Springbok 2013! (aka spring break 2013: Zambia, Zimbabwe, and Botswana!)

*Disclaimer: This post will be LONG and filled with lots of pictures!*

After an overwhelming couple of weeks traveling to the North of Namibia for our rural homestays and Etosha trip, it was finally time for a week off. We had been planning for awhile and it was time for spring break! Hannah, Anneke, Joe, Nan, and I decided we wanted to go as many places as we could in our short week. We had a plan and were ready to go off and explore. Passat and the rest of the CGE team dropped us off in the small town of Tsumeb before they continued back to Windhoek. We had the entire day in Tsumeb before our bus to Livingstone, Zambia came so we found a cute little Italian pizza place to have lunch. This is not common around Namibia and I miss pizza/Italian things so much! They do have pizza here but it just doesn't taste the same or as wonderful as back in the US. Anyways, we had some delicious pizza and the owner of the shop talked our ear off for awhile. She was originally from Italy and moved to South Africa awhile back before moving to Tsumeb to settle in Namibia. Some people are really nice around here and will find you so fascinating if you say you are from the US. It is pretty weird sometimes but it makes for some interesting conversation.

Anyways, we spent the rest of the day laying in a park reading and waiting for the bus to come. We finally boarded the Intercape, a bus that runs around Southern Africa, and were on our way to Livingstone in Zambia which was the first step of our journey. After a long 19 hours on the bus we finally were in Zambia! Something so interesting to me that I observed throughout this trip were the different border crossings. We did a lot of them throughout the week and they were all so different. The Zambia border one was the weirdest. You would go to one post in order to exit Namibia and then they made you walk down this long dirt road to the Zambia post. You just had to sign your name in a notebook and hand them your passport and money which they would then write in another book and then you were done. It was so casual and much less strict than anywhere in the US. After all of that we finally arrived at Jolly Boys Backpackers in Livingstone Zambia! It was a pretty hip hostel and was filled with people from all over. We were in a room of 16 people the majority of who I think were from England. Our first night there we went on a beautiful sunset cruise complete with snacks, dinner, and free drinks! It was a wonderful start to the trip and started us all off on a great note.

Boarding our boat for the sunset cruise!

Springbok 2013 Friends!

Such beautiful scenery!

So great!

We spent the first half of our second day of spring break at the Zambia side of Victoria Falls. Victoria Falls is this huge and incredible waterfall that is located on the border of Zambia and Zimbabwe. It was absolutely amazing and another thing I will never be able to describe in words. It was the highest season for the water so they were crazy and so strong! You get soaked by the "mist" of the waterfalls which is actually a full on downpour in some areas. We had to wear protective raincoats and they made us look like we were in Hogwarts which I got a kick out of. It was one of the most incredible things I have ever seen! After we explored the Zambia side of the Falls we checked out of Jolly Boys Backpackers and started our journey to Zimbabwe. This was probably one of the weirdest border crossings I have EVER done. We took a taxi to the border and then did the whole check out of Zambia thing and they then told us to walk down the road until we saw the Zimbabwe border post. Little did we know we would be walking down the longest and weirdest, most abandoned road of our lives. It was so hot and we didn't realize how long the road would be. There was mist everywhere from the falls and we were the only people to be seen except for some warthogs that we ran into (how funny!). After what felt like forever, we finally got through the Zimbabwe border post and passed through. The borders are just so strange here! We made it to our hostel, Shoestrings Backpackers and relaxed for the rest of the night after a crazy day. The next morning we went to Victoria Falls on the Zimbabwe side and it was SO amazing yet again! I just cannot describe how incredible it was in words and pictures still can't do them justice. I am so glad that I got to experience one of these crazy world wonders! (Sorry for the billion pictures but hope you enjoy!)

Zambia side of Victoria Falls!

Such fast flowing waters!                                     

Me and Anneke at the top of the Falls!

View from the top of the Falls overlooking where they go down. So intense!

Our random warthog friend from crossing the Zambia/Zimbabwe border

Me at the top of the Falls!

Hannah, me and Anneke in our Hogwarts robes!

Springbok 2013 takes on Victoria Falls!

So incredible

Love these people!

Me in front of the Falls

So much water!!

Successful two days exploring Victoria Falls!

Victoria Falls was definitely one of the coolest things I have ever seen. I could have stayed and just walked around for hours. We also almost got attacked by a herd of baboons but that's another story...

Our next day in Zimbabwe was definitely one of my FAVORITE days of my entire life! For those of you who really know me you know how much I LOVE animals. Well I had signed up to do a lion walk in the morning and elephant rides in the afternoon! Doesn't get much better than this! Hannah and I woke up at 6 am to drive to our lion walk adventure. We were with a group of other people, mostly all over the age of 50, who were on a trip exploring Southern Africa. Lots of them were from the US so it was fun to talk and exchange stories. We learned a lot about this lion reserve who's main purpose is to help train orphaned lions and teach them about hunting and living in the wild. They raise them from when they are babies and let them interact with humans before they are put out into other larger national parks or reserves. We were briefed on safety things before actually getting to see the lions (which was important). We were even given sticks to protect ourselves but in reality I don't think they would have done very much if any of these lions decided to attack me...good thing there were no problems! We were introduced to two 13 month old twin sister lions. They were so majestic and I was just amazed that I was so close to them. We would watch them play and interact and we took a 30 minute walk through the beautiful reserve with them. We got to walk right next to them, pet them, and pose for pictures at the end. They were SO well behaved! I also learned a lot about lions and how they grow up along with different habits they have. In some of the pictures you may notice that the lions are playing in/eating elephant poop. Lions do this in order to mask their scent so predators don't realize they are coming. The two lions were just rolling around and eating it which was pretty gross but also cool and a great tool to survive in the wild! They were just so beautiful and I wish we could have been with them longer! I also wish I got to see some baby lion cubs but I probably would have just tried to take one home...These were only 13 months old but already SO BIG! Can you imagine how huge they get when full grown?? This experience took my cat loving to a whole new level :)

Such beautiful creatures!

