Too Much Stuff

I’m so sorry for not posting recently. But hey, I’m doing it now. Because I haven’t written for ages, I’m just going to do highlights, and no photos, because they take forever to upload. 

We’re in Zambia now, after going through Botswana. While we were there, we spent a lot of time around the Okavango Delta. The Okavango is the only river in the world that doesn’t lead to the ocean, just to a massive swamp. We went for a boat ride, and saw lots of really cool birds, elephants washing their grass, hippos, crocodiles, and a huge herd of buffalo. We went on a scenic flight over the delta, which was beautiful, and saw even more elephants and giraffes.

After spending some time in the swamps, we went north to Moremi Game Reserve. This game reserve has no fences so animals can just walk in and out. Our campsite was literally in the middle of the bush, and the elephants were not at all worried about saying hello.

In the park, we didn’t quite see as much as we did in Etosha, but we still saw some things, like zebras, elephants, impala, hippos, and various -bucks (e.g. reedbuck, or waterbuck). One day, when we were leaving, we saw a leopard on the side of the road! Torin especially was very excited. 

We spent a bit of time near the Botswana/Zambia/Zimbabwe/Namibia borders, near a park called Chobe. While driving along the transit road to our campsite, we had to stop to let a herd of 60ish elephants cross the road. In the park, we saw lots of impala, giraffes, a huge herd of elephants - somewhere around 100-200 of them - and zebras. We were even lucky enough to watch a zebra give birth, and watch the baby take its first steps! It was extremely cute. 

Now we’re in Zambia, near Victoria Falls (or Mosi-oa-Tunya, which means ‘The Smoke that Thunders’ in Bemba, one of the Zambian tribal languages). We went to see it a couple of days ago, and its pretty spectacular. We got very wet walking along the footbridge, but the view was just incredible.

The next day we did some of the activities. Torin did the gorge swing, where he literally jumped off a cliff, plummeted to the ground, and then swung back and forth. It looked awesomely terrifying. Xanthe and I opted for the slightly less terrifying option of the flying fox. We ran off the cliff, but didn’t fall downwards, just sped across. It was really fun.

We head back to Botswana tomorrow, and then into South Africa three days after that, and possibly Mozambique and Swaziland at some point.