Friday, 19 July 2013

19th - Livingstone, I presume?

Early in the morning at 0530 we were picked up to go on a morning game drive in Chobe NP. We saw plenty of animals, none we hadn’t seen before, and unfortunately no cats even though we saw several lion tracks and a spot where a leopard had been seen the day before.

Coming back to the camp at 0930-ish we had a quick breakfast before driving an hour to reach to border to Zambia. First we checked out of Botswana, took a ferry 5 minutes across the Zambezi River, got into Zambia, got our visas and in the end fighting ourselves through hordes of salespeople (which we actually never – except from here – really had any issues with).

Back on the road we aimed for Livingstone and a couple of hours later we arrived as planned. We didn’t stop but continued on to Victoria Falls where we spent a couple of hours admiring the sights and having a walk.

Going back to Livingstone we found our camp site, established the tents and went for a sunset boat ride. The name of the ride, the Booze Cruise, sounded more dangerous than it actually was. The concept was a sunset cruise with game watching including dinner and a free bar for 2-3 hours. We all enjoyed the trip, some significantly more than others, but firmly back on land we ended up in the resort’s bar where we spent the rest of the evening and half the night.

This night was also the last night we would have with this group, hence the more than average intake of alcohol. The trip I’m on is in reality two trips; one from Johannesburg to Livingstone, and one going from Livingstone to Johannesburg. This site is where 3 different G trips converge (Cape Town – Livingstone, Nairobi – Livingstone and Johannesburg – Livingstone, with the two former taking the same path back and forth and the latter (my trip) following a circular route with Livingstone being the middle point), and people mix up, change trucks, arrive and leave, depending on where they will be going next (e.g. Nairobi – Cape Town, Johannesburg – Nairobi etc.). In total we are 5 people doing the Johannesburg – Livingstone – Johannesburg trip, and after being 22 up until Livingstone we will now only be 20.

Some of the elephants got awfully close that morning.

Warthog.

Hippos having a rest.

Victoria Falls.

The border crossing to Zimbabwe - and also where they do bungie jumping.

Victoria Falls.

Crocodile close-up in the evening.

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