H'moon 17 - CTown Lions Head

Leaving Zambia & Zimbabwe

With Nadine’s red-colored legs, we packed up and met our driver.  We got to the border, and our other driver was there to pick us up, hooray!  (the cars didn’t cross borders, they simply dropped you off to be picked up)  We walked inside, and the border agent took our passports and began to simply stamp them to let us pass.  Could we get lucky!  With mine done, she then looked at Nadine’s and noticed we had other stamps that required us to pay again. Rats!  We almost had made it through.  I handed her the dirtiest pile of cash ever, she looked at it, looked at me, then counted the total, and off we went.  Phew, no major issues.  We got the airport just fine and on our way out, the Kenya Airways pilot said we were cleared for a quick fly over Victoria Falls for a view.  We were fortunately on the right side of the plane to see it from above…wow, so beautiful. 

We had survived Vic Falls, and would probably do it differently next time, but hey, it was an adventure.  Up next was our final major stop Cape Town!

Arrive to Cape Town
We each read up about Cape Town while on the plane.  There was so much to take in about this city as it was the most modern city of the entire trip.  As the plane got ready for landing, we looked out the window and saw Table Mountain and the whole city!  We took one look and got excited!

We got through customs and immigration no problem, and got our rental car too easy also.  We had a SIMcard and off we went (driving again on the wrong side!).  As we left the airport, there was a giant sign about the local drought, "save water like a local" was the message, we had no idea!

We got to the Parliament Hotel nestled in the middle of the city, and planned our evening.  Nadine's legs were irritated from the bug bites, but she said 'lets go' and toughed it out.  The weather was beautiful for a hike, so we headed over to Lions Head for an early glimpse of the whole city.

We drove up to Cannon Hill and enjoyed the beautiful sights in every direction.  The views of Table Mountain were amazing.  We also saw some paragliders launching towards the Atlantic Ocean to the west.  We were tempted to do it, but the price was a little steep.

Next we headed to Lion's Head hike, and headed for the top.  It was not an easy hike, and we planned such that we'd catch sunset on the way back down.  As we looked around, everyone was in amazing shape!  Tons of fit people were doing the hike, so we joined right in.  Immediately the hike starts off with a steep incline, so we were sweating in minutes.  There were amazing views of the surrounding city and landscapes.  And towards the very top, the hike gets very steep and requires using all 4 limbs.   We got to the top and cooled our heals for a bit...Nadine had brought two small bottles of wine she kept from the plane ride, so we enjoyed some vino!  We could have stayed for hours, but the sun was setting and were unprepared to hike in the dark.  About halfway done, we caught the sunset and then happily walked back to the car hand-in-hand.

We got back to the hotel, washed up, and headed out to find dinner.  We walked upon a nice restaurant with a great menu, and enjoyed our official 6 month anniversary dinner!  The staff even made us a celebrity plate!

What a great day, and we were safely in our final city.  We had 3 full days to tackle Cape Town...but we'd quickly learn that the Wind would get crazy and wreak havoc all over.

View of Table Mountain from Airplane (Lion's Head on right)

View of Table Mountain from Cannon Hill 

Paragliders on Cannon Hill

Trailhead for Lion's Head 

Not an easy hike!

Pretty views! 

At the top of Lion's Head 

At the top, view towards Table Mountain

Sunset from Lion's Head

6 month Anniversary Dinner in Cape Town!

H'moon 16 - Safari 3

Safari Day 3

We were up early again, packed up all of our bags for our trip home later, and headed out on a drive.  After about 90 minutes the skies began to get dark and we could see lightning in the distance.  The winds picked up, and within a few minutes we were caught in an African thunderstorm.  It poured and it poured.  We tried to take cover in the truck with ponchos, but didn’t do much good.  We were all soaked, the roads were full of puddles, and animals had scurried away too.  We headed back to camp and decided to call it quits a few hours early.  Luckily they moved all of our stuff under cover to stay dry.  We ate an early lunch, then decided it was time to head home.  We drove out much different than in.  The dry roads turned into challenging puddles, but the savanna seemed refreshed from the rains.  We drove all the way back to the river and again took a boat back across to Zambia. 

Our driver picked us up out of the boat and we headed back into the border crossing.  We had no idea what to expect, and of course it was $50 each to re-enter.  We luckily had just enough cash, but then talked to our driver if we would need more to cross into Zambia next morning to catch our flight.  He said we would US Cash at the border to enter Zimbabwe, so off we went in Livingstone to get $150 more US Cash.

