Another Adrenaline Filled Day in Zambia

For our last full day in Livingstone, we headed to the Gorge. At the Gorge, we could abseil (rappel) forwards or backwards, do the Flying Fox (Tyrolian Traverse), or the Gorge Swing as many times as we liked. We started with a regular rappel (I made it down in three jumps),

(Me)

(Kaitlin) followed by the flying fox,

(Me)

(Kaitlin) (Me) (Regina)(Regina) and then the gorge swing.

Next we did the forward rappel

(Kaitlin)

and went a couple more times on the gorge swing. I did my first gorge swing backwards; Regina and Kaitlan went together. After that, the guides started calling me "daredevil." For our next round of gorge swing, we all went forward.

Kaitlan had to be pushed! That additional step of consciously stepping into the oblivion made the experience all the more terrifying.

After each trip to the bottom of the gorge,we would have to climb a long staircase to the top again. About halfway up, there was a shelter with a cooler full of blessedly cold water. Our enthusiasm waned only as the day grew too hot to climb out of the Gorge. When that happened, we went back to the Flying Fox, which didn’t require any climbing.

My favorite activities were the forward rappel and the Gorge Swing.

The guides at the Gorge Swing were really great and knew what they were doing. I would recommend this over the bungee jumping for anyone that is looking for a thrill in Zambia.

Here are some other random pictures I took in Zambia:

The cute girl on the bus to South Luwanga:

Where the bus broke down the first time:



A One Hundred Trillion Dollar bill from Zimbabwe (where inflation was rampant until they switched to the American dollor):

Walking Amongst the Lions

Near Livingstone, there is a sanctuary that helps rehabilitate captive-bred lions and prepare them to raise wild offspring. My limited understanding of the program is that in order to increase the number of lions, which are dangerously close to being put on the endangered species list, many lions are bred in captivity. Being bred and raised in captivity increases the likelihood that the lion cubs will survive the many dangers that face them, including the male cubs being killed off by their own fathers to protect their territory.


The captive-bred lions go through three stages. In Stage One, the lion cubs walk through the bush with the participants in the program, learn socialization habits, and learn to hunt. In the second stage, the lion cubs are put in a larger area, where they no longer have any human contact. In this stage, they further hone their hunting skills, but do not have any competitive species. When the captive-bred lions graduate to Stage Three, they are put in an even larger area with competitor species. In this area, the lions are essentially wild. Those that were captive-bred start having their own cubs and raising them “wild”. Once those cubs are old enough, they are released into the wild as part of repopulation programs. The captive-bred lions live the rest of their lives in the “wild” conditions of Stage Three and die a natural death. They cannot be released into the wild because of the contact that they had with humans when they were young. We were able to participate in two separate portions of the Stage One program: walking with the lions and hunting with the lions.

In the morning, we walked with them through the bush. Both during and after the walk, we were given an opportunity to sit with and pet the lions. It was a little too easy to forget that these sweet kitties are powerful and deadly predators.

We were reminded of that fact later that night, when we went hunting with the lions. The process was quite interesting. The lion’s handlers, who the lions treat as parents, ride in a car making whistling noises and pointing out animal herds with an red light. When the lions see the herd, the car hangs back just like the lion’s actual parents would have hung back if they were teaching their lion cubs to hunt. Our lions, three lionesses, were not very successful. One caught a rabbit. Watching them run after the wildebeests was quite beautiful, though. Afterwards, the program treated us to candlelight dinner and s’mores.

Devil’s Pool and Sneaking Into Zimbabwe

After back-to-back buses from Chipata and Lusaka, we were excited to land in the adventure capital of southern Africa: Livingstone. After an initial day of getting our bearings, we spent three crazy days doing one adrenalin-rushing activity after another.

Day 1:

No visit to Livingstone would be complete without a trip to its number one tourist destination: Vic Falls. Despite the fact that it is the dry season, the falls are still beautiful. A full rainbow ran the length of the falls the entire time we were there.








After we were finished exploring the sanctioned portion of the falls, we tiptoed across the concrete divider that divides the front and backside of the falls. Because it was dry season, the water was low enough on the top that we were able to swim in the pools above the falls.








(Photo by Regina)

And, thanks to a tip from some friends at Jolly Boys, the coolest hostel in Livingstone, we sought out the “After Hours” tour. This underground tour is basically a bunch of tour guides (who take tourists to Livingstone Island during the day for $60 a head) supplementing their income by taking backpackers to the same places after hours for a third of the price. To do this, we must wait until the falls are technically closed, dive for cover whenever we see the guides’ bosses or any boats, swim across the river that divides Zambia from Zimbabwe, and, on the way back, try to avoid elephants in the dark.


(Photo by Regina)

(Sneaking into Zimbabwe: Photo by Regina)

As a reward for these efforts, we arrive to Devil’s Pool, a pool located on top of the Zimbabwean side of the falls (the most powerful side of the Falls), at sunset and have it almost entirely to ourselves. The jump from the rocks into this pool on top of the powerful falls was terrifying, but not nearly as terrifying as the portion of the “tour” where the guides hold you by your ankles while you lean out over the falls, trying not to imagine the plunge to your death.






Do I look scared?

Zikomo Zambia

From Nkhata, we headed to Zambia. Our first few days there were spent in South Luangwa National Park. We stayed at FlatDogs, which is expensive, but worth it. After an extremely bad minibus experience—3hours waiting until the bus got full to leave + overheating + breaking down + waiting two hours for a replacement bus arrived +realizing that it was a third of the size of our already overcrowded bus + arguing about a refund so that we could afford to pay a taxi to take us the rest of the way = seven+ hours to travel 120 km and my throwing a total tantrum—we settled into our tents. We arrived after dark (almost hitting a hippo a mile from our destination) and had to be escorted to our tents by nightguards. The next morning, I awoke to a hippo mud-bathing about 30 feet from my front door. (View of hippo from my tent)

I was so busy taking pictures of the hippo that I almost missed the elephants that were tromping through camp. After they moved on, I headed to breakfast, but was sidetracked by the giraffe that was munching his way from tree to tree. Throughout the day that giraffe would appear over the top of my shower or while I was sunbathing next to the pool.

(Resident giraffe)

(Some of the monkeys that would wait for us to finish breakfast before sneaking over to grab our leftovers)

My tent ended up being the prime animal viewing spot. My hippo, elephants, baboons, and antelope kept stopping by all day. At one point, we had all of them there at once.

We saw so many animals, we almost didn't need to do any safaris. But I was determined to see the leopard, which had thus far eluded us and which is known to be common in South Luangwa.

On our night game drive, we FINALLY spotted a Leopard! We have now seen all of the Big 5. The leopard was much prettier in person than in any of the photos I’ve seen (or taken).





(Sunset)
That night, I woke up with a hippo loudly munching grass less than two feet from my tent. It was a long night, which made me a bit groggy for our early morning game walk/drive. The walk itself was very informative, though we saw very few animals. Most of the two hour walk consisted of examining animal poop, tracks, and sunbleached bones. We saw more animals on the drive afterwards.

We spent the rest of the day hanging out by the pool and bar and enjoying the excellent food at Flatdog’s Restaurant. We caught a cab at 1 a.m. to begin our long journey to Livingstone.