I created this blog as a way for friends and family to be able to experience my trip to Africa along with me.
Friday, June 24, 2011
Swakopmund, Namibia
I've Fallen In Love
Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Cheetah Park
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
The Delta (Botswana)
I spent the last three days in a remote location in Botswana called “Okavango Delta”. This is a beautiful place where the Okavango River dumps into a swamp. We got to ride on “Macoros” which are little canoes. We were guided by Bushman from a local village who took us through the swampland to a remote location to campout. The Macoro is similar to the Gondolas they use in Venice, Italy. You can see a video below that was filmed while we were aboard. In the Delta we saw a lot of animals like a big group of wild Elephants, Zebras and Buffaloes. The Macoro rides were really cool but at one point we had hundreds of bugs crawling all over us as we traveled through the swampland.
Elephants
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Tuesday, June 7, 2011
Lion Walk
Zimbabwe
We made it across the Zambian border and are currently in Zimbabwe at Victoria Falls. It’s one of the most amazing places I have ever seen and there is so much to do here. Yesterday we did “The Flight of the Angels” over the Falls. It’s basically a flight in this little tiny plane with a small propeller in the back and no windows or doors. You are exposed to everything! It’s just you, the pilot and the fresh air. Victoria Falls looked amazing from our view and I hope to post pictures soon. We weren’t allowed to take cameras with us, but they did mount one on the wing of the Microlight and I purchased the photos, but unfortunately they are on a CD and I don’t have a disk drive on my netbook. After the “Flight of the Angel’s” we had to go through the border and pay for our visas to come to Zimbabwe. It was a very hot day so we had a few of the windows open in the truck and we noticed a monkey hanging out on top of a Semi. We didn’t really think much of it, but then the monkey started to make his move towards our truck and everyone was frantically trying to close all the windows before the Monkey could get in. We were able to close all of them but one and the Monkey had beaten us to it and poked his head in. None of us knew what to do and you could tell that this little guy was no Curious George, the animal was hungry and had sharp yellow teeth. He looked like a mean little hairy monster waiting to attack. One of the girls on our truck started yelling at him to get out and started banging and stomping on the seat. The Monkey finally retreated on the roof of our truck and we closed the window without incident. I was really relieved that the monkey didn’t get in and bite anyone.
Sunday, June 5, 2011
Lake Kariba
Our house boat on Lake Kariba |
The drive was not all what I expected it to be, I expected a smooth ride that I could possibly sleep or relax on. Instead, I found myself being tossed around quite a bit as it felt like we were driving in a school bus on a back country dirt road. I nearly threw up my breakfast on a couple of occasions. The ride was so bumpy that I struggled to take a sip of water from my water bottle without dumping it all over myself. It took me about three hours or so to get adjusted to the rough ride. After about 7 or 8 hours of driving, we arrived at Lake Kariba, which is the biggest manmade lake in Africa. We were told that we would be staying on a house boat for the next three days, which seemed a lot better than camping. The first night on the boat we had dinner and then sat around playing drinking games, one in particular is similar to the drinking game we play in the U.S. called Kings, except our new friends call it 4 Kings and use different rules. Our tour leader and many others from the group quit drinking and went to their rooms to sleep while Daniel, myself and a couple of others stayed up late talking and drinking more. The boat was docked for the night and I had the brilliant idea that it would be fun to jump in for a little late night swim, not thinking anything of it as it was just a lake.
I jumped in first and then Daniel followed soon after. The water was nice and refreshing, but our swim was soon interrupted by our tour leader who ran out of his room in a hurry with just his underwear on to yell at us in a panic that the Lake was infested with Hippos and Crocks. We scurried out of the water as soon as possible and got back on the boat and received a nice lecture from the tour leader, Tito, in the morning about not jumping into the lake anymore. The second night on the boat we had a crazy costume party. Daniel and I did dress up and hung out with the group for a while but we didn’t get as drunk as the rest of them, as we decided it would be in our best judgment to be more cautious for the rest of the trip. The next day we relaxed and got some sun and saw a couple of elephants, which was so amazing. For our final night, everyone was so exhausted that we went to bed early to prepare for another long drive to the Zambian border to a town called Livingstone.
Eureka Camp Park in Lusaka, Zambia
As soon as we arrived in Lusaka, we had to wait in line at immigration to purchase a visa at a cost of 50 USD. A driver was waiting for us holding a sign with both of our names to transport us to the Eureka Camp Park. As soon as we drove up to the camp, you could see wildlife just roaming around freely. While we were there we saw Zebras, Monkeys, Impalas’ and a few others that I didn’t know the names of. The first night we slept in a two bed chalet, which is basically a little hut. We slept inside a mosquito net, which was a bit scary when I woke up in the middle of the night and didn’t remember where I was. Ha Ha! The camp was pretty nice, they had a small bar with a pool table and a TV that got a few British stations. In the afternoon of the following day our truck arrived and we got to meet the rest of the people on our tour, who had already been traveling for over a month with our tour group “Absolute Africa”. The tour is typically 11 weeks long and starts in Kenya, but we were not able to join till the latter part. Our tour leaders are Tito and David who are African and the rest of the people on the trip are from either Australia or New Zeeland. There are 11 of us on the tour including Daniel and myself. Everyone is in their early twenties to early thirties, so we fit right in. This sort of tour isn’t exactly what you would call a vacation, as we have to do all the cooking, cleaning and other chores associated with camping and traveling. It’s all good though, Daniel and I are up for the adventure. The first night with the group we learned how to pitch our tents and got brought up to speed with the usual routine of cooking, sweeping up the bus, and of course doing the dishes. After we had eaten dinner and the chores were done we went to the bar and had some of the local beers. I took a particular liking to a Zambian lager beer called “Mosi”. Everyone stayed at the bar till about 9:00PM and then decided to go to sleep, because Tito told us we would be driving a very long distance the next day. Daniel and I were still not adjusted to the 8 hour time difference and were wide awake for most of the night. The next morning we had breakfast, packed up the camp and prepared for our first long drive to Lake Kariba.
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