And of course it was a story.  We got into town and first needed to get Zambia Kwatcha, and needed several 100,000s because the exchange rate was so crazy.  We found an ATM, got out an uncomfortably huge wad of cash, and then headed to our favorite border crossing.  I walked in with our guide and he explained in Zambian what we needed and I handed over the wad.  The lady took it, counted it, then grabbed under the desk.  She started counting out US cash!, but it started out as ones.  Another one, another one, this is crazy!  Am I gonna have 150 one dollar bills?  That won’t look shady!  And then came a different bill, yes!, but I looked and it was a $2 bill.  What the?  This is crazy.  Finally 5, 10, and 20s came along, but some of those bills looked like they had been living in the mud.  She finished counting and it was $148.  The stack of bills looked terrible, but what were my choices.  I said thank you and hoped for the best for tomorrow.  We drove back into town, and thanked our guide.  He was very helpful, but was also asking about the $2 bill, he had never seen it before.  As a gesture, we gave him that as a gift/tip, and he was very excited.  We were finally dropped back off at the hostel, and back to pseudo-reality.

Back retiring for the night, we decided walk around the town for a couple blocks to see if we could find anything we liked and to also see the people.  We were the only white people in sight, and people certainly starred at us.  We didn’t find anything we liked after an hour, so we headed back and showered up.  We were joining our friends for dinner.

They knew where to go so we followed them to a restaurant and order local food and cheap drinks.  We had a great time, then headed back to the hostel before it got too dark.  We continued to drink and chat.  Then it was time to say goodbye and good luck!  We headed off to bed too, happy to be back in society.

Nadine then woke up Dave around 4am with a “honey, can come here and look at this”.  Her legs were covered in bug bites.  COVERED!  She had forgotten to re-apply bug spray for the dinner and the bugs ate her alive.  “I kept feeling little things on my legs, but it didn’t hurt and thought it was nothing.  Oh man, it was terrible!

Monsoon rain on our final morning!

Look at the flooding!

River Delta

100+  Bug bites on Nadine's legs!

H'moon 15 - Safari 2 (Animals)

Day 2

As we promised, we were up early and on the trucks.  We first drove straight to the river and saw lots of neat activity…male impala sparring with their horns, giraffes circling each other….just amazing beauty as we looked around.  We then drove around back into the bush to spot larger game.  Around and around we drove, looking for animals, we’d stop when we’d see something and then move on.  After a couple hours, we then headed back to camp to catch breakfast.  Everyone stretched and loaded up on food.  Then it was back out on the truck.  Again we drove around, looking for it all.  The radio made some noise, and a female lion was spotted by other trucks, potentially hunting some impala!  We got there and sure enough, a lion was crouched down, looking at some impala with an appetite.  We were all watching, waiting for the lion to make a move (and cheering for the lion for a kill, sorry Impala!)  Then the lion took off, and went around some bushes out of our sight.  We rushed the truck around, and found the lion sitting on the ground, breathing deeply, but no kill in sight.  But it was still incredible to see a hunt!

Eventually late morning came, and everyone was struggling to stay awake.  It was also heating up outside, so we headed back to camp.  We re-hydrated, grabbed some lunch, then it was time for nap and shade, just like all the other animals!

Then it was time for our second evening-sunset drive.  Off we went out to some far reaches where some monkey/baboon families were playing.  Then we circled back and found some hippos playing in the water.  Then we spotted an elephant crossing the river, and using its trunk as a periscope snout!  We then stopped for a bathroom break at a restroom area, and while we were away from the truck, a blue-ball monkey hopped in the truck and started looking for food!  We successfully scared it away, but not without some drama (see the video!).  As the evening came to a close, we headed for a final spot by the river, and our guides said that commonly the lions come out of the bush and down to the water.  And they were right, the female lions and cubs (we never saw any male lions, nor zebra, rhino or flamingo).  They strolled right through our group, and down to the river’s edge.  And amazingly, there was a hippo right near the water, which let out a huge yell as the lions came near, and then swam away.  Wow!

We headed back to camp, snapping some final photos of the sunset landscape.  We retired again to some good food, good conversation, and lots of laughter.  Everybody shared their sights of the day and talked about where they were headed next.  As we sat around the campfire, we noticed movements in the sand, and those were sand spiders!

It was time for bed and off we went.  And our guides told us to be careful at night if we had to go out.  “If you see eyes, go back in your tent!”  Nadine had to go out once, and was too scared to go very far, before doing her business, and coming directly back into the tent.

Our safari ride

Baboon Family

Baby Elephant

Blue-ball Monkey

Dung Beetle

Elephant River Crossing

Fox

Giraffe

Hippopotamus

Hippo

Impala

Kudu Female

Kudu Male

Lions!

