For those of you who don't know, it's always been a goal of mine to go to as many countries as years I've been alive. Well now that I've surpassed my original goal (which I had done even before this trip), I've made it my new goal to go to TWICE as many countries as years I've been alive ;) AIMING NOW FOR 56! I'll get to double...eventually :).
Anyhoo - onward!
Today we (quite reluctantly), left our beautiful lodge for Zambia and South Luangwa National Park. Really the only reason we were all ok with leaving (and not stomping and throwing a hissy fit about only spending 15 hours at our fabulous lodge) is because I think many of us are ready for more game drives and to see more animals! South Luangwa is known for its hippos and LEOPARDS so we were VERY much looking forward to spotting more than a few elusive cats!
After several hours of driving, we finally arrived at the Malawi/Zambia border. We each took bets on how long it would take to cross the border since it had taken sooooo long to get INTO Malawi. I guessed 2 hours and 22 minutes (although I was desperately hoping I would be wrong).
So what happened next? The Malawi departure side took 7 minutes. TOTAL. For ALL 11 of us!! WHAAAATTTT?? Apparently they don't care about you when you're leaving the country. Fine by us! The Zambia side? You fill out one line in a book, take a picture, and they stamp your passport. Pretty much the same for the truck.
GRAND TOTAL OF TIME SPENT IN BORDER PATROL LAND???? 42 MINUTES!!!!!!!!!!!!
It was AMAZING!!! They even had a little machine where you could click the smiley face that aligned with your experience at the border. They received 11 resounding "green smiley faces" :-D.
From there we drove another several hours, stopping for a pasta salad lunch, playing Phase 10 (don't worry I whooped everyone's butts - mostly because they were afraid of my aggressiveness so they wouldn't "skip" my turn ever :-p), reading, and sleeping, before arriving at Wildlife Camp in South Luangwa.
We arrived at our camp around 5 pm and were told we really needed to watch out for hippos. Sure enough it only took a quick look around to notice we were directly on the river, with hippos and crocs swimming not far below us! (Ok, so they were probably about 100 yards away - still pretty darn close to watch them bathing and hear them splashing around!)
The view from the front porch of our "tent'.
The view of the river from our bathroom (there was about a foot gap between the ceiling and walls.)
We ate dinner, porkchops and rice (SO GOOD), before heading to the bar for a few drinks. Once there, we met two British guys, Marcus and Finn, who are on their gap year before university and also on a Nomad tour. When we arrived we had noticed another Nomad Adventures truck - it turns out they are doing our route but in reverse. They started from Vic Falls on January 16 and are headed to Nairobi. The guys told us that there are only 6 people on their tour and seemed happy to meet other travelers (the other people in their group are a couple from South Africa (?) and two older women from China.) It didn't seem like any of them talked much. I feel like this would be a MUCH different (and more lonely) tour if we hadn't become friends with our travel companions!
After talking to them for a while, we came back to our permanent tent (a bedroom with a bathroom attached) to prepare for our morning game drive! 5:00 am is going to come awfully soon!
Jess' highlight of the day: winning at Phase 10
Jon's highlight of the day: hanging out at the bar with Marcus and Finn
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