the Zambian encounter

Enjoyed the cruise and my last night in Bots very much. Saw lots of elephants - one even right in the campside where I was staying! There are so many elephants in Kasane, and you see them everywhere, unlike in the delta. After the cruise I had a drink at the lodge bar, met some lovely Motswanas and made a few new best friends. It was a great finish off for my three months in the country.

In the morning I packed up and donated my huge mattress to a cleaning lady who seemed delighted - really - then headed to the road. I jumped in a taxi who took me to the border ferry and cried a little because I didn't really want to go. The plan was to wait on the Botswana side until I'd secured a lift to Livingstone as I'd heard a few warnings about the Zambian side - apparently it was a place where you didn't really want to hang out for too long if it could be avoided. I waited for about an half an hour, got hassled a bit but nothing too bad, then hopped on the ferry as I spotted a white guy who I suspected to be a tourist on his way to Livingstone. That was Attie, and he turned out to be one of the most amazing people I've ever met. He wasn't a tourist, he'd been born in Malawi as son of a missionary and dedicated his life to humanitarian aid. He was living in Zambia where he delivered medicine to the local clinic, built orphanages and generally did good all around. As we got to the other side (some waiting around as the bus in front of us got stuck and couldn't get off the ferry for about an hour...) he had to wait for the paperwork to clear for the medicines in the trucks, so I waited as well and made friends with the touts trying to sell me souvenirs. As soon as we established the fact that I wasn't going to buy any, they turned out to be really friendly and lovely people. Attie also introduced me to Cecilia, a local woman who'd taken in 48 orphans. I nearly cried again, it was genuinely touching to meet someone like her, she had nothing herself but she still looked after all these children. After an hour, or maybe two it turned out that the paperwork was going to take at least another few hours, so Attie decided to take me to Livingstone anyway and then come back himself - 150km round-trip. On top of this he refused to take any for the lift AND bought me a coffee once we got to Livingstone. So by the time I got to my hostel I was feeling quite emotional and just amazed by the goodness of these people. Makes you believe in humanity again.

Jolly Boys is the name of the hostel where I headed, quickly settled in, and met some great people straight away. I even had dinner cooked for me (so yesterday was all take, take, take...)! The dorms were full so out came my little tent again and I managed to borrow a mattress from someone else. I had a quick glance at the activities book and as soon as I saw an offer for a 'lion encounter + elephant back safari' I was sold and signed up. I was too excited to sleep properly and was up at 5.45am just thinking about the day ahead.

Couple of hours later, I was walking with lions. The lion encounter is a lion rehabilitation program, where they breed lions to release the cubs into the wild (www.lionencounter.org) I got to pet them too, and had the biggest grin ever on my face on the pictures. It was just unbelievable! Loved it. I had a few hours to kill in between the lions and the elephants I just chilled out by the pool at Jolly Boys.

Then it was time for the elephants. After living amongst them for three months, seeing hundreds of them and learning so much about them, I still hadn't actually ever touched an elephant - well you wouldn't mess with the wild ones. These eles were rescued as babies so they were tame and it was a different story. We went for a ride for an hour around the national park, then spent about half an hour feeding and petting them. There were two babies too - the cutest things ever!

I'm still trying to take in the experiences of the last few days so you have to excuse me the flat and boring descriptions. Sometimes words fail me like now - I don't know of any words that would make justice to the amazing time I've had so far in Zambia. But it's been good. Great. Wonderful. Nah, I just can't explain it. But I can't stop smiling, that's now happy I am right now. I could say that life can't get much better than this, but I'm going to see the Victoria Falls tomorrow so I suspect that life is just about to get even better.