Today started out like any other on the trip, I spent the morning hanging around the lodge, had breakfast and then went and had a coffee with George in a nearby restaurant. George and I then did the shopping for the next couple of days on the truck, which unfortunately for me I wouldn't be joining them for. No today, began the epic bus journey back to Victoria falls in Zimbabwe.

I jumped in a cab around 2pm with George, who was going sailing with Liv and went down to the bus terminal to get the Intercape bus to Johannesburg. I got out of the cab, hugged George goodbye and thanked him for all his help. There was some kind of parade on and all the roads were blocked off so it was a bit of a rush. I had my luggage weighed and got straight on the bus, of course this is still Africa so I waited about another half an hour for the bus to actually depart.

The bus finally departed, taking about two hours to get out of Cape Town in the traffic. Once outside the city we went through beautiful mountains, shrouded in clouds, with the odd winery scattered in between. The cloud behind one particular mountain looked like surf which had crested and would eventually claim the massive tower jutting out of the Earth.

The rather large lady who is on her phone, shoves her Blackberry at me and says, shoot for me. Having nothing better to do I worked out the camera and took some pictures for her. At one point the bus driver started playing horrendously loud African music, oh no I thought, I can't go 18 hours with this racket. Mercifully, said racket stopped after about four minutes.

The seats on the Intercape Sleepliner we actually really good, almost like business class on a plane, unfortunately the overhead space above me was taken up by the airconditiioner so I had to put all my bags at my feet limiting my leg room, despite this I did manage to get some sleep and even watch a movie, with the large lady watching it over my shoulder, albeit with no sound as I had my headphones on. She keep interrupting me and asking me what was happening, don't they have vampire movies in Africa?

We arrived in Johannesburg at around 9am and I got off the bus, the first thing I had to do was retrieve my sneakers from my backpack as my thongs had somehow managed to break in transit. The bus station was somewhat like arriving at Cairo airport, people everywhere trying to take your bags off you to carry them, people trying to get you to give you money. I had one guy really in my face who just kept saying, two rand, two rand over and over. I eventually yelled at him, Get out of my face mate, I'm not giving you anything! Being victimized because I'm white is getting old pretty fast. I already had the feeling that Johannesburg was not the safest place in the world so I decided to stay in the bus station.

I went and found the left luggage department and unloaded my backpack, then I went and sat in a coffee shop and watched The Dark Knight Rises until it was time to have lunch. I had fish and chips for lunch and actually managed to get a hold of Paradise Inn in Bulowayo, who kindly said I could come and hang out at theirs until my bus to Vic Falls left at 2pm.

I boarded the bus to Bulowayo at 2pm, the Greyhound Citiliner, compared to the Intercape bus it was awful. Two seats on one side of the aisle and three on the other. My seat was for the aisle seat on the side with three seats and the seats were tiny. The three seats in front of me were occupied by an African family of five, and they were big people. Mercifully my two seatmates were petite young ladies, but the aisle was so tiny that everyone hit me in the head with their bags and buffeted me around. At one point I had so much Ghetto booty in my face I thought to myself, I hate big buts, I cannot lie and laughed to myself. What else can you do in this situation.

The bus finally took off from Johannesburg and we collected more and more people along the way. I couldn't believe how much luggage people had or what they thought was appropriate to take on the bus! Flat screen TV's, full on beadspreads, frozen meat…I remember thinking all that's missing from this trip is a live chicken and a witch doctor! On the way out of Johannesburg I saw a bus exactly like the one I was on being towed from the road, not too confidence inspiring.

The family in front of me had a small girl of about six, who had a piece of KFC and was running up and down the aisle smearing chicken grease all over everyone, her parents cooed and laughed at her… I however, was far from impressed.

The in bus movie was hilarious, 2 headed shark attack, now if I had been in a different situation, maybe at a mates place with some booze I probably would have enjoyed this catastrophe of a movie, but as it contained a lot of blood and guts (bad CGI blood and guts) and a fair few lesbian sex scenes I felt rather uncomfortable watching it on a bus. Interesting to see what Greyhound thinks is wholesome family viewing though.

This really was the bus trip from hell, and I found myself fantasizing I was somewhere else quite a bit. Mostly that I was still on Santorini in the Greek Islands with Stefan riding around on the back of his read motorbike, with him wearing nothing but cut off shorts and his aviator sunglasses and Take my breath away, the theme song from Top Gun coming from god knows where. Corny, but somehow managed to get me through it, what a far cry from those days I am now.

We arrived at the border at about midnight, the South African side was a piece of cake, just a no questions asked stamp out of the country. The Zimbabwe side was insane, even by African standards it was bad. While we were waiting the driver actually let beggars on the bus who sang to us, then expected money. I wanted to say that everyone was tired and that this was just annoying, especially with Dolly Parton playing on the bus stereo at the same time! I managed to hold my tongue though.

All the luggage had to be taken off the bus and inspected, I sat in a ditch at about 1am with my backpack open and they just walked past and didn't even look at me. There were about a thousand people there all running around and when I went to get back on the bus after buying my new visa the driver said, No, you must run to the other side and we will pick you (up) so they can check the stamp in your passport. Run? What the hell. So I ran with all the other mad locals to the other side of the gate and then waited for twenty minutes, didn't get my passport checked and got back on the bus and sat there for another half an hour before heading off.

After that mess I fell asleep,(waking up intermittently when the driver stopped so the passengers could ogle other buses that had overturned in ditched and then drive on without helping) I woke up around 6am, the bus was meant to get in at 5:30am so I was worried I had missed my stop. The bus terminated at Bulowayo, but you never know this is Africa after all. We eventually pulled in at Bulowayo and I got off the bus, the driver helped me get a cab, a friend of him who called Paradise Inn to get directions. I arrived there and Adam said I could have a nap in the cottage, swim in the pool or even hae a shower. All I wanted after that mess was a sleep, so that's what I did for the entire nine hour layover. Adam actually had to wake me up so he could take me to get the next bus.

Adam dropped me at the Pathfinder bus office and I waited about half an hour for the bus. I boarded, and thankfully this was the nicest bus of all, pity it was only for six hours. They gave us lunch and drinks and had almost decent movies and wifi….even buses in Australia don't have wifi. I arrived at Victoria Falls at about 8pm and walked to Shoestring lodge dodging confused taxi drivers who obviously had no idea that I knew exactly where I was going. I tried to get dinner on the way, but Chicken Inn was so packed with kids I gave up.

I arrived at Shoestrings and checked in and dumped my stuff in my own room and went straight back out for dinner. I had a chicken burger and then came straight back, had a really good shower, unfortunately realizing I had left my hair brush in Cape Town and went straight to bed and passed into the void.