Good Vibes Only

Day 23 – November 16 – Livingstone to Lusaka Long-ish driving day today, but not so bad. Day 24 – November 17 – Lusaka to Chipata Another long day of driving.

Had a lazy day today, got a henna tattoo on the beach and just relaxed.

This morning we went for a tour of a spice plantation. It was too hot and humid and I got bit by mosquitos but I did buy some nice perfume and coffee I’m excited to try at home. We continued on to Nungwi and the Amaan bungalows. Beautiful rooms with beautiful air conditioning. Spent the day at the beach and the night at the beach bar.

This morning we packed what we needed for Zanzibar and piled in to tuk tuks to take us to the ferry that crosses the Dar Es Salaam harbour. The harbour ferry is an experience in itself, people line up at the gate and push their way out to the ferry the second the gate opens. At the other side of the harbour, we pile into taxis to take us to the Kilimanjaro ferry terminal and wait in the air conditioned office for the ferry to depart. The ferry is also air conditioned. Arrived in Stone Town around 12 and went for Indian food for lunch. After that we got lost on the streets of Stone Town and went shopping. For dinner we went to the Stone Town night market. I shared an octopus tentacle with Rianne and Alice and had the best kebab. After that we went for drinks at the Mercury bar, so named after Freddie Mercury who was born on Zanzibar.

Longest. Driving. Day. Ever. We left Iringa at 3:30 am and didn’t arrive at the campsite in Dar Es Salaam until 4 pm. I didn’t sleep much and felt sick the whole day. Dar Es Salaam is on the Indian Ocean and is very humid.

Longish drive today, we got some rain along the way. Campsite tonight is COLD. Probably 10-15 degrees.

Today some of the group went on a hike up to Livingstonia, a village on a mountain where there was once a Malaria hospital. The location of the village is up high enough that malaria can’t exist. I really wanted to do the hike but it was 16 km one way and with my back as burned as it is, I didn’t think I would be able to carry a backpack with water for the while trip. I started a book at 6 am and finished it by 4 pm.

Today my sunburn has proved to be the worst I have ever had. Thankfully it was a relatively short drive today, although we did have a brief breakdown on the side of the road due to a disconnected wire on the truck. Tonight’s campsite is even better than the last. It’s a little farther from the beach, but with my sunburn I have very little interest in swimming anyway. I spent the afternoon finishing my book and relaxing on a very comfortable lounge in the bar area.

Our upgraded room didn’t turn out to be as good as I hoped. It was nice having extra space and electrical outlet but the bed wasn’t any more comfortable than my mat in the tent, particularly with the mosquito net hanging directly around it. It was also hotter inside the room than outside and there was a bright light just outside the door that attracted a swarm of small flies that landed on me while unlocking the door. After breakfast I rented a snorkel set with flippers and attempted to swim to an island 800 meters into the lake to go snorkeling. I made it made 50 meters and turned around and rented a canoe instead. Swimming is not my strong suit. At the island I jumped off another big rock about 5 metres high, this time I screamed all the way down. I also saw a ton of little colourful fish while snorkeling around the island. I ended up with a scorching sunburn all over my back from snorkeling. In the evening we dressed up in costumes from the village and had a p...

The road to paradise is long and bumpy but so worth it. Kande Beach and Lake Malawi are incredible. The lake is so big it has a current and looks like an ocean until you jump in and realize it isn’t salt water. For $16 USD Rianne and I upgraded to a beach front cabin for the two nights we are here, unbelievably cheap for the view, the bed, the fan and the space.

Last night at 10 pm just as I was going to sleep in the tent, the campsite generator kicked on, and proceeded to run the entire night until 6 am, the time I had to get up. Most of our group was less than impressed, as our area is literally 10 feet from the generator. Not a great start to the day. I was part of a group to visit the Devils Pool at the top of Victoria Falls at seven am. That was incredibly cool. This is the dry time of year in Zambia and is the only time the Devils Pool is accessible, as there is normally far too much water flowing to safely swim at the top of the waterfall. We took a motorboat to Livingstone Island and walked from the dry side to the edge of the top of the falls where we got in and swam to the area where we could literally hang over the edge of the falls. Exhilarating and terrifying. In the evening Vernon roasted a goat for our last dinner together as a group, which was delicious, and we had a fun last night out at the campsite bar. ...

Full day of whitewater rafting on the Zambezi today. Craziest river I’ve ever been on, we flipped in the raft 4 times and I think I swallowed half of the Zambezi but my favourite part was when our raft guide rushed us to the front, through a rapid and then got us over to the rocks on one side where we could get out and jump off the rocks into the river. That’s something I thought I would never do but it was incredible.

Today I rode an elephant. Very very cool. Liwa, the elephant I rode, had her one year old baby along. Cutest. Thing. Ever. We also saw a crocodile in the water while the elephants were crossing a stream. Earlier in the day we spent a long time crossing the border from Botswana into Zambia. This is the first visa we have had to get at the border.

