Ok, so where was I?
Oh yeah, so, on Saturday, we rested again. :) Actually, I think we might have gone out to dinner that night, which was nice. We went to an Indian restaurant that had lovely food. On this day, and a couple other instances, we hit the strip mall as well- it had a grocery store (a bit nicer than what we have in Luanda, but not by too much- except, the produce was probably nicer), an internet café (we stopped in there once or twice), a post office, a few shops and a few restaurants. They even had a Subway, which we both had a desire to eat at “just because” but we never were in the right place at the right time (that is, there and hungry). Anyway, the Indian was nice, and as you always do with Indian, we left with a doggy bag (well, in countries where it’s legal to take doggy bags).
The next day, Sunday, was the biggest day I guess, it was the day we headed to Botswana for a day trip to Chobe National Park. We got picked up fairly early, and driven to the border. The border happens to be the river. So at the river we took a boat across- thanking the divine that we weren’t a truck driver waiting in the miles long line to cross the river one truck at a time on a very slow ferry. Our boat buzzed across the river, and we were in Botswana. Another car picked us up- this time it was a safari vehicle. A safari vehicle is one that has three rows of 3 seats across behind the driver’s seat. It had a shade for a rood, and no sides. It is, as you might guess, ideal for animal watching. :) We were driven to very nice hotel where we joined 7 other people who were to spend the day with us.
We started by taking a boat trip down the Chobe River (indeed the same Zambezi River, but called by a new name in a new country). The river runs through the national park, and this was when we started to see animals like no where else. It started slowly, I’ll admit. First it was a couple birds, then three hippos with their backs to us, so that they really just looked like big boulders (boring). Then some more birds, and maybe some impala. But finally, we started seeing more- elephants, hippos, eagles, crocs, more elephants, more hippos, more elephants, more hippos, more impala, and more elephants and more elephants and more hippos, and some more birds, and more elephants than you can count and more hippos.
If you didn’t notice by now, what I’m saying is, we saw A LOT of elephants. It was *almost* to the point of, “Oh, it’s just another elephant.” Which of course is completely absurd. They are so cool! We saw them walking, we saw them eating, we saw them swimming, we saw them drinking, we saw them giving themselves a mud bath, we saw them giving themselves a dust bath. We saw one pee (um, elephant penises? GIANT!!!) and we saw another poop (elephant poop? REALLY BIG!). We saw mammas and papas and every stage of baby- lord were they cute. Again, I wish I could show you pictures. My words do little justice.
The cool thing about going on a game drive or boat cruise like this is that the animals are used to seeing boats and cars- they just see them as another odd animal I guess. But, they don’t see the people in the vehicle as separate from the vehicle. Since they know that the vehicles are not predatory/anything to worry about, they are not afraid or really even bothered by them. If only I could show you the pictures and let you see just how close we got to these animals. It was freaking awesome! This one time, we were so close to this elephant who was drinking/bathing, that some of us actually got scared. We might have bothered him a little by just getting too close- the boat drifted- but the guide reassured us that elephants are not territorial, and that he was only mildly annoyed that we’d invaded his space. As soon as we got out of his way, he went right back to what he was doing. In the meantime, we could have reached out hands out of the boat and touched him.
We floated by lots of hippo pods that morning. Hmmm, pods? I think so. I decided on this trip that hippos are my new favorite animal. They are awesome. My obsession started before I ever saw one too. Why? Well, because we were hearing them so much! Every night, and even often during the day at the lodge we would hear this noise that sounded something like a pig, something like giant frog croak. It’s loud, and deep and surprisingly a sound that Joel also makes now and then when he’s clearing his sinuses or something. Anyway, after hearing it so often at the lodge we asked what it was, and were told, it’s hippos. But, because the water was so high, we never saw the hippos by the lodge, no matter how hard we tried. On the day when we went on the elephant and lion walks, we heard them again at that place (most of the places we visited were all along the river). The guide there told us that just at dusk the hippos would all come out of the water and go graze for the night- of course, this was going to happen just minutes after we would be gone! Dangit! But, we asked the guide there how close the hippo was based on how loud the noise was- he said it was quite near, maybe 40 meters (we were probably sitting 20 meters from the edge of the river, so, the animals were close, but they hide SO WELL!). We knew that this meant that every night at the lodge we were more of less surrounded by hippos, but we couldn’t see them. I often longed for a spot light, because I am sure we would have seen them if we had one.
