Zambia is for Lovers :)

Fore warning: I apologize in advance for all the ‘awesome, amazing, cool, beautiful, crazy, etc’ words. I was just seriously blown away by this place and that’s exactly what I kept saying all week.

Victoria Falls - from the Zambia side

  
Totally passed out for the entire flight. The ‘hour nap’ I took at the airport hotel wasn’t really cutting it. Once we got there and I was up I was ready to go and made it until that night when I passed out around 9/930.

The airport was so small. It’s funny because there was a small airport in Venice that sometimes we would fly into and the ‘Livingstone International Airport’ was way smaller than that one. (I honestly cannot remember the name of it now- CIMBAllers… anybody?) I wish we would have known to buy a transferable visa when we got there. They only told us $50 for the visa and we didn’t know it was only a 1 time use. (Meaning, if we were to leave the country we’d have to pay the $50 again to come back into Zambia) 

Walking up to the airport from the plane

We had a driver waiting for us at the airport. He took us, along with a few other families, to the Sun International’s resorts. As we were driving you could see a bunch of clouds out in the distance that looked like they were rising from the ground. Those ‘clouds’ were in fact the ‘smoke’(as they call it) rising off of the falls. I was really anxious to see them after seeing the smoke. When I was on the plane I looked out the window and saw them from above. They looked amazing. I was soooooo excited to see them up close.

View from the airplane of the falls

First stop was The Royal Livingstone. Pulling up to the resort my first thought was whhhooaaa. Wow. Fancy Shmancy. Seriously, felt like it was jumping off a page of Travel + Lifestyle magazine. Looking out the bus window through the lobby you could see the great Zambezi river flowing behind the resort. Beautiful. I already knew I was going to love this place. We dropped those visitors off and made our way over to the other side of the property to the Zambezi Sun Resort, where we were staying. As we were driving in we passed Giraffes and Zebras on the side of the road. I was blown away! I have seen them in the zoo before, but just passing them in your car on your way to your hotel?! WHHHAAATTTT? Crazy.

Welcome Crew

We pull up and there is a group of African men playing drums and singing chants to all the visitors getting off the buses. One look at them and I immediately broke out into a huge grin. This was exactly what I pictured Africa to be like hahaha! We get off the bus, check it, of course get our pick with the ‘welcome crew’ and then make our way through the resort to our room. Wow. Walking through the resort not only do I notice all the bright colors and the beautiful décor but THERE ARE ZEBRAS HANGING OUT BY THE POOL. Ok. Zebras on the way into the resort = awesome. Zebras hanging out by the pool = speechless. Seriously. So so sooooo cool. We make our way to our room and I’m in awe with all the beautiful bright colors. Looking out our back door you see the smoke rising above the trees and can hear the loud roar of the falls plundering off the edge down until the unseen bottom.

Me hanging out with the Zebras

Each day was filled with different activities ranging from safaris, exploring the falls to even just laying at the pool (and getting sun burnt haha)


Here are some of the fun things we did! 


Elephant Safari:

One of the main activities I really wanted to do was ride an elephant. We were picked up at our resort and headed out about a half hour into the bush of Zambia to ride Ellies J!! (I love that the one leader guy kept referring to elephants as Ellies, so I decided I’m going to refer to them as Ellies as well) After sharing some coffee and tea and giving us a safety briefing we got to get on the elephants! Brad and I had Mashube (and for the purposes of here on out this is how I will spell her name. You say it like Ma- shoe- be so I assumed this is how you spell it.) Mashube and trainer Jani (who, btw, loved Brad’s sunflower seeds hahaha), Brad and I set out on our adventure through the Savannah bush. Mashube is the matriarch of the group so she always led the way. All along the way all the Ellies kept pulling leaves and branches off of basically every plant/tree/bush/anything we walked by.  Seemed like they were very hungry! Haha It was a great ride. Honestly, soooooo glad we did it. It was amazing and surprisingly comfortable (at least to me).  We got to ride them for an hour, looking at all the scenery and enjoying the experience.

The program that put on the tour did a wonderful job. From the start with offering us drinks, to the whole ride, to afterwards with juices and biscuits – and they even filmed the whole trip, edited it into a dvd and then showed it to us. Of course I bought it. I knew if I hadn’t I’d always wish I had that keep sake. Come over- we can watch it ;)


Look at all our pictures here: Elephant Safari Pictures


Exploring the Falls:

We went down to the falls numerous times. It was a 2 minutes walk to the trails from where our room was so there was no excuse not to go down there. When I pictured Victoria Falls I pictured something reminiscent of Niagara Falls. I was not surprised for what I saw at all. First off- there are no big guard rails, security or anything preventing you from getting to close to the falls. In fact, we definitely put our feet into the water at one point. (don’t worry- Brad wouldn’t let me do it where it was going real fast… we had to go in the ‘calm’ water. He’s almost as bad as my parents sometimes haha jk)

What was really cool about these trails is that each one took you to a different look out point and further into the bush. It was so exotic and cool. I have so many pictures it’s kinda ridiculous. If you kept walking you eventually got to a part where all the smoke was coming down all around you like huge water balls. Think of the biggest rain drops you’ve seen and then multiple them by like 5. They were huge andddd freezing!! The first time we walked down to the falls we saw people drenched and we were kinda surprised. We thought maybe they had gone and jumped in the water… nope. If you just walk across the bridge or even walk to some of the look out points you’re bound to not have a single dry spot anywhere on you. I was so happy that I got my waterproof camera for Christmas! This was the first opportunity I had to use it! It really would suck if you didn’t have a waterproof camera because there is no way you could take a regular camera down there. Even under a poncho I really don’t think it’d be a smart decision. With the way the water was coming down and swirling all around I wouldn’t risk it.

