lions and cheetahs and nelephants!

Since term 1 ended in April, I spent the last few weeks traveling around. I spent a week at Gobabeb with Noah, a few days in Windhoek for a Peace Corps conference, and then about 2 weeks traveling north.  To get there, you spend a day getting to Rundu, a day getting to Katima Mulilo, I spent a night in Matt’s village (Sangwali) in Caprivi, and then we went across the border to Livinstone, Zambia (home of Victoria Falls).

Here’s how Google Maps shows the trip from Tses to Sangwali to Livingstone.  Total trip ~2,000 km.

For the details, I’ll leave you to the photos on my Facebook because even photos can’t capture everything we saw. The highlights, though:

Life in the North. Everything is made of mud and reeds! Ok not everything, but most structures in most villages. So different from the south. We think there might have been an apartheid rule banning traditional houses below the Red Line, but we’re not sure. Matt’s house is a huge mud hut with no electricity or water – a totally different experience from where I stay!

There’s lots of interesting food to try. When we went to the market in Livingstone (the “not-tourist” one), we tried fried fish, African bubble gum, chinga chinga berries, termite mound (yes, they eat the dirt that makes up termite mounds), and baobab fruit.

Victoria Falls. It’s amazingly huge and there is SO MUCH WATER (especially for those of us who have been living in a desert!)

Matt has the photos, but we also went for a canoe trip on the Zambezi. We saw a herd of elephants in the water, a few crocodiles from far away, and jillions of birds!

Elephant/Cheetah/Lion encounter. totally worth the cost. When else will I ride an elephant, cuddle a cheetah or walk a lion?

At the end of the day, it’s always the sunsets in Africa that leave you speechless. I don’t think I’ll ever get sick of them. Watching the sun set over the Zambezi sitting next to friends was one of the best things ever.