Safari in Chobe National Park

I got another stamp in my passport on Sunday with a trip to Chobe National Park in Botswana. We did a full-day safari trip: one by boat in the morning and a game drive in the afternoon.

Boat safari in the morning

Snakebird - so called because it's neck looks like a snake.

Crocodile 

Water Monitor Lizard 

Hippo with a bird on its back

My favorite part of the day: breeding herd of elephants moving towards the water for a drink.

Breeding - as opposed to bachelor - herd because its made up of mostly females and their babies

We got a different view on the game drive in the afternoon.

More elephants. The elephant population in Chobe is estimated to be 70,000.

This is how close they were.

Elephants swimming!

Giraffe walking!

This is how close it was.

Baby buffalo

Pumba! (Warthog)

African fish eagle

Kudu

Sable antelope

We ended our day seeing this leopard. I heard other people saw it on the hunt.

Bungee Jumping at Victoria Falls

For my last weekend in Zambia, I went to Livingstone. I'd been there 8 years ago with my university orchestra, but besides seeing the falls, I tried a bunch of new activities: walked through Mosi-Oa-Tunya National Park on the Zimbabwe side, where you can see the length of Victoria Falls, bungee jumped off the Victoria Falls Bridge on the border of Zambia and Zimbabwe, and did a safari through Chobe National Park in Botswana.

View of Victoria Falls from the Zambia side

Everyone recommended seeing the falls from the Zimbabwe side, and it was well worth it. I had thought about skipping out on Victoria Falls because I'd been there before, but when we reached the first viewing point, the falls were as impressive as I'd seen them the first time. Each successive lookout point revealed more of the falls as we went along until the trees broke, and the falls stretched before us. A lot of people wore rain ponchos, because even in August, when the weather has been dry for several months and the water levels are low, you can get drenched from the mist from the waterfall.

View of the falls from the Zimbabwe side

In the morning, we watched people bungee jumping, bridge swinging and ziplining off the bridge between Zambia and Zimbabwe. I'm one of those silly people who want to do something for the sake of saying they have done it, so after lunch, I decided to try bungee jumping. If I'm going to bungee jump anywhere, might as well be over the largest waterfall in the world!

They wrote the numbers for my place in line and my weight on my arm and asked me to wait. I watched more people bungee jump and bridge swing and zipline as I waited, and I got more excited as it got closer to my turn. Finally, they called my name, strapped me in a harness, and, since I didn't think ahead in the morning and wore flip flops, asked me to remove my shoes. They wrapped long towels around each of my legs and then tied them together and hooked them to the bungee. I waddled over until my toes gripped the edge of the platform. I felt an adrenaline rush looking down - afraid to jump, while at the same time half-realizing that that was exactly what I was supposed to do and that this is the one time I could do it (relatively) safely. Then, they told me to look up and out, stretch out my arms like an eagle, and, with a "5, 4, 3, 2, 1, BUNGEE!," jump!

All in all, it felt like being on a roller coaster without the coaster. I was in free fall for four seconds, falling face first towards the river, before the cord jerked me back up. Then I swung back and forth, upside-down, in several large pendulum swings - starting to feel slightly nauseous on the last couple swings - before Mombi pulled me right-side up and onto the bridge. (As we went up, he asked me where I was from, and when I returned the question, he answered, "Proudly Zambian." He explained his name means "another" in the Zambian local language, because he is the second son, so when he was born, his parents named him Mombi for "another" son.)

Even after being upright for a while, I felt bug-eyed from hanging upside down. Walking across the supports underneath the main part of the bridge kept my mind off it; I would recommend wearing proper shoes, because even though you don't need them during the jump, my feet hurt walking back. But I made it!

 Next: Chobe National Park

Lilayi Elephant Orphanage

Last weekend, I went to to watch baby elephants have their lunch of milk bottles and play in the mud! There were four elephants under three years old at Lilayi Elephant Nursery, a rehabilitation center just outside of Lusaka for orphaned elephants. The viewing deck we stood on to watch also had stories of each of the elephants. One of the elephants calves had been attacked by someone with an axe. Her right hind foot is paralyzed, because she was hit on the spine. She came trotting in with the other elephants with a cast on her foot, which the trainers took off, so she could play in the mud bath.

Some other elephants have gone through the rehabilitation stage and have moved on to Kafue Release Facility, where they begin to get reintroduced to life in the wild.

Chaminuka Cheetahs

Last weekend I went out to Chaminuka Lodge outside of Lusaka for their "cheetah experience." Most websites say the lodge is near the airport in Lusaka, but with nearly 20 km of terrible, dusty dirt roads, it took over an hour to get there from my apartment. I'd read that taxi rides from town could cost up to $150. As we were driving, I thought no wonder!