Anyway, so, by the time I finally got a chance to SEE a hippo, I was obsessed. And they did not let me down. They are awesome. This is why I like them so much. They are huge, roly poly animals. They are of course vegetarians. They sleep in the sun all day, half in the water or fully in the water, if it’s too hot. At night they slowly walk about eating their way from one place to another. Now, don’t get the impression that they are just lazy fatties. They are fierce! Hippos are territorial. So, watch out, because if you get too close, they will mess you up- but not in the way you think they might. They won’t eat you of course, because they are veggos, but, if you’re in a boat, they will walk under your boat (did you know, hippos don’t swim! They WALK!) and then pop up underneath it, thereby overturning it. Then, they will just leave you there, either to drown, or get eaten by something that eats humans- like crocs! If they encounter you on land, they will simply charge you- run straight into, or more like through you. But mostly, I reckon they keep to themselves, hanging out in the water, popping up for air, dipping down below again. I love that the are so big, but have these tiny little ears, and gigantic mouths. I just love em. I looked everywhere for a painted wall hanging of a hippo, but, alas, never found one. I did however find a small hand made felt thing, not very African at all, more like made for a baby’s room of a hippo which I bought. It’ll be put to good use someday, I’m sure. :)
So, after seeing hundreds of elephants and hippos from the boat we headed back to the lodge where we had lunch. The funny thing was that just as we were finishing up I looked up and said, “Isn’t that (insert our Director’s name)?” And it was. He, his wife and another lady from school were just checking into the hotel for a few days stay. We recommended that they go ahead and sign up for the cruise! We didn’t have too long to chat though, as the second part of the day was about to get underway. Now we were headed on a game drive, in one of those safari vehicles, through Chobe. It really was an awesome drive. First of all, Chobe is just beautiful. Trees, hills and valleys, the river, islands etc… but then there were the animals. Again, elephants, elephants and more elephants. Apparently, Chobe actually has some 60,000 elephants, which explains why we saw so many. :)
We also saw more giraffes, birds, impala and other kinds of antelope, kudu (beautiful antlers on those things!), and warthogs. Of course we all desperately wanted to see some cats- the park has lions, leopards and cheetahs, but, because it was so wet, they didn’t need to come near the river for water, and therefore stayed well hidden in the depths of the bush. We learned from some of the other people on the drive with us that to see cats you really have to be up at the crack of dawn or at night, as this is when they are active- we saw how much the cats didn’t like the heat of the day when we walked with the lions a few days earlier, so of course, it made sense. If I could I would just post you more pictures of all the animals, and you would be amazed, but as it is, I’ll just stop here.
On Monday we rested. :) I can tell you that I read well over a 1,000 pages of books during this vacation. I started by finishing Jodi Picoult’s Songs of the Humpback Whale. Then I read Wally Lamb’s latest The Hour I First Believed, which was over 700 pages on its own. Great read by the way, only took me a few days. I also read a nice little romance novel- Nora Roberts anyone? And then a serious literary work, Jose Saragamo’s Death at Intervals. This last one came highly recommended by a colleague, and I hate to say I didn’t like it as much as she did. Oh well. It was a good story, but, his style got to me.
Tuesday was our last full day in Zambia, and we meant to make the best of it. Joel had his heart set on doing one thing- jumping off a 100 meter high bridge over the madly rushing Zambezi River. Yes, he wanted to bungee jump. So, that was the plan for the day- we headed back near the falls to the bridge that connects Zambia and Zimbabwe and Joel jumped. I have a video of the whole thing, which I would again, love to post. I will someday. After the fact I realized it was a good thing I was videoing the jump, as it kept me from really focusing on what he was doing- my tummy was all aflutter anyway. He survived it in one piece though, so we headed off to the next thing.
