Vic Falls through to Botswana

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My last entry I left off at the booze cruise. We need to go back to our quiz night in Malawi for the start of this event. Firstly we picked a name out of the hat to buy clothes for. I coincidentally got Clinton, Clinton picked Nil and Sara (the American) picked me. On our way to Zambia we stopped off at a market where we were told that the people there know and expect us to buy hideous clothing so they come well prepared. In fact, one of the guys sales pitch was "These are very, very ugly - look awful.. want to buy?" When we arrived we were, as promised, swamped with guys with garbage bags full of scaringly hideous clothing. For Clinton I grabbed leopard print lingerie (crotch and all) with a fluffy lining at the top - unfortunately he saw me holding this and refused to wear it so instead I found some leopard print boxer shorts, a sparkly brownish top and a pink see-through dressing gown (or at least that's what I think it was!) Clinton bought Nil leopard print EVERYTHING - pants, top, waistcoat and these weird wrist decoration things - which all in all, her fiance' seemed to really like. Sara did a great job in buying me hideous clothing. It included this frilly red lingerie, these elbow length black sparkly gloves (with the hands cut into tassels) and a leopard print (obviously a very popular choice in the hideous clothes department) skirt.

There were some really great outfits chosen for the group. Some of my favourites were "Super Tom" who wore blue overalls with red boxers over the top, a yellow t-shirt and a red cape - he really looked the part! Joel and Dr Tom wore very nice frilly, over the top, red dresses that look like they came out of a saloon in a western movie. And I have to give an honourable mention to Jeff (the Brit) who wore a pink jumpsuit that was at least two sizes too small for him - unfortunately there are photos of the extent of this. Everyone really did look pretty ugly - Amy bought eye shadow of every colour you can think of as well, so that just added to the effect!

On the cruise itself, it was all you can drink alcohol (including spirits.) There were also rules including holding your cup in your non-preferred hand, using your elbow to point and not saying the word 'drink.' If you were caught out "Buffalo" would be yelled at you and you'd have to finish the drink in your hand and get another. I was caught out three times (2 times I had a full glass too!) One of the times I had actually realised I was holding my drink in my right hand, I quickly changed it over and sneakily looked around to see if anyone saw and there was Rachael grinning at me knowing exactly what I had done! Needless to say, everyone got pretty drunk.

The following day a group of us went on a helicopter flight around the falls which was absolutely amazing. The falls erode away the cliff face a certain amount each year and you can see the stages of its life cycle and where they think it started. We even got to see some of the rapids we went through on the raft and flew inside the gorge. The next few days/nights included going to Bomas where you get to eat game meat like lions, elephants, zebras - just joking, they had stuff like Impala, Warthog, Ostrich, Crocodile, Buffalo and things that I would actually eat - Chicken, beef, salads and dessert! I did actually try the warthog (I figured it'd be like pork) and that was absolutely delicious, and nothing like pork - it had a smoked kind of taste to it.

We crossed over into Zimbabwe the following day and were told not to use credit cards or change your money at an official place. We were in fact told to do something highly illegal and get our money on the black market. The reason for this is that the current exchange rate is so poor that $1USD = $14,000ZIM whereas on the black market it equaled $150,000ZIM. Just as an example, there were 7 of us that went out to dinner and our bill came to approximately $18million ZIM which using the legal means to change money would have cost $1285USD as opposed to the $120 that we ended up paying! Oh, and all the notes have expiry dates that have come and gone already - It's a weird, weird country!

Whilst we were in Zimbabwe we walked with the lions which was an amazing experience. We got to hug, kiss and stroke them (well.. the younger ones - the older ones we could just stroke, they weren't too keen on the hugs and kisses part) I got to pat one of the older ones tummy's though - that was really cute. We also went on an Elephant ride. We were told by Nil to ask for Emma as she was a very cheeky elephant. She ran off with a group of bull elephants for a week, got herself pregnant and came back. She also refused to use the step for people to get on her, so we needed to climb on top ourselves as she was sitting on the ground - it was a lot more fun!

After Zimbabwe we sadly had to leave a lot of the group behind and start a new one. There are now 6 originals (including us) and 3 from the second group with 6 new people. Amy and Tom who we became really good friends with went on another trip which Clinton and I are still trying to come to terms with. Anyway, after leaving Vic Falls we crossed the border into Botswana and went to Chobe national park where we were told were thousands and thousands of elephants - we didn't really see much at all - nothing has compared to the Masai Mara!

Following that we spent a few nights in the Delta. It was my 25th birthday then (getting old!) and we went in a traditional dug out canoe called a Makoro with a guy we called 'Juice' and later found out it was supposed to be 'Shoes' - It wasn't his real name anyway, they just make stuff up to make it easier for us westerners to say! (his actual name had at least 10 syllables I reckon!) We were extremely lucky as our canoe was only 6 months old and didn't leak at all. Shoes used a pole to push us along in it (to which both Clinton and I had a go of later in the day when we each took Shae for a cruise.. a wobbly one where I nearly fell out, though Shoes gave me a quick crash course in it) Shae on the other hand got a makoro where she was practically swimming in it. It was so bad that they had to switch makoros half way there. All her bags and contents were absolutely soaked poor girl! That night we did a walk through the delta to see the plants and animal life. We saw some baboons, an elephant skeleton and a whole lot of shit - literally. When we got back we watched the bush tv (fire), had a few drinks, and went to bed for an early game walk the next morning. That was much more eventful, we got to see living elephants and watch them head butt a tree to get the coconuts to fall down, we saw buffalo, zebra, impala, and that's about it. The last night was a bit of a late one, however Shae stayed up all night with Shoes (We call her 'the white poler' amongst other things now) and on the trip back he was so tired that he was poling sitting/lying down, and at one point he lost the pole in the mud and another makoro had to retrieve it!

Once we were back from the few nights camping in the Delta, we took a flight in a 5 seater Cessna over the Delta and got a birds eye view of it all. It was really beautiful and saw all the wildlife, including a huge crocodile in the Delta. We asked the pilot to do some tricks for us, to which he informed us he was not allowed to do, however he did a few things that made my stomach do a few flips.

My next instalment will be about Namibia where we got to go Sand boarding, Quad biking and Sky diving!

Love Flip & Clinton

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Comments

[Marzia]

Can't wait to see the photos!!!!!