We arrived in Zambia a few days ago. We have no internet service, so I have been blogging in a word document, so I can paste it into the blog as soon as we have internet again.

After spending about 30 hours in London, we flew to Johannesburg to catch our connecting flight to Zambia. I’m not a very comfortable flyer. Sometimes I’m okay and sometimes, I’m a mess. I was perfectly fine on our flight to London. I was okay for the first few hours of our flight from London to Jo’burg, but the last half was a little bumpy and I was a mess! So, I didn’t sleep at all. I was basically on the verge of a panic attack for 6 hours. The turbulence wasn’t bad; it just lasted a long time.

We arrive in Jo’burg at about 6:00 a.m. and it was very cold, rainy and windy. Ker and Downey arranged to have someone from the airport meet us right as we stepped off the plane. They guided us to customs and then walked us to the front of the line. Before we could clear customs, they had as stand in front of some sort of thermal imaging screen that they were using to test people coming in for swine flu. Once we made it through, we were escorted to check in for our flight to Zambia and then through security. It was great to be able to move through these places so quickly, but it was also kind of sketchy. We had about 2 hours before our flight to Livingstone and we were exhausted enough to fall asleep on the ground for a little bit.

Zambia Day 1 (Hippos are loud)
We were met at the airport by someone from our lodge (The Islands of Siankaba). We hopped in the van for our 45 minute drive to the lodge. There was another couple with us, Raj and Latissia, who had just flown in from Lusaka which is North of Livingstone. As we drove along, they gave us some great information on Zambia. Along the way we picked up another friend of theirs, Chloe, who also lives is Lusaka and her husband would be meeting us later.
We drove through downtown Livingstone and as we made our way out of town, we were thrust into Africa. Lush and green from the new rains and people walking along side of the road…women carrying fruit on their heads and babies on their backs. Many women were carrying water as far as miles, from the Zambezi River to their villages. As of now, that’s the only way for villages to get water. We pulled onto a dirt road that we stayed on for 4 miles until we arrived at the lodge. We were greeted and checked in and then escorted to a pontoon like boat. From there, the boat drove us down the Zambezi a bit to the main part of the lodge. I am going to do my best to describe this lodge and its very unique beauty .There are 7 chalets on one island and the bar, pool and restaurant on the other island. The two are connected by a series of bridges…most swinging rope bridges. Everything is open air. The chalets are incredible. They are tucked into the vegetation, so you hardly notice them when you pull up. From the outside they look like giant tents raised upon stilts. In fact, the outside of these chalets are actually tented. Inside is all made of teak wood with a big gorgeous comfy bed and a claw foot tub. The “wall” facing the Zambezi could be completely opened by unzipping it and rolling it up and outside was a great deck. Beautiful! We had a delicious lunch and rested before the sunset cruise.
We met in the lobby for the sunset cruise. Joining us were the 4, only other guests at the hotel. Raj, Latissia, Chloe and Rob. As we got on the pontoon it started to rain. Not a problem-we had some umbrellas and the rain only lasted for 5-10 minutes. We did a cruise down the Zambezi and past the resident family of 13 hippos. We didn’t get too close as they are not very friendly. We cruised around a bit a pulled up onto one of the tiny islands in the river. Richard, our captain, poured us some drinks that we had selected before leaving the lodge. Eddie and I were EXHAUSTED and debated doing the sunset cruise. I’m so glad we did! It was really nice to chat with the other two couples about Zambia and their “home” countries. The scenery surrounding us was surreal. In front of us was a double rainbow (from the departing rain clouds), to the left of us was the stunning sunset and behind us was a family of hippos. As the sun went down, Rob announced that this was my and Eddie’s first African sunset and I’m so glad he did-we were so wrapped up in our surroundings that we momentarily forgot how special this sunset was to be.