So far we have been spending a lot of time on buses in between places that we have been visiting, but all that time spent on buses it completely worth it once we get to a new stop.
Livingstone was not only a highlight of Zambia, but also of my time here in Africa. After we arrived from Lusaka close to midnight on Monday, we got up bright and early on Tuesday to tackle some White Water Rafting down the mighty Zambezi. This was easily one of the scariest days of my life, but I am so happy that I did it. We ran 24 sets of class IV and V rapids in a big yellow raft with Zambian guides. We had three major flips on the river that set you whirling down these rapids, wave and wave taken you under for some down time. The only thing I kept thinking to myself was, the guide said I'll come back up, so I just had to let the water take me for a ride before I managed to sneak in a breathe before the next wave took me back under.
I have never been so scared in my life, but we had such a good boat and a great guide that I knew I'd be fine. I don't really know how, but our boat managed to be the EXTREME boat, taking the hardest lines every rapid, causing us to have the most spills and the funniest footage of the day.
Other than feeling like I was going to die and not doing so, we met some fantastic locals guys that were on the river with us. We had planned to stay in Livingstone for 2 nights and stayed 7 because of how much fun we were having.
Our friends Golden and Leonard took us to their village (Mukuni) one day and we got to meet their families and the chiefs in the village. Tracey and I also got to spend some time in the Mukuni jail. Of course for picture purposes, but it was still pretty funny.
When we were at Golden's sister's place we had some traditional Zigolo (water and sugar) with some bread. A classic meal that a lot of people have at the start of their days to get energy to go to school and pay attention.
Another highlight was knocking mangoes off the tree at Golden's mom's house and biting into the juicy goodness of a fresh ripe mango.
We spent a lot of nights at the bars, drinking way too much Mosi and Castle beer, staying out until the wee hours of the morning, trying to send the boys to bed so they could work the next day!!!
Our other friend Phil took us to his house one day to meet his roommate Peter, and we got to hang out with all the local kids and they made us traditional Nshima (in Malawi we call is Nsima) which is a porridge like mashed potato type dish, which totally does not taste like Potatoes! Accompanied with it was some nice eggs with Tomato and Rape (I believe in Canada we call it Rapini).
The kids even put on a show for us, dressing one of the boys up in sweat pants and sweat shirts and filled it with others clothes and he danced for us while all the other kids sang. It was actually extremely funny, and I wish I had video footage.
One of the not so highlights of Livingstone was Victoria Falls. I knew we were going in the dry season, but I didn't realize that meant there were NO falls on the Zambian side. We could've paid 50 US to cross the Zimbabwe border to check out that side, but we just stood on a bridge and leaned out to kind of see it. It's always a toss up though, because if you go in the wet season you can't White Water Raft. I guess you can't have it all!
I was really sad to leave, but I gave all of our new friends my contacts, and a couple of them were actually planning to come to Malawi in the next couple months, so we might get to link up then.
Currently, I am sitting at the Cardboard Box backpackers in Windhoek, Namibia. We got in this morning around 9am after taking a 20 hour bus ride from Livingstone. We decided to skip over Botswana because we are on a tight budget, but we are planning to go to Lesotho and Swaziland during our South Africa tour.
Here in Windhoek, we are planning to hit up Swakopmund to see some sand dunes and try sandboarding, as well as go to Soussuvlei to go on a safari, and a tour of the beautiful scenery around there.
It's different travelling in Africa than some of the other places I have been. Things aren't as easy to get to, transportation is expensive and limited, however, we are on an adventure so we will work it out!!
I'm glad to be back blogging, and hope to share some more crazy stories with my readers!
EmJ
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