Don't Worry.. I'm still alive.. Even though ... ... ...

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Day 100: Wednesday, August 30: Kande Beach to Zambian Border

Today was a pretty early start. This was a good thing, we ended up having a tire blowout on the road (it wasn't a true blowout, but still took us over an hour to change it.) We then headed to Lilongwe, the capital of Malawi to do some dinner shopping, last minute gift shopping and the post office for people that have bought too much stuff. From there, we got to the border of Zambia and got a visa waiver because we are only going to be in the country for a couple of days. Our campsite was right on the other side of the border, we made dinner and called it an early night.

Day 101: Thursday, August 31: Zambian Border to Lusaka, Zambia

Today was our longest driving day, we LEFT at 5am and drove through the day, stopping quickly for breakfast and dinner. The roads weren't fun for hte first 3 hours, but got better. In fact, we are all currently in love with Lusaka as it is the most modern city we have come across since Africa. There are Subways (as in fast food), Shoprites (actually Walmart), Irish Pubs, beer on tap, 4 lane roads, traffic lights.. What more can you want. It's actually been a nice change. Unfortunately, the internet is still as crap as ever, I was hoping for better, but alas, it is not to be.

Day 102: Friday. September 1: Lusaka, Zambia to Kariba, Zimbabwe

Crossing the border into Zimbabwe, we made our way to Kariba, a border town that will be our jumping point to Lake Kariba.. .Otherwise, not much happened today, we did some shopping in Lusaka, went through border patrol and relaxed in the evening.

Day 103: Saturday, Sep 2: Kariba to Lake Kariba

Today we hopped on board our Houseboat and started motoring around the lake. This reminded me of my childhood houseboat trips to Lake Mead. The houseboat was similar and even the lake was pretty similar, the landscape, the fact it was manmade and such.. Well, except for the part where the elephants, impala and zebra graze along the shoreline and hippo and crocodiles swim among the boats.

Once we parked along shore for the evening we took out a small tender boat to get close to the elephants along the shore. We also wandered over to a few hippo relaxing in the water. Once the sun set, we headed back for dinner and some wonderful "punch". It got pretty windy in the night, but still better than sleeping in a tent.

Day 104: Sunday, Sep 3: Lake Kariba

We got up pretty early in the morning and took out the tender boat again to look for some more wildlife. We found some crocodiles lazing on the beach and plenty of hippos. Its been a great morning already. We got breakfast when we returned and then pretty much slept on the deck the whole day as the boat motored around. They stopped us in the middle of the lake and after assuring us there were no crocs or hippos, we jumped off the top of the boat, about 25 feet, into the water.. Lunch was served after, with some more lazing around the deck. Once we docked again, we took the tender back out and had the most amazing elephant experience.. We brought the boat up to within about 5-10 feet of them grazing along the shoreline.. We also almost ran over the top of a hippo.. Oops..

An early night tonight as the day of doing nothing just completely drained us.

Day 105: Monday Sep 4: Lake Kariba to Kariba

We took one last game drive in the morning, didn't see too much, got some breakfast and made port. Had lunch back at the marina and then headed back for another relaxed afternoon at camp.

Day 106: Tuesday Sep 5: Kariba to Gweru, Zimbabwe

We made our way down to Gweru, with a little mishap in the middle. You see, Zimbabwe is having serious political and economic issues.. They've just rolled out new money, that even has expiration dates on them. If you got it from a bank or ATM, you'd get about 250 Zim dollars to the US dollar.. If you buy them on the street, you get about 600 Zim dollars.. Big difference ehh.. Well, we had a contact all set up in this city between Kariba and Gweru and after we met with him and told him how much we wanted, he headed off to the bank and never came back.. So well.. We waited and never got what we needed, so things tended to be a little more expensive then it should (everything is priced at the 600:1 instead of 250:1).. Once we got to Gweru, we relaxed over some prepared food and called it a night.. Tomorrow is going to be an amazing day.