Just two sister lions playing and rolling around in some elephant poop.

Walking right behind the lions!

So cool!

Hannah and I with our new friend :)

Just casually walking around

One of the coolest pictures ever! The lion was yawning, I swear!

So in love

Such a crazy experience!

Uh...she was yawning again, I swear she wasn't trying to eat me!

So well behaved, just watching us in the distance

Us with our new friends!

The coolest day ever was not over after the lions! In the afternoon, after visiting Victoria Falls on the Zimbabwe side, the 5 of us went on elephant rides! It was about a 45 minute ride where we roamed through another reserve and even saw other animals while riding the elephants like giraffes and springbok! I rode on a smaller elephant who was adorable. It just felt like riding a horse but way bigger. Since we were in a group of 5, I was the odd one out and rode with a random lady from Germany who was by herself. Turns out we both had basically the same color hair which made it really funny. It is always nice to meet new people and talk about why they are where they are throughout these trips. Elephants are so adorable and I really enjoyed the ride. They are actually really vicious creatures sometimes as we saw on my rural homestay farm but these were tame and well behaved. It was definitely a day to remember!

View from our elephant

Cool shadows!

Me and my new friend on top of our cute little elephant

Nan and Hannah with their elephant                         

Joe and Anneke with their elephant

Feeding my elephant!

The cutest

Look at that trunk!

Just chilling

Wish I could take her home!                       

All in all, Zambia and Zimbabwe were INCREDIBLE. We had already done so much and we were only about 4 days into our trip! Our next stop was Maun, Botswana where we would take an overnight canoe safari camping trip. Getting to Maun from Zimbabwe was a little hectic and involved some hitch hiking, bus riding, and crowded van rides but after a long day of traveling, we made it to Maun! Whenever we would explain to people that we were trying to get from Zimbabwe to Maun in one day they would say it was impossible or just give us strange looks. Well guess what?! We did it! After a super long day of traveling we arrived at Old Bridge Backpackers in Maun, Botswana. It was super nice there and we had the best travel luck ever. We were supposed to stay in another dorm type thing with lots of other people but they said they upgraded us to their luxury tents! They were these huge tents with two twin beds inside and an open air shower that looked straight up into the stars. We also had an incredible view of the water right from our tent! It was so beautiful and I am glad we got upgraded! We relaxed that night at the hostel after eating some delicious burgers and some tasty wine and just reflected on the past couple of days. Our trip was going so smoothly and we were all still getting along so well, it was perfect!

The next day we packed up some stuff and were ready for our overnight camping trip. We rode in these dug out wooden canoes known as mokoros and took a 2 hour ride down the Okavango Delta to our campsite. This was absolutely breathtaking and so beautiful and relaxing! We arrived at our campsite nestled deep in the middle of the Delta and set up our tents. We took walking safaris with our guide through the wilderness and these were crazy!! We were just walking through the grass and delta and were right up close to herds of zebras, wildebeests, elephants, and giraffes. It felt so cool to just be so in touch with nature and close to these incredible animals. We took two of these walking safaris, one during sunset and one the next day at sunrise and they were some of the most beautiful skies I have ever seen. We spent some more time swimming in the Delta or just reading peacefully at our campsite and we were soon back on our way to Old Bridge Backpackers. The Mokoro trip was so incredible and relaxing and I am definitely glad we chose to do this!

The outside of our cool luxury tents at Old Bridge!

A wonderful night of relaxing, journaling, and wine

View from our Mokoro!

Beautiful sky!

Breathtaking 

Sunrise safari walk

Trekking through the Delta

Joe and Hannah on their Mokoro

Picture of me and my hat to prove to my mom I wear it! (Hi Mom!)

Anneke on our Mokoro

So picturesque 

No edits at all, such an incredible sunset!

Zebras!

I will miss these skies!

Herd of giraffes staring us down. Such beautiful creatures!

From Botswana we had to make the tough ride back to Windhoek, which many warned us would not be easy. We ended up finding a kombi to drive us to the border of Botswana/Namibia which was so nice. It was a pretty strange ride but we made it to the border! Once we crossed the border we weren't really sure about how we would get to Windhoek from here. We happened to see a big bus of people crossing the border with us and thought it was worth a shot to ask where they were going. Turns out they were on their way to Windhoek and had some extra seats! It was perfect and such great timing. Saved us a lot of stress for the rest of the trip home. It pays off to talk to people and share rides! When we finally arrived back in Windhoek and made it to the CGE house it felt so great! We got to relax for a couple of days before starting classes again.

Spring break was really an incredible experience and it was so cool to be able to hitch hike and find our way through so many countries! We were able to take a week off and plan exactly what we wanted to do and I wouldn't change anything. Who else can say in one week that they went to Namibia, Zambia, Zimbabwe, AND Botswana?! I feel so lucky and am so happy everything worked out smoothly throughout the trip. Looking back, I am still amazed that we made it all work and got to experience so many amazing things! This was definitely a trip to remember!