on the road again...

July 19 – 1:22pm

We’re off to Namibia again!
But I’ll go back first to where I left off a few days ago…

The people who stayed in tents at the Fawlty Towers Lodge had quite a cold night.... we luckily got good news in the morning though. All of us were moved into the rooms for the next night!
In the morning we went on a cruise on the Zambezi river. It was awesome! It was such a huge river (maybe about twice as wide as the North Saskatchewan River) We saw a whole bunch of hippos in and out of the water. I love watching their ears! So cute! They make some pretty funny noises. We only saw one crocodile but that was pretty neat anyways! ….this was actually the first place that we saw monkeys chilling in the trees too!!
After spending just over an hour on the boat we came back and heading to Victoria Falls. There was some discussion going on to whether or not these are one of the Seven Wonders of the World.
After seeing them – I would say yes!! They were INCREDIBLE! It was way different than seeing Niagara Falls. (way taller and way wider!) They had a pathway that went sort of directly in front of the falls. It was gorgeous… it felt like we were in a rain forest. Everyone who went that way got pretty much completely soaked! It was neat because just as we arrived the President of Djibouti was just leaving. He had a huge convoy with tons of security.
After we did the falls there was a little wood market area where some of us bought some goodies! I must say I’m getting way better at bartering! I got a hippo and a rhino made out of mahogany wood. He originally wanted like 400 Rand for one but I was able to get him done to 100 Rant (about $18 Cnd) for both plus two presents! (a bracelet and a giraffe)
I also picked up a neat painting of three musicians!

After the falls we heading back to our lodge where we had the choice of chilling out there or going on helicopter trips/bungee jumping/gorge swing. I decided to just relax since I didn’t get too much sleep in that tent the night before. We just relaxed around the pool which was really nice! The gorge swing sounded like tons of fun though…quite a few people did that! (Basically just fall of a cliff and swing back and forth over the water from Victoria Falls!)
The night we had probably one of the weirdest concerts we had since we’ve arrived! It was at a shooting range and was a beautiful building with amazing scenery. We sang outside on the steps up to the main building. The concert didn’t start until sunset and there was two other groups before us. (so it was pretty much completely dark by the time we were to perform!)
The first people performing were just two guys from Cape Town. They were called the Drum Company and had a REALLY cool instrument called a “hung”. They said they got it in Sweden. (check it out… www.hung.sh)
The next group to perform was the Brethren Church Choir. They were really groovy and fun to watch. They had some great drummers with them as well (almost more ike west African drummer…it was really complex!)
Then we performed...it was the first formal concert we’ve done since we left Swakopmund! It was a little weird cuz I think there where almost more people in the choir than there were in the audience! Lots of people just brought their own lawn chairs along and sat in those instead of the seating they had set up. And there was a BBQ so people kept getting up to get burgers/chicken/steak and drinks. It was a little weird but still a really nice place to perform!

The next day we got up super early to start heading for Botswana. It was a SUPER long drive (about 13 hours or so by the time we got to our hotels)
It was pretty uneventful aside from when we had to make random stops along the way to wash our shoes. They are very aware of bringing foot-mouth disease into that country so they have stops along the way where you have to step on the mat thing with chemicals. The bus had to drive through a big puddle of it too. Really bizarre.
Oh…and the “ferry” ride from Zambia to Botswana was pretty scary too…One of our bus drivers had to bribe them to let us on in front of the line (with a whole $10 US dollars!)
But once we got on the ferry we noticed the wood floor had tons of whole in it…You could see rocks under some of the planks of wood to keep them from falling and they basically just laid metal sheets over most of the whole. A little sketchy but we made it anyways.

We spent the night in Botswana split up between 5 different hotels. Everyone was pretty tired and just hit the pillow as soon as they could. We are currently on the road again now…on our way back to Namibia! YAY!
I wish we could have spent a little more time in Botswana because it seemed like a really nice place. But I wasn’t too sad about leaving Zambia…That was about the only place so far that I felt a little scared. The people there are definitely more forward in trying to sell you stuff/pickpocket you. The hotel even had hired a guard to watch our buses over night so they wouldn’t get broken into!

We spend tonight in Windhoek and then head to the airport bright and early to catch our flight to Cape Town! I’m so excited to get to South Africa!

July 19 – 6:33pm

So…we’re still on the bus but we’ve been having a great time on the last leg of our super long bus rides! It all started at the border from Botswana to Namibia when we all decided we were going to make a run for the border instead of driving it on the bus.
It was so nice to get a little bit of exercise!
Kim met a lovely guy from Halifax named Rob in the border control area who had just been robbed and needed to get to Windhoek. So he is now riding on our big booty bus instead of dangerously hitch hiking after dark!
After spending forever at the passport place in Namibia we all headed back on to our respective buses to make the last 4ish hour drive.
Erin Lange has a wonderful little speaker set that you can stick your iPod into. So we had a little dance party on our bus with everything from Bootylicious to choir stuff to Cadillac Ranch! It was great fun…

We are all getting a little antsy thought being on a bus for about 3 days straight! I can’t even begin to imagine what the bus drivers are feeling like! This would be illegal in Canada!
Oh well…we’re almost at Windhoek! I can’t get to see the Roof of Africa Inn again! And I can’t wait for supper…they always have such amazing food there!!

w00t!!