Breifly on us: Jono continues his Civil engineering study. I started a 0.5 job last Monday and am continuing to look for work to complement this.
What do you do after a day (well half a day) of rafting? Go on safari of course!! So off we headed to Botswana again. Chobe national park had had a complete transformation since we were there last. Instead of a brown/grey savannah, we had a green/emerald savannah. This made spotting animals more difficult. Since there were a lot more water holes, all the animals weren't driven to the main river. To mix it up a little we decided we'd do an overnight camp in the park. Fortunately for us the weather held off while we were safariing.
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| Not exactly safari, but cool all the same |
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| Dung beatles. The female clings on for the ride :) She likes a man with a lot of poo! |
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| Birdie for Malcolm |
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| Take that! |
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| The male who proceeded to call for his female lover in front of us |
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| The female, playing shy/hard to get at least while we were watching |
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| Tortoise |
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| Zazu from the Lion King |
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| This is where we stayed - yep in the middle of a wildlife park, in tents, no fences |
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| I love giraffes, can't believe I got this on camera. |
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| Some rare black animal that I can't remember, hard to catch on camera though |
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| Lion cub, too cute |
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| hmm? |
The rest of our time in Livingstone was off and on rainy. Trying to make the most of it we decided to brave the weather and see the Zambian side of Vic falls (as we hadn't seen it). I'd heard a little rumour that if you had a Zambian work permit you got a discount into the falls, so I thought I'd ask. I was so glad I did. Instead of paying 100K (about $25) we paid 7K (not even $2). Amazingly good value at 93% off!! Getting to see a 7th wonder of the world for less than $2 AWESOME!! As we entered the park the ticket people told us we were lucky if we'd come yesterday there was nothing coming over this side of the falls, I guess rain has some benefits. Wetness did not stop me from checking out the market there. I think they were particularly excited to see me as it was quiet season and I'm sure the rain had kept tourists away, so hopefully we got some good deals.
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| A funny bug with yellow legs. Hard to catch in the rain (trying to protect one's camera) while it was moving |
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| Hm, maybe we'll try and find another resting place that's not so waterlogged and in the rain |
While staying in Livingstone we had some really good food at Olga's. I think we ate there 2-3 times. Yummy. We had some luggage issues. Leaving Kabwe we had one bag that went off the scales so we weren't sure how heavy it was. Something over 40kg. Jono discovered on the Emirates website that the maximum bag weight was 32 kg. Our other bag was too small to fit 30kgs of stuff. We investigated excess luggage to find it horrendiously expensive, and postal was not quite as bad but still a lot. I started thinking of how to wear as much as possible on the plane, and started to plan what we'd leave behind (as I still had shopping I wanted to do). We weren't able to repack either to figure out exactly how much room for shopping there was as we'd left our big bag in Lusaka because we didn't need it, and it'd be a hassle to travel with. Luckily we found a big sports bag in Livingstone that managed to fit our littler bag inside with quite a bit of room to pack other stuff. So I proceeded to check out the markets in Livingstone. Upon returning to Lusaka the repack commenced. Our luggage allowance was 30 kg each. Our checked luggage was 30.0kg and 29.8kg - PERFECT!!
Oh yeah before leaving Livingstone I also did a microflight over Vic falls and a little over the local game park.
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| Yep this was my pilot |
We attended Jasper's church the morning before our departure, Jono had the priviledge of preaching a final sermon there. One of our friends from OM was heading home to Germany, we were on the same first flight to Dubai. We'd booked seats together. At the airport he got held up. When we got to the checkin gate they told us we'd have to shift, we started complaining until they mentioned business class. You can't complain when they give you a free upgrade :) Jono ordered a delicious port. Mmmm. I'll let him explain him to you . . . After several flights we arrived in NZ to a warm reception from family.
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| No, the name was not enough. How are we supposed to know you do kitchens when you're called "Wireforce"? |
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| I actually really liked this, a tree out of sprite bottles. |
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| All the people out the window were trying to watch the soccer on the tv for free. |
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| Ah luxuary, randomly upgraded to business class for free!! |
And here ends the blog. It's been an epic journey! Thank you for your views and comments. God bless
Final prayer items
Thanks
- For the opportunity to spend time in Zambia
- For safety while we've travelled
Requests
- For further guidance with our future
OM/Bethesda
- For the leadership
- That they will impact Kabwe positively
- For the staff/volunteers/missionaries that are there and that they will get people to fill their needs.