We had signed up to pay a ridiculous amount of money to fly in a helicopter for 15 minutes over the Vic Falls. I guess I have to say it was worth it. I mean, first of all, how often do you get to ride in a helicopter? It’s not really an every day event. So that was cool on its own. There were a couple little dips in the ride that made me feel like I was going to toss my cookies, but, the ride ended without incident. And it was of course very cool to see the falls from such a vantage point. The falls are a whole kilometer in width which you cannot take in from the ground. Also, after the falls the river flows through deep gorges that twist and turn, which you couldn’t see at all from the ground. Lest I repeat myself too often, we have great pictures, and I’ll post em when I can!
That day we also went to a nice souvenir/local artisan shop and picked up some nice stuff. Joel got an awesome photo album, made from what else, but recycled paper and elephant dung. :) I picked out a hand painted cloth wall hanging of 5 African figures. I also got a safari hat- it’s zebra striped. I wore it to the beach after we got back. :) Everyone is always getting at me to wear a hat when I’m outside here, so now at least I own a hat. :)
So that was about that. Our trip. Oh but wait, there was another wildlife incident that happened not on a game drive, but in our chalet. It involved the mosquito net, as I mentioned in my last post. One morning, must have been the morning of the Chobe trip, as we had the alarm set to wake early, the alarm rang and I snoozed it. But, seeing as I was half awake, I noticed a sound… it sounded like a mouse. I came fully to pretty quickly, and in the dark, followed the sound with my eyes. I realized it was ABOVE us. I looked up and saw that there was definitely something INSIDE our mosquito net, up at the top, trying to climb out, but clearly not making it anywhere, as the net is closed at the top, obviously! I sat up as soon as I realized this, and said to Joel, “Joel there’s a mouse, there’s a mouse!” I jumped out of bed in about 2.2 seconds. Joel of course, half asleep, was asking, “What? Mouse? Where?” “There!” I pointed! He jumped up then too, and decided he would catch it. Then, as soon as he got out of the bed, the mouse dropped right onto the middle of my pillow! Oooeee, I told him then, he was damn lucky that happened then, and not a couple minutes earlier because then he really would have had a frantic female on his hands! Anyway, he said he was going to try to catch it, and he couldn’t, so we left it. We showered, dressed and went off to breakfast, and reported the story.
When we got home from Chobe that day we went into the room only briefly- dropped our bags, and went back to the main house to have dinner. We ended up having a few drinks that night in the bar, so it wasn’t until late that we came back to the room. When we did I went into the bathroom to use the toilet, and guess who I found again? The mouse. Except, he wasn’t really in a position to say hello. Poor little sucker was floating upside down in the toilet bowl. I didn’t like him when he was crawling up the inside of my mosquito net, but, drowning in a toilet is no way to go. I screamed and then made Joel flush him.
Hmm, lets see… what else can I tell you so that I don’t have to end on such a sad story? I mentioned that we really liked the staff at the lodge. Because we were the only ones there, we got to know them pretty well. I also mentioned before that we were always being warned about the crocs. Well, they really worried about us going back to our room at night because the water level was only a meter or three from our front door. Some nights a guard with a flashlight would walk us to the room from dinner, which felt silly, because it took less than 20 seconds to walk from the main house to our chalet (it wasn’t far!), but, of course, better safe than sorry. On one of our last nights, Vera, the office lady came running out of the main house after us as we headed back to our room. We stopped and turned asking, “What? What’s up?” And she, totally straight-faced said, “I just wanted to tell you there is a croc, on your doorstep!” Joel and I both turned and gasped- searching through the dark for the croc. Vera started laughing. She was joking. She had the next couple of days off, and wouldn’t see us again, and wanted to say goodbye. We both regained our breath then, and laughed. I slapped her on the arm in the way you do, and said thanks for scaring the life out of me! :) She was a really nice lady though- funny too! :)
So, that is our trip to Zambia. I think that was pretty much everything. There are so many pictures to show, and I promise that once my blogger rights itself, I will post them.
That’s it for now!
Me crossing the river to get to Botswana- our boat took like 3 minutes.
The bridge that connects Zambia to Zimbabwe, also the one Joel bungy jumped off of.
The falls
Peekaboo!
