We saw so many things on Phase 2–the villages of Zambia, the desolation of Namibia, Zimbabwe–that I never thought I’d see. And we just barely touched Africa. There are so many places we had wanted to stretch our Phase 2 into (Mozambique, we’re coming for you), but time and money were short, so instead we just got a taste of it. By The Numbers Phase 2 lasted right about 2 months, leaving Washington, DC on June 3, 2018, and leaving…
We hated Zanzibar. I’ve thought a lot about how I wanted to construct this blog post and build up to that revelation, but I just don’t want to bury the lede. We didn’t enjoy our time there, and we would not go back, and it’s the only place on our trip so far that we would definitively say we would not go back. So let’s get to Zanzibar, and talk about why we disliked it so much. Getting In We…
After Lusaka, our next stop was Zanzibar. That was the plan, and had been the plan for a while. But flights there were incredibly expensive. I was getting very discouraged while looking for flights back in South Luangwa (you’ll remember that I was fairly on edge about expenses while there…) An interesting answer materialized. For a little more than the cheapest tickets available, Ethiopian Airlines had flights that connected through Addis Ababa. But Ethiopian will let you extend that layover…
After South Luangwa, Erika and I smashed head-long into a wall. We were exhausted, having just made a tear through southern Africa, visiting Johannesburg, Harare, Victoria Falls, Livingstone, and South Luangwa in under two weeks, with three safaris in that time. It was time for a break. So we didn’t see Lusaka. We didn’t go out into Lusaka. We didn’t do anything in Lusaka. All we did was rest, recover, and spend time with Erika’s friend, Lindsey, who we visited…
Since Namibia, we’d been chasing that feeling we’d had from doing the self-drive safari. We wanted awesome camping trucks again, and the ability to chart our own path without taking expensive tours. Originally, we were looking to do something really crazy–get awesome camping trucks in Harare, Zimbabwe, drive/camp our way to Victoria Falls, across the border to Zambia, and loop all the way around to Lusaka, Zambia. However, we couldn’t find any reasonable availability for awesome camping trucks. The ones…
Crunched into the back of a rusty old Toyota van with nine of our closest Zambian friends, we handed over our kwacha when the operator started collecting fares. Some paid in Zambian kwacha, some paid in US dollars. We paid in kwacha because, naturally, the exchange rate was in their favor if you used dollars. Exchange rate… I’m talking as though it would have been a large difference, the rate in kwacha was under a dollar. Welcome to the combi…
We were in front of our hotel the next morning 5 minutes before Frank was scheduled to pick us up. We still felt badly about leaving Frank waiting for us a few days ago, even though it wasn’t our fault, so we made sure to get in front of the hotel a little early. Problem was, there was also a behind the hotel, and that’s where Frank was. So fifteen minutes later, Frank came in and found a hotel worker…
The Zambezi river makes up the border between Zimbabwe and Zambia, and it’s the Zambezi that is pouring over Victoria Falls. The two countries are connected by the beautiful Victoria Falls bridge, which towers over the gorge the Zambezi has carved. You can walk across this bridge between the two countries, and it’s my favorite border crossing ever. As our last post mentioned, you can walk to the Zimbabwe side of the falls from the town of Victoria Falls. The…
Frank was there, at the Victoria Falls Rest Camp, bright and early at 7am to pick us up for our day-trip to Hwange. The only problem with that was we’d been told by the tour company that pick-up was at 7:30, leaving Frank standing around in the cold for half an hour. Not to worry, Frank waved off our apologies, welcomed us warmly, and we were off for the more than an hour drive to Hwange National Park. Frank said…
After a great couple days in Harare, John and I flew into Victoria Falls, the town right next to the namesake falls on the Zimbabwe side. From the air we could see the spray of the falls, and were eager to see them the next day. We settled into our lodge at the Victoria Falls Rest Camp, which was spacious–cavernous even–though uninspiring. The walls were cinder block, the kitchen table something out of a kindergarten classroom. But, the bed was…
