TravelginkaSeptember 26, 2013Africa, elephants, zambezi river cruise, zimbabwe6 Comments

It's My Way or Zimbabwe

TravelginkaSeptember 26, 2013Africa, elephants, zambezi river cruise, zimbabwe6 Comments

Last year I was sitting in Lima, Peru with my Belgian nature photographer friends, Cedric and Elyane when they said, "Hey, you want to go to Zimbabwe? We'll teach you what we do." I'm translating from the French but since I can't really speak French very well it's just a guess. Without hesitating I said, "Hell, yeah!" For you USA bound people I'm just going to say, getting to Africa is NOT easy and I've been a lot of places. It takes a lot of preparation and since Cedric was a stickler with the luggage (we were limited to 40 lbs total including photography equipment) packing was a challenge. I've never packed so light in my life! What I didn't know at the time was that no one in Africa follows rules. There ARE no rules!

First leg of the trip Jo'burg - Vic Falls

After a very unremarkable traveling day and night in Johannasburg I consumed the most depressing monochromatic breakfast and headed to the airport to meet my Nebraska friend, Kathy, for our flight to Victoria Falls. We were anxious to start our Africa adventure.

Kathy got busy working as soon as we landed!

Who could blame her. Even the airport is a pretty happening place.

We wasted no time and threw our luggage in our rooms and headed out for a sunset cruise on the Zambezi. It was described as a booze cruise which prompted another "Hell,yeah!" moment.

Dancers greet you everywhere.

We tried to keep the boozing classy.

Okay, I said tried.

Then, our first Africa moment.

The river gets crowded at sunset.

See, rule breakers all of them!

Then what we were waiting for while drinking copious amounts of wine. Hey, we weren't driving!

Our first African sunset.

The next morning after a Tylenol breakfast, it was back to the airport. In the US I never would board a plane that small, but when you are in Africa you end up mustering more courage than usual because here, it's just the order of the day.

I'm in safe hands, right?