As I had expected the access to internet is infrequent and is very slow. I have heard from others that it can take up to 45 minutes to upload a single photo. South Africa is more like the west then it is to the rest of Africa. Cape Town and Johannesburg are both modern cities. That would be a nice break in the middle of the trip but at the beginning of the trip it was more like a delay of getting started on the real trip. It turns out instead of the same people for the whole trip it is more like three separate trips the first four days I was with a group that was just completing their trip, then I started with a group for a month and then another group for the last three weeks. The groups are smaller than I expected also. From Cape Town to Joburg it was 6 of us; their group had been much larger (as big as 24) but most had left at Cape Town. Now there are 7 of us. Each night we set up camp and take turns making dinner. We usually get up early and break camp, Tim our wonderful driver/guide usually cooks breakfast for us. The entire trip will take me through South Africa, Botswana, Zambia, Malawi, Tanzania, Uganda and Kenya.
Okavango Delta in Botswana is an area that is very beautiful and full of wildlife. We went by boat being poled along by our guides. We saw hippos while in are little boats but we kept a safe distance, as they are the most dangerous animal in all of Africa, (yes more people are killed from hippos than by lions or crocodile or anything else). We camped for two nights in the delta and on a walk from camp three of us saw a large herd of zebras and lots of different types of birds. After we left the delta we took a short flight over it, which gave us a great view plus our first sighting of several types of animals.
Next on the trip was Chobe National Park, here we saw elephants, baboons, hippos, several types of gazelles and other animals and birds. A special sighting was a leopard that was on the ground not very far from the road; it is not a sure thing to see a leopard while on a safari and rare to see them on the ground and up close. It was very content to just lay there and watch us. I was very pleased as a good siting of a leopard was a goal of mine. One large bull elephant was just outside of the park, (take a good look at the picture).
Next we went to cross the border into Zambia, to do this we had to cross the Zambezi River by ferry. The line for the ferry crossing is so long that it would take three days to get on the boat (I’m not exaggerating ), but since tourism is such an important piece of their economy they have a short line that we were able to get into (it only took 3 or 4 hours). Yes this is the only way across the river. Lots of the locals would arrive by taxi unload a whole taxi full of goods and then hire a small boat to take them across. Because Botswana is wealthy compared to Zambia a lot of goods are bought in Botswana and brought a cross the border.
This is Africa as you probably imagine it, there are villages with grass huts, and most people are quite poor.
Next on the list was going for a walk with three lions, including holding the tail of one of them, kind of touristy but unique so I did it. Then we took a boat to the top of Victoria Falls, they let us out and we swim out to an island. At one section the current is strong enough that it is pulling you towards the falls, there is a cable across the river a little farther down, but no net just a last chance to catch a cable before you would go over. We all swam hard to get across. Once on the island we walked over to see the fall, low water now because it is the dry season, but still very impressive. We then went over and jumped into a little pool right by the edge of the fall. While sitting in the pool I held my hand out over the top of the falls just an arm length away the falls drop 100 meters (330 feet)! The water we are in is 5 feet (1 ½ M) deep but only about 5 inches (12 cm) going over the natural wall between us and the falls. I can’t resist the temptation; I slowly raise one leg up towards the surface. As my knee gets just higher than my waist I can feel the strength of the rushing water begin to pull at me! That is enough I won’t push my luck, I put my leg back down so as to live to tell the story. It was truly amazing the difference that was made from having just raised the one leg, with the legs down it felt completely safe and secure. If I had raised it just a little more I would have been taken over the edge, it literally was a matter of inches. I then remained content to sit in the water less than a meter from the edge of the falls.