Lion (post-Impala hunt)

Lion Cubs

Meerkat

Ring butt Male Deer

Stork

Warthog

Water Buffalo

H'moon 14 - Safari 1

Day 1

We got a great sleep and were up early for our 7am safari pickup.  We ordered a hearty breakfast at the Hostel kitchen, and noticed lots of other American and English-speaking folks up and looking ready for a safari.  We asked around, and sure enough, a big group of us were headed for Botswana, fun!

Since we ordered our safari through the company and not the hostel, we had a private taxi take us there.  It was unnecessary, but also made us look fancy!  We had a 1 hour drive to the Botswana border, where we crossed a river via boat, whoa!  When we arrived, sure enough, our hostel friends were there.  Awesome!  We had help from our driver at the Zambia-Botswana immigration office where we got our stamp, and off we hopped into the boat.  We laughed as a group about our personal taxi, but also were laughing to release the stress from the border crossings!

We crossed the river (since there was no bridge!) then headed into the Botswana office.  We thought we were going to need to pay for another visa, but the lady took our passports, did her thing, stamped it, and then waved us on.  Okey dokey!  We were each told to find the lady with the green jacket outside, as she was quality control.  We handed her our passports, she apparently checked it somehow, and we were good to go.  The group all got through, and we hopped in cars to head to the safari meeting point.

We arrived to a small business and were greeted with some coffee and bread.  We met up with an even larger group and all chatted as everyone settled in and paid for their trips.  We struck up a conversation with older gentlemen who looked well-traveled, and come to find out, Ron was from San Fran, and also doing a 3+ week trip with all the booking done by himself.  “Saves me thousands of dollars to book it myself, plus I’m not sitting around longer I have to”…we couldn’t agree more, we like this guy!

Up first was a late morning boat ride up and down the ? River to see some water wildlife.  We all hopped on the boat and excitedly started the trip.  We saw birds, buffalo, impala, and all kinds of hippos.  Only the photos can describe it best!

After the boat ride, we went to a lodge for some lunch.  The food was just okay, but we all had pre-safari excitement.  After the meal, we finally got broken up into our final groups…the single day, one night, and two night groups (that’s us!) all got placed into different cars.  We had a pleasant group of 3 other couples, and one 3^rd wheel.  And come to find out, they were all from USA!

We then finally headed into the national park.  First we stopped at the front gate where there were some awesome skulls & horns!  Our drivers came back with certified park passes and off we went.  For the first couple minutes, we were all on the lookout for anything that moved, but we were on a paved road (and of course saw nothing).  After an hour or so, we finally took a right turn onto on a dirt, sand road and off we went into the bush.  We finally came upon our first elephant and everybody was firing their cameras.  Unfortunately the elephant was mourning a dead family member so we moved on quickly.

We continued on and saw only a few animals in the distance.  But we finally drove up on our camp!  It was time to ditch all of our bags from the cars, get situated in our tents, take a bathroom break, and get ready for the 1^st sunset drive.  Everybody was meeting each other and enjoying being out in the African bush.  This was a legit camping space…only tents, a few chairs, and bathrooms were j hust holes dug in the ground!

The heat of the day was starting to end, so we gathered as a group and headed out on our first sunset drive.  Everyone’s eyes were peeled on trying to spot a lion, or maybe a jaguar in a tree!  We drove around for several hours, stopping when we saw elephants or giraffes, or warthogs and meerkats, or deer, etc.  Again, only the photos can do it justice.  After an amazing time of driving around, it was time to head back in.  As we were nearing camp, we came around the corner, and boom! THERE WAS A LION!  We stopped suddenly and the female was startled too!  Nadine was sitting on the drivers side, rear bench, closest to the end, and the Lion was right there.  She froze, everybody froze!  The lion then trotted behind the car, was near Dave on the other side of the bench, then trotted off into the bush.  Wow, what an end to the first trip.

We got back into camp at dusk, and washed up for dinner.  The food was just okay, but it was cooked by the staff and hit the spot.  We also had some wine and a camp fire to help everyone loosen up.  We watched the stars come out and then it was time for bed.  We would be up by 5am and on the cars by 6am for the morning ride.

Jollyboys Hostel (Livingstone, Zambia)

Cheetah & Honeymoon Rooms at Hostel

Bank of Hostel rooms

Breakfast at Hostel before Safari

Entrance to Chobe National Park

Boat trip along the Chobe River (Botswana-Nambia border)

Our campground (tents on left, eating shelter on right)