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Published: June 20th 2007
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Gosh we have been back from Africa for almost 2 weeks now. It was not a smooth transition, it is exhausting to travel across the world, but I would do it again in a heartbeat. I sort of dropped off the earth here with my entries. Those few blogs earlier were only 2-3-days into the trip. Since then there was so much left out, that maybe I can reminisce now. It's funny, I thought when I did shark diving it would be the last risky thing I would volunteer to do, but I came very close to the bungee jump in Zambia. I keep thinking that if we were there one more day I would have done it (the jump is between the border of Zambia and Zimbabwe over a bridge, viewing the falls, and over water) so, basically if you are going to bungee jump in life the only one to do is this one. It would have been a great story, but somehow, I had already been diving in those cages, and I think that was enough, agree?
Speaking of shark diving, Tommy who was much in control of himself than me in that cage was able to
hold his breath, and the underwater camera to take up close pictures of the great whites. It was amazing to get those pictures back because it was a disposable camera, no zoom obviously, and some of the pictures, only fit the sharks head!
I on the other hand was afraid to hold the bars on the cage for fear the shark would grab my hand, which is laughable now. Its also interesting the schools of fish that the bait attracted, and were in the photos, these fish I would be proud to catch if I was fishing, you don't realize how big they were when they are swimming around 15 ft great whites.
So after the shark diving we said goodbye to hansbai, (I know I am mispelling here) and took off to the wine lands, to Froenshok. The drive was outstanding, I mean, I never saw such beautiful cliffs, the turns were just extreme, it was an endless drive, but those cliffs made a couple hours seem like nothing. We stayed at a beautiful, or should i say exclusive Inn called Klein Genot. We were stunned, they not only had great wine, but w just lounged around their mansion,
which only had about 4 rooms, and walked the beautiful grounds there. The vinyard was breathtaking, we were right in the valley, with mountains right in front of us. i never imagined Africa to look like this! I would never be able to even dream it up, it was so gorgeous. I loved that we added this into our trip, it was so worthwhile. We ate at great restaraunts, went wine tasting, and walked around the town. Each step of the trip one surprise after another. After settling in there, we were off to the airport believe it or not to go to Namibia. I don't think i mentiond being there yet, and what an impact it ahd one me. We stayed at Impalila Island, at a lodge (Impalila Island Lodge) To back up a second, we flew in to the island on a little prop plane, just the 2 of us, and landed on a dirt path. It was a bit of culture shock right away, especially coming from where we were before in luxary. So when we landed, our truck was waiting for us, and had to chase off 3 bulls so the plane could take off. That
pretty much freaked us out. It was in the middle of to us, looked like the bush, or nowhere, we were with someone that seemed like he new where to take us, but reminded us that we needed to go to immigation since we were now in a different county, plus we were exposed in a truck, bulls right there. This was just first impression shock, obviously we got real used to it, and loved being on safari, because we got real close to animals the whole time we were at this place! So, when w got to immigration, which was just down a dirt path, we recorded our names in the log ther, and were officially on Namibia soil. We were then dropped off to a river boat, where the guide was waiting for us, to take us by boat to our lodge! Our luggage was taking by car which was hysterical, because for a second it was a little wierd to let some guy take our luggage to the lodge by himself, perhaps we would never see it again...but it was fine, just some minor culture shock. This place when pulling up to it with our guide after
about 20 minutes looked very luxary rustic. In this situation, we needed a little adjustment, which I am very greatful that they decided to serve us a speacial dinner inside our hut. The hut was a a walk down a woodsy path from the lodge. I grew so attached to this place, I loved it. I love the villages there, I bought such special curios, (momentos) to take home, and I look at them all the time. It was so special to see the animals from the river perspective on the Zambezi. Just nothing like it. We saw Hippos (favorite) elephants galore, crocs up really close, warhogs, buffulo, to name a few. We never got sick of going out on that river. We went out twice a day, once in the morning, then another boat ride later on, up to sunset. Our guide, Charles was really good. He new his stuff, being a native of this area, and we were with him the whole time.
I thought Impalila was so special, because it was on the river, the people were great, we toured the village there, saw the kids in school, took a nature walk, with our guide of course.
I really think about it there a lot, I love going to sleep to the hippos in the river right outside our hut! They just cracked me up!
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