And it was. It was great. I forgot my ipod which was a super huge bummer but it ended up being a pretty neat bus ride. The scenery was beautiful and thank goodness I am good at sleeping because I was sleeping for about half of the trip- Our only set back was at about 11:30pm when our bus got a flat tire and we had to pull into a gas station and steal a tire off a different bus. Anyways... We finally got to Lusaka which is the capital of Zambia at about 4:30 or 5 the next day and set off with our backpacks and tent to our Backpackers Lodge. It was there that we ended up spending the next two days. We found some pretty awesome people staying at the backpackers who took us out dancing the first night we were there. We went to this little local place where everyone was so nice and crazy at dancing and just for the record: the boys are way hotter in Zambia. But after a good three hours of looking like goobers trying to dance and dripping in sweat we went back to the lodge, set up our tent and knocked out.
The next morning the two crazy cats I was with decided they wanted to go for a run, and I decided "Hey even though these two girls run marathons... I'll go too" Bad idea. But it was fun to see most of the city. When we got back we took an hour or two to read (I slept) and decided we were going to exploring. We ended up finding the coolest local markets that I have ever been to. Apparently that is an area of Lusaka that no white people go to, but I loved it. There were so many things to look at in every direction- so many colors (everything to bright fabrics to fruit and veggies) and smells (some good and some fish and B.O.) and people (so many people of every shape and size selling things and playing checkers with bottle caps and starring, always starring). We found one group of people that were busy dancing and singing in the middle of the markets so, of course, they pull us over and we join in... When I thought there were a lot of people around before, right when we started dancing EVERYONE came over to watch but I was laughing the whole time.
After a good whole day looking through these markets, we took a break and went to our all time favorite little restaurant called Mug n' Bean. It is a little coffee shop that had extra large homemade muffins and chocolate hazelnut frappe's that are to DIE FOR. We settled for triple chocolate muffins and called it a win. That night guess what? We went out dancing again with some other really awesome locals that we met. When I say it was a long night... it was a long night. We had a bus to catch at 5:00 am and we got back to our camp site at 4:30. So we really quickly took down our tent and hopped on a bus up to a different part of Zambia.
This different part of Zambia is called South Luangwa National Park. This is what Zambia is famous for and for good reason too. We took like a billion hour taxi ride on a road that was currently under construction to reach this place called Crock Valley camp ground. It happens to be directly next to a river with crocodiles and hippos in it. Pretty neat! So we set up our tent and got right into things. There was an offer to go on a night game drive- which none of us had done before so we decided it could be really awesome. We all piled into a legit Safari car and we were off- also we made a bet about the first animal we were going to see, I decided to shoot for the moon and say we were going to see a Leopard first. Guess who didn't have to do dishes that night? Nailed it!
This cool guy was sleeping in a tree and I won. Besides this guy we drove around for a while and saw these guys:
Ohhhh yeah, saw my first elephant. And it was a baby. Then the sun went down and things started getting cray-cray. We were driving around and I had been hoping to see a hyena because I happen to have a little sister that LOVES them and asked me to take a picture if I saw one and guess what? I got two pictures. Whoop there it is!
These are freaky little buggers that are strangely large and just stare at you with evil eyes, I think if I had to choose between fighting a lion or a hyena, I would fight the lion. I was so stoked when we found these guys I was like, alright we can turn around, I am good but WRONGO. About 5 minutes later we saw the most amazing thing in the entire world. We were watching a herd of empalas and then BOOM a leopard came out of no where and killed an empala. Just sunk its extra large canines right into this poor guys jugular vein and dragged him off... here is the kicker. We were about 15 feet away from the entire thing.
Winning! Best Day Ever. We got back to our camp site just mystified. And went to bed. The next day we just hung out at our camp site reading, playing pool, and accidentally/on purpose feeding monkeys apples out of our hands. That was particularly fun for me because I love monkeys and even though we made some of them almost attack Claire, I think she secretly loves them too. We also got to watch some of our neighbors...
Zambia was well worth the long drive and the extra, unplanned for days. I would call this first week of our trip a success.
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| claire, audrey and me |
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