The lodge has two male cheetahs, Chipo (which means "gift" in one of the Zambian local languages) and Chaminuka (place on a hill). They are 14 months old and grew up around humans, so they are relatively tame. The cheetahs are "educational ambassadors" of a program that works to reduce poaching in Southern Africa. Schools can schedule free field trips so that students learn to love and protect the animals.

As a tourist, I paid for my visit but it was well worth spending an hour petting and walking and hanging out with cheetahs. The trainers told us to approach them from the back; if we approached them from the front, the cheetahs might think we wanted to play - but cheetahs play rough and use their teeth and claws. We could put the back of our hands up to the cheetah's mouth while we were petting them, and they would lick our hands as a way of saying, "Thanks for petting me!"

[Updated with photos - thanks, Rahul! All except the first two photos were taken by Rahul Mitra.)

Chipo

Chaminuka (left); Chipo (right) yawning

"Thanks for petting me!" (Translation from trainers)

Walking Chipo

Malawi

We had a five-day weekend for Fourth of July and two Zambian holidays. I went to Malawi - about a 12-hour bus ride to the capital, Lilongwe, and then several more to get to Senga Bay. It was a trip filled with lots of mishaps, and I can't say I ever intend to go back - more because of my personal experience, as opposed to the country itself.

The trip did not turn out any way I would have imagined. We ran into some issues at the border, and I was able to continue on, but on my own. I set out for Monkey Bay, a popular destination. When it took over 3 hours to get to Salima, a town near a stretch of Lake Malawi closest to Lilongwe (and less than halfway to Monkey Bay), I thought if I wanted any daylight by the time I arrived, I should get off at Salima, and I managed to squeeze in half a day on the beach at Senga Bay.

All the places I went to were not very touristy, which made for an interesting experience. I only had to bargain for anything twice; most of the time, they quoted me local prices, and I saw everyone else around me was paying the same amount. Almost all the people I met were very nice and would personally make sure I got to where I needed to go, but I got cheated a good deal of money by the money changers at the border, and on my last day, the taxi driver insisted that I had agreed to pay 20 times what any local would pay for transportation. It wasn't even that much, but I just felt that if I gave in, he would think he could take advantage of other travelers too. It didn't help that he just looked like a pompous jerk, with his popped collar and aviator sunglasses that no one else I've seen in Malawi wears. We argued for two hours until I finally just gave him the money.

It's too bad because Lonely Planet rated Malawi among the top 10 places to go for 2014, and I'm sure other parts of the country might have been worth it. For a while, I kept thinking, next time I come to Malawi, I'll make it to Monkey Bay and Cape Maclear... Next time, I'll try some of the national parks... But with each subsequent misadventure, there won't be a next time anytime soon.

I'm looking forward to a short work week and a quiet, relaxing weekend without any travel plans.

It's been a while since I had some food photos. This is chomba (a type of fish from Lake Malawi) and chips.

I woke up early to see the sunrise. I thought I missed it at first.

Then this popped up as I was watching the fishermen go out in their boats.

Surfing?

South Luangwa National Park

I spent the last two nights at South Luangwa National Park, a wildlife sanctuary that nearly everyone I have met here has recommended that I go to. Flatdogs Camp, where I stayed, was right near the entrance to the park. When I first arrived, I saw an elephant right in the middle of the camp! The next morning, I woke up to a sleeping hippo outside my tent, and in the afternoon, another elephant came up to munch on the leaves on a tree less than 10 feet from my tent. And that wasn't even inside the park!

I went on four safari trips: two in the morning (one driving, one walking) and two in the evening. In the evening, we would go out until the sun set; then the guide pulled out a big spotlight, and we would continue scouting for the nocturnal animals.

My "luxury safari tent" 

View from my tent

Elephant in the camp on my first day

Safari trip!

Impala, which you can tell by the McDonald's "m" on its butt

Leopard, which we had seen up in a tree with its kill earlier in the day, came down in the evening after its meal

Sunrise over Luangwa River

Monkey grooming

Puku - no "m" on butt

Water buck

More elephants (in the park)

Lilac-breasted roller, which did this unusual pose for us

This bird caught a frog and tried to smash it on the ground to kill it, so it could eat it.
Every once in a while, it was accidentally let go, and the frog would flail around before the bird snatched it up again.
After a while, the bird flew up to a nearby tree and tried to smack it against the branches.
(It hadn't eaten it by the time we continued on our way.)

Elephant crossing

Symbiosis like we learned in middle school science!
Birds eat ticks off the impala.
Impala gets rid of itchy pests, birds get fed. Win-win.