it all. All of my daily entries up until the train tour were long and detailed and very positive. Once we embarked on our journey with the Shongololo train company the days became long and miserable and my journal entries got shorter and shorter. I'm not quite sure if this happened because there was not too much to say about the tour or if I was trying to block out the memories all together.

To paint the picture for you of what the 16 day Shongololo tour was like. The atmosphere of the train was kind of like a motel 8 had sex with the circus and it was on wheels. Not only that, the train rail ties are 1/2 foot closer together in Africa than all other rail ties in the world. Basically what that means for you retards who can't figure it out on your own, it was a shaky, rattling-ass piece of shit train. And I kid you not, the Shonololo staff would always say "its time to rock and roll" when were getting ready to move, and they weren't kidding. I woke up many times in the middle of the night when we were moving thinking we had hit a bus or something, but they informed me that this jolting sensation was from the change in the electical current from one station to the next.
Now that I am back in civilization I can laugh at what a train wreck the past two weeks have been and for shits and giggles I'm going to give you a sample of what my journal entries were like over the duration of my Shongololo experience.

Day 1
This train looks and smells like shit and so do the people who run it. Rudy the train owner called Tara and I rats because she called her travel agent to complain about this instead of going to Rudy. I'm thinking this train idea is a huge mistake. Tomorrow's tour is in Swaziland at the basket market.....lucky me.
Day 2
Tara and I are the only people on this train who do not qualify for a senior citizen discount. I realize that I am going to have to continually self medicate with brandy and coke light to get through this.
Day 3
We had kudu for dinner, the rest of the day I blocked out because it reminds me of hell.
Day 4
I hate this train. I hate touring. Never again will I do an organized tour. We rode a ridiculous bus to a shitty beach in Moputo Mozambique. The city is shit. The beach sucked. I need a tranquilizer gun for myself or either be put into a self induced coma to survive another day of this velveeta fueled vortex.
Day 5
I want to die. I never imagined things could get worse. I now know what it must be like to be a prisoner in San Quinton's death row supermax......except I envy the prisoners there because for them there is hope because they know sooner or later they will be put out of there misery. Execution is more humane than this.
Day 6
I love Malaria pills because they actually make me crazier than I naturally am. Out of sheer boredom tonight, I converted our cabin on the train into a tattoo parlor and I must say, I am quite a talented artist.

OK so you get the point. To be honest, it did get better as the end approached. On one hand we did get to see a lot (a lot of shit I would never want to see and experience again) but at least I can say I became more cultured through this nightmare. I now know what all of the train stations in S. Africa, Swaziland, Lesotho, Mozambique, Botwana, Zimbabwe and Zambia look like. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE Africa, I'm just not ever setting foot on a train or a tour ever again. I hate all of the organized planning that tours entail. It's cheesy, and right when you get relaxed and start to enjoy yourself, the bitch with a whistle yells at you for being 5 minutes late to the bus where you have 10 cranky old people staring at you. I have some fabulously funny pics I can't wait to share from this trip. GOOD TIMES!!

Click Here for pictures of Memorable...I mean miserable train moments

Check out my pics of the train