The drive to today’s campsite took most of the morning. When we arrived, we set up camp, had a quick dip in the pool and headed out on a sunset river cruise (booze cruise) on the Chobe River. We saw a lot of animals we have already seen but we also saw Cape Buffalo and a crocodile.

This morning we taken by mokoro back to the poling station and back at camp, all the laundry people had dropped off was mixed up. All of my shirts were in a different bag from my socks, underwear and shorts and my leggings and bra were in different bags too. We washed everything we had brought to the delta – mattresses and dishes. Short drive to Planet Baobab where there is a gorgeous pool, bar.

This morning on the drive I had two seats to myself so I actually slept for over an hour! We arrived in Maun just before noon and had a quick shop in town. After setting up camp those who wanted to went for a 45 minute scenic flight over the Okavango Delta. From 1500 meters up the elephants looked like toys. It was hot and dry in the little plane though. The campsite today has two pools and the river runs next to them, in the river we saw a hippo and by the pool were monkeys.

Had to say goodbye the Spanish clan – Nacho, Pablo, Dani, and José - and Karen and Jonas this morning as we all got on the truck to leave Windhoek. Hugs were given and some tears were shed. The drive to the border went smoothly as did the border crossing itself (Botswana, country number 18!), it was not nearly as hot as the day we crossed into Namibia.

Today we had a quick game drive on our way out of Etosha National Park, we didn’t see a whole lot, a couple of warthogs and giraffes, mostly animals we had seen yesterday. On our way out of the park we had to step in an iodine solution to sterilize our footwear from foot and mouth disease. We arrived in Windhoek around 2 pm and had time to relax in the hotel (a real bed!) before meeting the new people on our tour and after that going out to dinner at Joe’s Beerhouse. Going out to dinner with a group of almost 30 is an absolute shitshow. Someone who ordered their kudu steak well done took my medium rare. What is the point of a well done steak? You may as well chew on a piece of leather. I also liked the oryx meat I had in Swakopmund better than the kudu meat.

This was the first morning we didn’t have to pack up tents before breakfast! We did pack up our bags though and then hopped in the truck for a full day game drive. We saw hyenas, black back jackals, a few more lions, a hawk that had taken down a springbok, a rhino, more elephants, more giraffes, kudu, impala, a slender mongoose and warthogs.

Had a fantastic sleep last night and this morning we visited the Damara living museum where we got to see how the tribal people used to live. Then we continued on to Etosha National Park where we did a game drive to our campsite. We saw elephants, giraffe, a lion, ostriches, blue wildebeast, kudu, rhino. At the watering hole close to our campsite, about ten minutes after we got there, there were 31 elephants that came through.

Last night I tried to sleep outside, it was OK at first but got so windy that I went into my tent instead. Not that that was a whole lot better, it was so noisy with the tent sides flapping I didn’t get a lot of sleep anyway. Today we drove Aba Huab campsite. We had lunch and then some people went for a guided walk to look at rock art engravings. I stayed at the truck and read my book, it was too hot to walk around for an hour in the sun. After that we were supposed to visit a living museum to see how the people of the area used to live, but no one wanted to do that because it was too hot so we were able to go to a lodge with a pool for an hour instead.

This morning we went for a tour of a township on the edge of Swakopmund, somewhat interesting, but we ended up sitting at the bar for an hour for no apparent reason. All in all, it felt like a waste of time. But the did give us fresh Olliebollen. Back at the hostel we packed lunches and hit the road to Spitskoppe, which is a group of tall orange, granite rocks, the tallest is 1700 m tall. I climbed one close to our campsite.

This morning I got to sleep in. By that I mean I got up at 7 am instead of being on the road by that time. I went for a little walk around Swakopmund and met up with most of my group at the hostel to sign our lives away to jump out of a perfectly good airplane. Skydiving was amazing! If it’s something that even remotely interests you, just do it, you will not regret it. It was a long day of sitting around and waiting though. It takes the plane about 15 minutes to get to the exit height and the plane can only take two jumpers and their tandem partners. We had a group of about 20 so it took most of the day to get through everyone. I was lucky and was only about the fourth pair to jump and they sent a van back to town with anyone who was done right after I landed so I had time to walk around Swakopmund. I went for lunch at the Strand restaurant on the waterfront and had an Americano – the first good coffee I’ve had since leaving home. I did some shopping, picked up ...

Last night got pretty cool which was nice. I got woken up at about 3 am by what I think was a zebra making noise pretty close to my tent. Today we made our way to Swakopmund, arriving around 11 am. We had a briefing on what different activities we could do and signed up for what we wanted. I went quading on the sand dunes, which was lots of fun. Cold though, we could feel the temperature drop when we got to Swakopmund, which is on the coast and going fast on the quads got quite chilly. For dinner we all went out for dinner at Napolitana’s. I had spaghetti and meatballs, the meatballs were made from Oryx meat. It was delicious.