Week 9- Personal

This week saw the arrival of Jade’s boyfriend Sam who is visiting for a couple of weeks and not only was it very exciting to hear another Northern Irish accent, but it meant that lots of tourist activities we also in store for us.

Canoeing on the Zambezi

Saturday was a very action packed day for Amy, Ashleigh and I where we did a canoe trip, game drive and a sunset cruise from early in the morning until the sun went down. After the experience we had last time on the Zambezi when we went rafting, I was feeling a little nervous about boarding the river once again. All was going so well with Amy and I rowing in sync in our canoe until we got caught in a current and started drifting towards a bunch of trees…something which our river guide told us to avoid completely! We eventually made it to the end of our canoe trip and could breathe a sigh of relief clambering back onto the land as we didn’t get eaten by crocodiles or capsize. We then had our lunch in the middle of Mosi-oa-Tunya National Park where we proceeded to do our game drive where we saw many animals as well as having the opportunity to walk with white rhinos.

At Victoria Falls

Now that we feel very much like one of the locals, we were able to take Sam to see Victoria Falls and be his tour guide for the day. The first time we went to see the falls was on our second day of being in Zambia and we were told by many that we would notice a huge difference between then and now and they were most definitely correct. We got a little wet the first time but that was nothing compared to what we experienced at this time of the year where the water is much higher in volume. We were completely soaked right through, just as if we had dived into a swimming pool, although it didn’t take us too long to dry out.

Visiting Mukuni village

We also thought it would be a good idea for Sam to see Mukuni village- the one which we had previously visited with our rafting friends since it would allow him to see a more ‘real African’ setting compared to that of the developed town of Livingstone. Again, we got to meet many of the local people, see their homes and how they go about their daily routines as well as trying

more of the traditional Zambian cuisine.

It was a rather exciting moment getting another stamp in the passport when we made our way across the river into Botswana for our two day safari in Chobe National Park. We took a trip on the wild side as our adventure saw us swerving along the dirt tracks trying to chase a leopard, being a metre away from lions, spotting many of the six thousand elephants as well as sleeping in the middle of the bush where we could hear the lions roaring in the middle of the night. The safari has definitely been one of the highlights of my trip and seeing so many magnificent animals roaming about in the wild reminded me of many a scene from the Lion King…all we needed was the ‘Circle of Life’ playing in the background as we sailed about in our safari jeep!