Floatin' down the Zambezi!

Well we made it to Zambia on Tuesday and this is the first day we made it into town. We are staying at a camp ground about 2 km from town,but a $10 cab ride. Everything here is super expensive! The internet at the campground costs $6 an hour! By far the most expensive we've seen so far. They suggested not walking to town, b/c elephants roam around and you could get trampled. Well, after spending 3 days at the campground with nothing to do, we decided to risk it. Seven of us took the hour walk to the shops, and here we are. We didn't see so much as a bird, let alone an elephant! I think they just told us not to, to cover their own asses. Anyway, we are still having an incredible time! Since I last wrote (was that Monday?) we took a ferry across the Zambezi River to enter Zambia from Botswana. That was really neat, but we weren't allowed to take any pictures b/c it was a border crossing. Once in Zambia we drove to Victoria Falls and spent a couple hours walking around, taking pictures. It's the dry season right now, so the falls aren't at their biggest, but they are still spectacular! I would venture to say more spectacular than even Niagra Falls. Unfortunately, the best viewsare from the Zimbabwean side, so needless to say we won't be getting to see those. It's actually safe in Zimbabwe at the falls, but it would cost like $150 to get a Zimbabwe visa that we'd only need for a couple hours. Oh well. On Wednesday we went white water rafting down the Zambezi River, starting just below the falls. It was probably the most fun I've ever had!!! Definitely the highlight of the trip so far. There were 7 of us from our group that went. We had to climb down the side of the gorge to get in the rafts at a point they call the Boiling Point. Our guide's name was Baby Face! He was great. After giving us some pointers and having us jump in the water to practice getting back in the raft (the water was actually quite comfortable), we spent 2 hours floating along the rapids. We went through 9 rapids, and walked around 1. There were 3 class 5 rapids which are the highest grade you can do commercially (the one we walked around was a class 6!). It was scary, but so much fun!!! Our raft capsized once on one of the class 5 rapids, but I never fell out (the raft actually fell over me), and everyone stayed with the raft. And on another class 5 our raft literally went verticle and we surfed a wave for a few seconds before crashing down again. We all thought for sure we were going to flip, but we didn't. But our guide was catipulted out of the raft when we landed, so all of the sudden we were floating down the river backwards with no directions! But before we knew it, a guide from a boat that had 2 guides was jumping into our raft and directing us along. So we were all OK (and we picked Baby Face up just a bit further down the river). It was seriously an awesome day! I wish we could do it again! Yesterday we just hung out at our campsite (did laundry), hung around the pool. Livingstone is really very expensive, so we won't be doing too much. We are here until Sunday when we drive into Malawi.

The Kalahari and The Okavongo Delta

We're in Botswana now - Kasane, Botswana. It's hot and dry here... it feels like the freakin' Kalahari! Wait, it is! We woke up before dawn this morning to go on a game drive in Chobe NP. It was wonderful. We had a great guide who took us out an hour longer than planned because he kept trying to get us to see lions and leopards (which we kept missing - oh well). But we saw tons of hippos and crocs and and elephants (Chobe is known for their elephant population - they have over 40,000 in just 18,000 sq. km) and we saw sable antelope (probably the prettiest antelope) and baboons with their little babies and black-faced impala. It was a good drive. This afternoon we are going on a riverboat game drive for 3 hours and we're told that's supposed to be even better. Since we last had access to the internet we spent a night in Maun, Botswana and then we headed into the Okavongo Delta - the highlight onthis trip so far. We drove into the delta and then got into these traditional canoes called mokoros. There were 2 people and a poler who drives and steers in each mokoro. Our poler's name was Oates. He was the best! He stopped at his village on our way to the island we were going to be camping on, and invited us in to meet his family. It was wonderful. Everyone in his village grew up there and they are all polers. Oates learned when his father made him his own mokoro when he was only 6. Then he took us to a small island where we set up camp, and that afternoon he took us to a place he said was safe from hippos and crocs (ok?) so we could go swimming (we swam in the OkavongoDelta!!!) and then he let Michael try poling the mokoro, so we zigged and zagged our way in and out of the reeds back to our island. That night they took us on a game walk, and while we were still on the mokoros we were charged by a huge bull elephant. All the polers were really scared so they all scattered and hid us in the reeds. That night all the polers sang and danced for us around the camp fire. The next day we went for a game walk again in the morning, and then the polers took us back to the mokoro station. On the way back, a hippo came up out of the water and knocked the mokoro next to us, almost tipping it over. No one fell out and no one was hurt, but they say we were all crazy lucky b/c that hippo could have done some serious damage and killed us all!