The last day we went down to catch them out there actually was a double rainbow. That was so neat to see! BEA-U-TIFUL! Seriously. Gorgeous beyond belief. I don’t think any explanation or picture could ever do that place justice. It’s crazy to me that 1. We didn’t see all of the falls 2. You can’t see the bottom of the falls 3. You can barely even see the falls at all because it’s the rainy season and the river is flooded therefore there is double the amount of water flowing over the falls edge. I would absolutely love to go back in the dry season to see the difference in how the falls are.



Purchasing Items from the Victoria Falls’ Market:
Honestly... I wish I had a video of what went on in this market. It.was.ridiculous. 

Their famous line was 'No pressure here. Just look at what I have. Just look.' Yeah- then they bombarded you and wouldn't let you leave. Honestly, take the markets down in mexico and then times it by 98782038. It was thaaaaat ridiculous. When we were coming back into Zambia from Botswana these guys even followed us to our van and were sticking their hands and items into our car until our driver shut the door! It was crazy!!

Lounging Around the Resort:
The resort was soooooo nice! Check out all our pics to see the rest of the resort. 

Sunsets at The Royal Livingstone:

Every night we would walk over to the Royal Livingstone resort and sit on their deck which was right on the mighty Zambezi river. It was an AMAZING place to watch the sun set every night. It was right on the edge of where the water fell over the falls edge. If I had to pick my favoritest thing from the trip I would have to say sitting out on the waters edge here was by far my favorite. 

 You can see in the last picture the smoke from the waters edge on the left and the sun setting on the right. It honestly was an amazing view.

See all our sunset pictures here! :)

Zambia was great. All the Zambians were more than nice to us and kept asking us when we were coming back! Hopefully sooner rather than later. Honestly, I'd suggest going and seeing the falls to anyone and everyone. I got to try Kudu - which, btw, was delicious. The meat just melted in your mouth. One of the best pieces of meat I've ever eaten! I fell in love with mango daiquiris and guava juice is my new favorite fruit juice!

Zambia exceeded every expectation I had. It. Was. Amazing.

Peace, Love and Waterfalls

Finally Got There!!!

Southern Africa. Wow.  I knew it would be beautiful, but I honestly was so shocked at what I experienced this past week. I’ve dreamed of taking an African safari, seeing elephants, zebras, exploring exotic places- it truly was like walking right out of one of my dreams.

I ended up getting to Johannesburg, South Africa at 4:30am on Wednesday morning. I was supposed to have arrived at 4:30pm on Tuesday, but that didn’t happen.  They originally told us to be at the airport at 3am because the flight was going to leave at 5am. Then at about 5am they said they weren’t sure when they were going to board because the plane had JUST landed. So we waited… then they brought us donuts and coffee as a peace offering… then more donuts and coffee showed up at about 6am. Then finally at about 7am we started to board.

According to the flight crew ‘since they were in such a hurry to get out of IAD they didn’t fully restock the plane and didn’t have any snacks or the little packs of socks/toothbrush/socks they usually give you.’ Whateverrrrrrrrrrrr I was just happy to finally be on the plane. The nice thing was that since it was delayed they ended up cutting out the stop to Dakar so it was a direct flight to Joburg and also since there were people on the flight that were going to Dakar they were put on another flight. There honestly weren’t a lot of people on the plane at all. Everybody got their own row on the flight! I did try to get upgraded since I was pissed off about the delay (which was sold out, btw) but it ended up being totally fine. Let’s see I watched: Tangled, Burlesque, The King’s Speech, Due Date and a few tv shows. Read a few magazines and slept for about 4 hours. Direct flight was 14 1/2 hours. It surprisingly went pretty fast.

When I got to the airport I started trying to figure out how I was going to get to our hotel. Since it was so late I was just going to hop in a cab and meet Brad at where we were staying. Well! I walk out and was totallllly shocked to see him standing there!! He had gotten there and was waiting for a while just to make sure I knew where to go and that I wasn’t alone. :)  Ends up we were staying at the hotel at the airport. It worked our perfectly because we went back and I got to take an hour nap

Then I got up, showered and we headed back down into the terminal to get some breakfast and to catch our flight to Zambia. It worked out because we didn’t end up having to change our 2nd flight since I got in so early in the morning.

Tried to have a quick breakfast at News Café, but due to the waitress’s lack of motivation it ended up being a longer breakfast than we wanted to have. Oh well… no one seems to be in a hurry on this continent.  After brekkie caught our flight, I caught an hour and a half nap and then we were in the great country of Zambia.

Over the course of the week our African adventure took us to Livingstone, Zambia to see Victoria Falls, Kasane, Botswana to Chobe Game Reserve and to Johannesburg, South Africa to explore the city.

I'll break my posts into the 3 different locations just because I have so much to share!!! Stay tuned!

Peace, Love and Happiness for finally arriving!!!