Let's see if this will work...

I’m sick of not being able to post. The posting page still isn’t loading right, but, I am going to try to post something. Most of the buttons are there, so let’s see if this works. I can’t post pictures, because THOSE buttons are missing, but I will try to add in a link to my pictures on face book.

So, Zambia- it was really great. It was, as my sister-in-law (to-be) keeps referring to it, the stereotypical African experience- probably what people think we live in every day, until they think about it for a second. :)

The lodge we stayed at was lovely- not fancy, but nice. It was outside the town of Livingstone, right on the Zambezi River. Funny thing is, the Zambezi is flooded right now (or was when we were there). Flooded higher than it has in 60 years! We had booked a “riverside chalet,” but we ended up in what would usually be the garden view chalet, but now was a riverside, because the river had flooded past the riverside chalets! (Did you get that?) So, yeah, a whole row of chalets was in water, so we took the next best thing. :) One thing that we were told every where we went because of the water level was to watch out for crocs. At all the lodges, etc, everyone asked everyone to stay away from the edge of the water. There was one morning that we saw a croc in the river behind our chalet. It was just a small one, but certainly big enough to take off a foot or whatever.

As I said, the lodge wasn’t fancy- in fact, it even had river water in the taps/toilet/pool- and they provided drinking water. The chalet was nice and cozy, even if the bathroom looked like it needed a good bleachy scrub. The bed had a nice big mosquito net over it- a fairy tale looking like one- as big as the bed- and I have an interesting story about that later.

What made the lodge feel fancy, was the fact that we were the only guests there! So, the staff that was there, were there for us! The office lady came to check on us often, asking if she could organize anything for us- and then following through and doing it all! The waiter from the restaurant would check on us every hour or so on the days when we hung out poolside to see if we needed a drink or snack. The owner who lived just up the street from the place would come down and hang out often. She herself is a Minnesotan, so she was a shot of home for me. We talked about all kinds of things, and by the end of our stay she’d floated a fair share of drinks and desserts on the house our way. Nice.

The lodge had a main house that housed the restaurant, bar, and an upstairs area that had a tv (where Joel watched quite a few hours of soccer games, while I read in the room). We ate all our meals there- mostly breakfast and dinner. I’m not sure if it happened right away on the first day at the first meal, but very soon, we started being visited by a cat at every meal. She was a pretty little tuxedo cat- black with a white chest and white paws. She would come down for EVERY meal and sit and wait for scraps. Liking cats and being a softy, I fed her. We later found out that the reason she was so hungry, was because she was nursing 4 tiny, tiny babies. We got to see them one day, and they were SOOO small. They didn’t even have their eyes open yet. After we got to see the babies, I fed her everything. She got half of Joel’s meat at pretty much every meal, no matter what it was. I fed her bits of my eggs, bread, and I think she ate some of my baked mac and cheese. I actually think that at one meal, she ate MORE than Joel. She was one hungry cat!

To get to our lodge from the airport or town you actually have to drive through a national park- we were lucky enough right on our first trip on our way to the lodge to see a giraffe. It was just right there, on the edge of the road, munching on leaves. :) That was cool.

That first night we went on a cruise down the Zambezi River. We were on a big ole river boat called the African Queen. The cruise was nice, and of course, as luck would have it- who sat right next to us, but an Australian couple! They were not quite our parents’ age, and had been traveling for a month or so. They’d seen a LOT. They let us see some of their pictures on the camera. Very cool. I got very excited about the possibility of seeing hippos. Unfortunately, we didn’t see a single animal while on the cruise. Because the water levels are so high, because it’s the rainy/wet season, there are lots of watering holes in the parks, etc, so the animals don’t need to come to the river to get water. The sunset over the Zambezi was spectacular though. And, heck, the open bar wasn’t bad either. :)

The next morning we rose fairly early and went on a game drive. This game drive was just in the local national park, the same one we drive through on the way to town. It’s not a big park, and had only herbivore animals- elephants, hippos, giraffes, impalas, zebras, rhinos, etc. We saw a couple hippos in the water (so we basically saw their eyes and ears), loads and loads of impala, and lots of giraffes. We also saw a couple zebras, but they were pretty far away. Oh, the park does have crocs, because they just come from the river when they feel like it. They are carnivores, obviously- but, I don’t think there were any other predators in the park. We did get some great pictures and videos of the giraffes especially. I wish I could share them with you! The crazy thing about going on a game drive was that all of a sudden the driver would stop and say, “giraffe.” We would sit and stare, “Giraffe? Where? Do you see a giraffe?” Finally, one or the other of us would see it, and help the other out. I even commented, “It’s like he (our guide) has magic eyes!” If it had just been us driving through the park, we probably would have missed 90% of what we saw. That said, by the end of the drive, I was spotting things too. In fact, one of the best few minutes of giraffe viewing we had was because I saw something move out of the corner of my eye, and made the driver turn around and go the other way. A pack of 10 of them walked right past us. It was awesome. Like I said, I wish I could show you the video!

