JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA TO LIVINGSTONE, ZAMBIA--Saturday, March 29, 2014

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Southern Sun Garden Court Tambo Hotel, Johannesburg--Saturday, March 29^th

Ugh, another early morning with breakfast at 7:00 and the bus leaving for the airport at 8:00. Our flight is not until 10:40, but this tour’s schedule is one that we have to “hurry up” to then “wait.”

Boarded the plane, had a bumpy short flight, and arrived at the Livingstone Airport in Zambia at 12:30 ish. Small, but new airport you could see was still under construction. No gangways to the planes, so you have to climb down steps and cross the pavement. Why the pilot was instructed to park the plane a mile away from the gate is beyond me. There wasn’t another plane on the tarmac.

We soon cleared passport control and customs and paid our $80 fee for each of us. Fee was higher than normal as we will enter twice since we are going from here to Botswana in the morning and then back to the hotel. Picked up our luggage and it looked like someone had gotten into mine as the safety pins I use to hold the two zipper pulls closed were missing, and one of the front pockets was open and inside the first aide case was unzipped. Wonder if they swiped some band aides as I saw nothing missing?? Before I left home, I was aware that the Johannesburg airport had a reputation for significant theft of stuff out of people’s luggage so I put nothing in the outside pockets of any real value.

When everyone was together, we boarded a couple vans with attached trailers for the luggage. It was a short drive through the town of Livingstone to the Zambezi Sun Hotel. We were checked in, given keys to our room, and told lunch would be served around the bar by the swimming pool.

This hotel is really open to the elements with no closed in spaces in the lobby nor restaurant. Only in the rooms do you have a door. All is brightly painted with an African motif, of course. Nice metal art of life-size animals are scattered around the various paths. We especially liked a life-size zebra. The design of the placement of the rooms is kind of odd, in that in order to get to our block of rooms, we crossed over a bridge across the swimming pool and then walked through the tables around the bar that sits in the middle to get to the path the leads to our room.

The room was quite nice as long as the bright,bright yellow and orange paint doesn’t keep you awake at night. The wall that overlooks the back is all glass, so you can sit in your room and watch the animals wander by outside. The hotel sits inside a game reserve and the animals wander at will. There are several rangers whose job it is to watch where the animals are so that they, and the guests, don’t get hurt. We mostly saw Hadedas (birds) and zebras pecking and munching the grass lawn—no need for mowers.

We were not too impressed with the buffet lunch as most of the dishes were very spicy. Hung out in our room until time to meet for a cruise down the Zambezi River. We were driven to the dock to board our “not the African Queen” vessel. Nice cruise and very relaxing way to travel. Open bar and all the drinks were free, so the group had a good 2-hour “Happy Hour.” Valerie and I again questioned the cost to us, of the free flowing liquor which we don’t drink and snacks. Don’t think it equals the cost of our two diet cokes and two fruit punches.

We didn’t go far up the river, just to where the Choba River splits off and forms Implila Island. This point is the boundary of 4 countries; Namibia, Zimbabwe, Botswana and Zambia. The sides of the river here are in parks and reserves. The boat did cruise along each bank so that birds and animals could be spotted if they were about. We saw an African Openbill Stork that is rather odd looking and then a large flock of Blue-Cheeked Bee-Eaters that had made borrow holes in the river bank. Didn’t know they did that and at first, thought they were parrots.

After the sun set, we along with several other boats on the water, sailed back to the dock and piled onto the vans, for a ride back to the hotel for a late buffet dinner at the hotel dining room. There might be a video of the sunset at https://fbcdn-vthumb-a.akamaihd.net/hvthumb-ak-xpa1/v/t15.0

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