I just got back from safari, best 10 days of my life, no doubt about it. I’m still in awe when I think back to what my trip entailed.
I’ll start from the beginning...
I chose to go on a guided tour over my school’s spring break instead of planning and traveling through Africa independently. The trip left from Cape Town, up to Johannesburg, drove through Botswana, up to Zimbabwe, and left from Zambia.
We left at 5:00am Saturday after school got out, and met everyone from our trip. I knew a few people on the trip including my housemates Eva and Senta, but most people I got to know as time went by.
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| Team Elephants |
That night we drove into Botswana and saw our first African sunset outside of the city. It was beautiful. We played the Lion King soundtrack, followed by Shakira’s “Waka Waka”. I finally felt like I was really in Africa, and classic me, I teared up a little from happiness.
We arrived at our first campsite of our trip and was greeted with an African feast. It consisted of a lot of meat, and other mystery dishes. I cut out early that night, tired from the traveling.
The next day was another day of driving. Six long hours. I was really sick the whole ride and just sat there not talking. We finally made it to our second campsite, Delta Rain. Senta came up to me after being at the campsite for less then an hour saying she threw up. Turns out we both had the same sickness, I got sick only 10 minutes after. What makes this funny, is we both got sick on the same anthill. Thankfully it was only a 24 hour flu, and we were back in action the next day.
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| sickes by the anthill |
We were off to the Okovongo Delta for a 2 day camping trip. We jumped on a truck and met up with our polers. These people live in the local village and take groups of tourists out into the delta a few times a month. This was one of the highlights of my trip. We had no plans, only 2 days of relaxing in the delta.
In the Delta we went on game walks were we spotted our first animals: elephants, wilder beast, antelope, and zebra. When we weren’t tracking animals we spent our time swimming in the delta and giving ourselves “spa” treatments in the mud. It felt great to be this carefree after a few weeks of grueling school work.
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| the best sunset I've ever seen |
The last night in the Delta our polers bid us farewell with a traditional performance. They were great and even got some of us to get up and dance with them. We put together a farewell from them as well, not as cool but it’s all we could do. We sang “Lean On Me” and “In the Jungle”.
The next morning we reluctantly left the delta. It was sad to say goodbye to all the polers that had been so great to us, but I was excited for what was coming up next in our trip. We were on our way to ZIMBABWE!!
We drove into Zimbabwe and got to our campsite right outside Chobe National Park. That day we went on a boating safari, aka booze cruise. This also was a highlight of my trip. It seemed so strange to be sipping on wine with friends, and at the same time seeing a herd of elephants. Strange, but awesome. We saw so many animals!!!
The next morning we left for a game drive at dusk. Once again we saw an amazing amount of animals, all from pretty close up. The only animal I really wanted to stay far far away from the whole time was the baboons. I’ve heard they are really violent, and they always seem to eye me. I wouldn’t doubt that they would jump up at the truck at any moment. I felt a lot safer around giant elephants than those little baboons.
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| deceivingly cute |
The one animal I didn’t see on this trip that I really wanted to see was a lion. Half of our group did see three female lions eating a buffalo carcass, needless to say I was jealous. But you can’t always know where wild animals will be. Oh well, I saw the pictures.
That evening we drove up to Victoria Falls, one of the 7 natural wonders of the world. It was absolutely amazing, waterfalls and rainbows everywhere! We even ran into a wild warthog on the path.
At Victoria Falls there are a lot of activities one can do. Bungee jumping, level 5 river rafting, etc. But I decided to get a massage and a mani/pedi. It was such a relaxing day. Later that night we went on booze cruise #2, our group really likes boats. We saw a lot of animals again, but it’s weird how quickly you can become desensitized to the sight of an elephant.
The next day we went to the African craft market. The only money I had on me was 50 pula (about $7.00) and 5 Rand (less than $1). Luckily, this market accepts trade. I brought a lot of my first aid kit and some cheap earrings. I came out with 6 great beautiful souvenirs, I was proud of my bartering skills.
My final activity of the trip was the Gorge Swing. Some say it’s scarier than a bungee jump, but I haven’t done that so I couldn’t say. All I know is I was frozen in fear for 3 seconds of free fall. I wasn’t that scared leading up to the jump, but once we got clipped in and felt the tension of the rope I completely regretted my decision to sign away my life on a waiver. The rope guy counted to 3 and Eva and I jumped, it was crazy!! I’m proud of myself for not having to be pushed off. After the initial jump we just swung back and forth across the gorge, which was beautiful.
The next morning we headed to Zambia to catch our flight back to Cape Town. This trip really was the best trip of my life, it’s hard to describe in this blog. There is so much more I could write, luckily pictures say more than words.
