Zambia

Arrived at Livingstone International Airport ( translation: tin shed in desert) from London via Cape Town and an overnighter in Johannesburg and took an uneventful taxi ride to the Victoria Falls campsite where I checked into my tent-with-walls. The whole place was swarming with monkeys and baboons known to steal anything that's not tied down. An early night followed dinner and a beer while watching the sunset over the Zambezi River.

Baboon

I met an Aussie fellow called Shaun and his wife Ruth and Shaun and I decided to take a taxi to Victoria Falls with our cameras while Ruth went white water rafting. We drove through some rather Australian-looking bushland to the entrance of the Vic Falls National Park. The mist from the Falls is visible from Livingstone Airport and the campsite and the noise is a constant dull roar in the background. Arriving at the Falls, the sound of millions of litres of water dumping into the river is positively deafening. Note to self: if someone offers you a raincoat for $2, BUY IT!!!! I was saturated within 2 minutes of being there and my camera rarely made it out of my bag. We wandered around to the bridge that separates Zambia from Zimbabwe and watched the crazies bungee over the Zambezi River. Dinner with Shaun and Ruth, a random Italian guy and a weird assortment of monkeys, mozzies and scrub turkeys.

Victoria Falls

Cath arrived late the following day and we went into the township of Livingstone where we bought a few groceries. Everything seems to run on 'African' time, where African time = normal time + (1/2 an hour).

We took our first foray into the African animal kingdom the following day by means of a walking tour through the Mosi-Oa-Tunya (the smoke that thunders) National Park in search of one of only three white rhinos in Zambia. These rhinos are extremely rare because they're poached for their tusks which make big money in tribal voodoo. They're guarded (from a distance so that they don't become domesticated) 24 hours a day by our rangers who were carrying very conspicuous rifles. If a rhino attacked me, I'm pretty sure I'd be the one who was shot.

Rhino

I only felt mildly unsafe when we were surprised from behind by George the white rhino while our guides were distracted looking after a woman in our tour group who had fainted (no hat, no sunscreen, no water bottle in the middle of the African desert. C'mon, it's not rocket science). From then on, it was animals galore!! Zebras, giraffes, elephants, impalas, monkeys. Cath and I were like two little kids in a toy store!!

Elephant

Zebras

Giraffe