Zambia - Day One

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Today, we flew from Cape Town to Johannesburg and then on to Livingstone, Zambia, a new country. We were immediately driven to our lodge, Toka Leya, just outside of Livingstone. Livingstone and surrounding areas are very rural and impoverished with over 50% unemployment. But our lodge was lovely.

Our guide, Godfrey, had us quickly unpack and then took us on a personal Zambezi River Cruise where we saw many, many hippos, water bucks, birds and a huge male Cape Buffalo. The other guests at our lodge consisted of 14 people on a tour with OATS, Overseas Adventure Travel Services, an educational tour. After a nice dinner, we went immediately to bed. Mornings on safari start early so early bedtime is a good thing.

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Photos

Cape Buffalo
This is our first Big 5 sighting which consists of:
Lion, leopard, Cape Buffalo, Rhinocerous, Elephant

Hippos
They look like rocks from afar.

Comments

[Spencer Wirick]

Hippos and Dolphins
I learned in Bio this morning that apparently the nearest living relative of dolphins are actually hippos. I guess all the intermediate species didn't make it. Pretty weird.

[Spencer Wirick]

Here
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Xuming_Zhou/publication/230850497/figure/fig1/AS:401691859013632@1472782210107/v-Values-for-distinct-evolutionary-lineages-of-cetaceans-and-mammals-with-a-phylogenetic.png