Zambia

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May 7, 2006 - Day 22 - Had to be ready to go by 8am and we took off shortly after that - seven of us out of the original crew, saying good-bye to Anke, who would be leaving later that morning. We crossed the border just after the falls into Zambia, where we were treated to a visa fee-free entry because our guides got our names to the border the day before and got us an exemption. We drove a whole 11 km and then pulled up to camp. Set up our tents and had the rest of the day to kill. It rained in the morning before we left and cooled things off a bit. After lunch I got Richard’s laptop and headed to the lodge to sit with Jules in front of the tv and update my blog while listening to gossip about the stars and their eating disorders. Things will be a bit different on this tour. For example, fresh drinkable water from the taps is fairly unavailable in east Africa, so they will not be providing us with much in the way of beverages. It is a truck without lockers, so living circumstances will change dramatically. We will also be eating a lot of lunches in the truck on the move, as we will be driving long distances often. And we will be responsible for washing all the cooking pots and pans, as well as our own dished, unlike the last where we just washed up after ourselves. I am sad and missing the folks who have gone, but trying to get excited for the second half and meet the new people who are joining us here for the rest of the tour. Aside from Walt, we also have Anna-Marie, our cook, and Lena, our German translator. They offer a German departure every so often and this is it, though the last trip had far more Germans. It turns out that Anna-Marie is an excellent cook. She made a fabulous dinner that eased any woes I might have had about changing chefs. Patrick did a good job with the food he had, but Anne-Marie is a king. Check this out - we had honey mustard chicken with rice, salad, veggies, and sweet potato that tasted like dessert. I think this trip will be all right.

May 8, 2006 - Day 23 - Today we drove from Livingston to Lusaka, Zambia’s capital to Chapata. We stopped in Livingston for money exchange, but I didn’t change any, and shopping. You can get about 3000 Zambian kwatcha to the dollar. Stopped for lunch under a random tree. Lunch was rice with veggies and fruit in it. Pretty yummy. Then we stopped in Lusaka for another grocery shopping experience. We stop and shop a lot, but we get all kinds of fruits and veggies unlike the last half of the trip, so it’s ok. Then we drove on to Eureka Camp in Chapata. It was an all day drive and we got in late enough that we had to set up the tents in the dark, a first for us. The day was long enough to get to know who everyone is for the most part. We have 6 Canadians - Mark and Ashley, Jennifer and Stewart, and the two Sarahs, though one originally hails from South Africa; Lorens from South Africa; two Germans - Barbel and Tomas; three English - Jon, Diana, Richard; Jules from Ireland; Justine from Australia; Alejandro from Argentina; Teri from Spain; Suzanne and Lyboa from Holland; and me and Austin from the states. We had another wonderful dinner in the form of a braai, or bbq, and lunches are proving to be more interesting and different than the lunches from the first part of the trip. Ended the day with several games of cards - we mostly focus on Asshole and Shithead. Go figure.

May 9, 2006 - Day 24 - Another long driving day. We went into the town of Lusaka for some grocery shopping. I had a chance to catch up on some emails in town. More importantly, I was on clean up duty, so I had to wash all the cooking dishes after lunch and dinner. Good times.

May 10, 2006 - Day 25 - Today was another driving kind of day. We made it to Chapata and then we headed on to South Luanga National Park. To get there we had to take maybe the worst road in east Africa - if there had been rain it would have been a river and we would have been unable to go at all. It was the bumpiest road I have ever been down - making it almost impossible to read or sit still in any way. It was only 80 km and took us 4 hours! But it was worth it. The campsite was right at the park on a river and it was beautiful. And filled with game - as soon as we arrived, we walked to the river and saw elephants, zebra, and hippo (in the water), and there has just been a giraffe that was shy and left as we arrived. We got there in the early afternoon and had some time to relax a bit after we had lunch before the optional night game drive, from 4pm - 8pm, which I decided to do. In the meantime, I sat at the river a bit and watched two elephants for some time. Many animals, such as elephants, hippos, and baboons are quite frequent in the campsite itself, so there were plenty of rules to follow for safety. For example, you were to stay at least 30 meters from the animals, you had to place the tents at least one meter apart to allow the animals to pass by, if you saw an elephant coming, you had to put as much food away as you could and then get to safety, you couldn’t have food in the tents, and so on. The drive itself was good. We left in three vehicles, all open air, topless safari vehicles. We started viewing at 4pm when it was light out and went until 8pm when it had been dark for two hours. That viewing was by spotlight - you look for the reflection of the animals’ eyes. We had pretty good success. We saw a family of four elephants early on, including a baby, that we followed for a little while. I was shocked at how close we could get considering how exposed we were. We also saw several giraffe as dusk was coming, and two hyenas once it got dark. We saw several great birds, including Southern Crowned Cranes, which are very cool, especially when we saw them flying. We saw several hippos out of the water as well. They come up on land to eat grass at night, and that is an amazing and large site. They are so big, and so loud. We were all really hoping to see a leopard, as South Luanga is famous for them, but we had no luck, We did see a male lion though, my first in Africa. You could see he was old and had possibly been in a fight recently. He was extremely mellow and allowed us to get super close, with spotlights and cameras flashing. He just ignored us and went on cleaning his paws. Ideally, I would have liked to have seen all of the big five - elephant, lion, leopard, rhino, and buffalo; but I am happy with two. There is always the Serengeti. After we arrived back at camp, we waited a little bit and then had another fabulous dinner. I have not been disappointed yet.

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