Day 107: Wednesday, Sept 6: Gweru

After breakfast we booked out activities for the next two days. At about 11am, my first activity commenced. It was going to hang out with two 3 month old lion cubs.. Yup.. you read that right.. These two amazing little guys were awesome.. A little fearful (both me and the cubs) it took us a while to warm up, but once we did, we had a ball. I posed with them, had one in my lap, claw marks to prove it and even played a little ball with them. Afterwards, we headed to lunch and hopped on to a carriage pulled by mules. They took us into the game park where we passed giraffe, impalas, other antilope and wildebeasts. We stopped, climbed up to a tree house where snacks and sodas were waiting and looked out into the game park. The carriage then took us back to our campsite where we waited for the final activity of the evening.

At 4pm, our guide brought us together for a briefing. We were going to go walking into the game park with three 22 month old lion cubs (although pretty much full grown and the 3 of them killed a wildebeast only a few weeks prior). Yup.. you read that one right too.. 1 boy, 2 girls, all siblings.. It was an absolutely phonominal experience. We walked next to them, petted them, posed for photos, even pulled his tail once. We watched them watch the impalas go by. We watched as they played together. We got some more photos with them. This lasted for an hour, but I'll remember it for a lifetime.

Day 108: Thursday, Sept 7: Gweru to Bulawayo

First thing in the morning, we awoke for another lion walk. This time with 13 month old cubs. You would think it would be easier with these guys, but they are much more playful, and thats where things can go wrong.. We didn't get as many photos with them (and I sure as hell didn't pull their tales) but it was so much fun being right next to them when they'd roughhouse with each other. Amazing!! We hung out with them for about an hour, one even climbed a tree and they all played in the river near the end.

After breakfast, I headed out for an elephant ride, just a short ride, but lots of fun none the less, and it streched our legs out for the horse ride to follow. We jumped onto our horses and made our way into the game park. We rode along side a herd of zebras, and got up close and personal with a baby giraffe. We trotted back, as we had another activity planned.

The final activity was hanging out with the 3 month old cubs again. This time, I'm a little more brave (and have more tooth marks and scratches to prove it).. I roughhoused with them and played tug of war, even picked one up.. A great way to end my two days at Antilope Park.

We then made our way to Bulawayo, to get ready for the next days activity. We stayed in a local home and watched 80s movies.

Day 109: Friday, Sept 8: Bulawayo, Zimbabwe

Today, we got picked up in open air landrovers and were taken to Bushman paintings. These cave paintings are believed to be 30,000 or more years old. We've seen some old things, but this is officially the oldest that I've seen. Some of the paintings in the area are known to be 60,000 or more years old. We headed to a local village, danced and played with the local children, had lunch and said our goodbyes.

The adventure begins.. We were going Rhino hunting.. Well, not hunting as you are to be shot on site if you are believed to be a poacher.. We found 4 rhinos almost right off the bat. A mom, her 3 1/2 year old, her 2 year old and Swazi, a 40 year old male hanging around waiting for her to want another child. What did we do? Yup, we got out of the Land Rovers and approached the Rhinos. We got within 5-10 feet of them. Adreniline pumping, they could care less that we were there, grazing away, the little ones were more inquisitive and the big man didnt really like that we were around, so we eventually made our way back to the land rover. Stopped for some sodas, found 5 more white rhino. They weren't as happy to see us and decided to wander off. We searched for some black rhino, but weren't very lucky today. On our way out we spotted 5 more rhino, but had to be out of the park by 6pm. So we left. It was a VERY cold drive home, but hot soup and PIZZA awaited. More 80s movies and off to bed.

Day 110: Saturday, Sept 9: Bulawayo to Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe

Today, another drive day, we made it to Vic Falls at a relatively reasonable hour. We booked our activities for the day and I finally made it to an internet cafe after over a week without.. And thats my story.. (but not the end of my adventures)

Til next time..

~Dave

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