Blogs from Zambia, Africa - page 81

John, you should recognise that saying, as you drummed it into me at one stage - it has been most useful already on this trip!! We travelled from Chipata to the South Luangwa game park where we stayed in Flat Dogs - I think I have already said this. What I didn't mention was the fact that I pitched my tent up a tree, 11 steps up a ladder and on a platform that was only slightly larger than my tent! The reason being that elephants were frequent night visitors to the camp, and sometimes the hippos came too! The camp fitted our needs exceptionally well, it is right by the entrance to the game park, so our safaris were easily organised and we saw some good sightings of game, sadly no lions, but we did ... read more

Not sure where to start this TR. I guess I’ll start with the bad --- 4 swims in 2 days. I swam rapid 13 twice, rapid 3, and rapid 4. Ok, got that out of the way, now onto the Zambezi River. The Zambezi Gorge is amazing. It is big water as big as water can get. You think the Mash Brothers and Keeney are large waves… those waves are the small waves that don’t even get mentioned when you paddle the Zambezi. This water is big, fast, exploding and boiling. One minute you might be cresting the top of a 1 meter wave and the next, the wave is gone and you are being sucked under by a whirlpool boil line that just appeared. Better brace and paddle and stay loose. No such thing as ... read more

I couldn't leave Africa without seeing Victoria Falls. It was a one hour flight from JoBurg to Livingston, the Zambian side of the falls. Everyone used to go to the more impressive Zimbabwe side until Mugabe took over as pre... read more

Hi Folks, Intrepid explorers here. It will probably be easier if we break this down into a kind of diary format taken from our written travel journal. 30/11/06 - Start After a very early start we pack our things into the truck and set off on the adventure. We have a very long day of driving in blistering heat and arrive at Bushmans camp site near Kruger Park at about four in the afternoon. That was the easy bit, the hard work really starts now as we are allocated a two man tent and given the briefest of instructions, but after much grunting and sweating, the tent was finally up! For a girl who thought slumming it was the travel lodge, the bedding in period may take a while. The tent had one slight flaw though ... read more

Zambian Lobster Knees My knees are the delightful pinkish-red of a well cooked lobster. Today four of us from the group went rafting with a group of five from another Kumuka trip that has also just ended here in Victoria Falls. We went with a Zambian company who do an 'all day' raft down 25 rapids over 28 km. In reality, they only do 23, because they enter downstream from the first rapid, and just pick up the tail of it, and they walk one rapid that is classed as Grade 6, and would not be suitable for inexperienced rafters. The rafting was better than every commercial rafting I have done in Australia and New Zealand. It was not just head and shoulders above rafting the Coca in Ecuador. What would have been called a rapid ... read more