After that game drive, which only lasted an hour and a half or so, we drove into town and stopped at a market. It was funny because the people all spoke English! Zambia was an English colony so it makes sense, but, we’re not used to it! So, of course, as usual in these types of markets, every stall is basically selling the same things, but every seller begs you to come in, promising that he has nice, but very cheap, things, better and different than anyone else. The signature line that I would attribute to Zambia is, “Looking is for free!” They all kept saying that. It made me smile. I did pick up a little dish made of soapstone that looks like a pond with a hippo in it. :) Joel got a box. Oh, and I also got a print of an elephant. Nice prices too. :)

A great thing about this trip was that every other day, we just stayed at the lodge. We would get up late, have a leisurely breakfast, and then lounge by the pool reading and napping. Livingstone was not nearly as hot as Luanda. They (the locals) kept saying it was hot, but Joel and I had to disagree almost every time. It was beautiful weather- the sun shone every day, only big fluffy clouds in the sky. But the temps stayed more around 25C/77F, rather than the 30-35C/86-95F that we’re used to in Luanda. Mostly, we just noticed that we didn’t sweat every time we went outside, and that even though our chalet didn’t have air conditioning, we were comfortable in it, even midday (unthinkable in Luanda!). Both of us liked this. I know I chose the heat over the cold I left behind, but, I am willing to admit that if I could, I could take having average temps more like that, rather than what we have here. I guess we’ll think about that for our next location. :)

On our third day we had a big day of riding elephants and walking with lions. It was a great day. It was my second time riding an elephant, and I had done it before in Thailand. But it was Joel’s first time. We were both very excited about it. I just think elephants are awesome. You can tell that they are really gentle, smart animals. They have personalities (we rode on the teenager who ran away and came home pregnant!) and their own stories. They were all orphaned elephants, except the ones born at this sanctuary. The place seemed like a nice place too- the elephants were used for rides twice a day, but the rest of the time were let to be elephants- wandering the bush stripping branches of their leaves in one movement of the trunk. Their enclosures did not have gates on them- the elephants were always free to go, but, basically, chose to stay. It definitely seemed that they were happy animals. Again, I wish I could show you pictures, because, well, they are worth a thousand words. Trusting that blogger will work for me again someday, I’ll leave this at that, and post the pictures someday. :)

In the afternoon, after a few hour wait, we met with the lion keepers. The lions that we walked with were also part of a program- a repopulation program. We were participating in the first stage of the program, which involves humans raising lion cubs, and teaching them to live in the wild, and have a social hierarchy. Those lions go on to live in monitored habitats. Once they demonstrate normal pride behavior, they then go on to live in monitored habitats that have other predators and no interaction with humans. Finally, when these lions have cubs in those habitats, the cubs are taken to the real wild, and continue to repopulate the wild lion population.

So, we got to walk with these lions- there were three of them, 2 girls, sisters, and a boy. The girls were 7 months old, and the boy was 9 months old. We were each given a stick to defend ourselves with, and taught how to use it. The stick was to be used as a distraction, and our voices/gazes to be used as the real behavior management. A stern look in the eye and No! was apparently enough to keep these lions from misbehaving, if they tried. We just had to show them that we ranked higher than they did. So, we walked with the lions. We stopped and took lots of pictures with the lions. We pet the lions. We got to hold the lions’ tails as we walked with them. We got to watch the lions perk up as we neared the river and the air cooled. They started playing with each other- just like Bumbi used to play with me really- except obviously, which much more serious consequences! It was really a once in a lifetime kind of experience. Very cool. Again, we have lots of pictures, and someday I will share them.

On the fourth day, we rested. :)

On Friday, we finally headed to the falls! Victoria Falls is of course the biggest attraction in Livingstone, but, for some reason, we had left it for late in the week. It didn’t matter- it was amazing, seen on the first day or the last day or one in the middle. The falls is one of the 7 natural wonders of the world. It is one of the biggest waterfalls in the world. Latvia’s biggest waterfall in Europe looks like a puddle compared to what we saw here. It’s just so big, and there is just so much water (especially now that the river is flooded) that when you get too close, you just can’t see anything, because of the mist. In fact, we even were able to see the falls from our airplane as we flew into Zambia, not because of the river or falls itself, but because of the mist that rises up from it. SO MUCH WATER. I really cannot tell the story of this without the pictures- we had to wear two raincoats to go near the falls, and we still got wet. It was cool. I’ll upload pictures as soon as I can!

Now, I’ve been writing for over an hour, and it’s getting late, and I need to sleep…so if this post works, I’ll come back tomorrow or the next day, and tell you about the rest of the trip. Let’s hope it works and that some of you are still coming back to check on me, even though I haven’t posted in so long! I’ve even contacted blogger help services to try to figure out what is going on…but no luck so far… I’ll keep working on it! :)