Zambia

With a few bumps and hiccups we arrived in Lusaka! Country 72 🙂

After buying a SIM card and drinking a beer while it activated, we could finally use the Zambian equivalent of Uber to get a ride to our hotel. It worked. Sort of. Took a while for someone to accept our request and then we had to pay in local currency – the exact thing we’d wanted to avoid…

We booked another safari in South Luangwa National Park in Zambia’s north as who knows when we’ll get this personal with elephants again. So right back to the airport, which we zoomed to because the roads were clear as the president about to land and drive into the city. Mind you our flight was delayed for the same reason 😜.

First observations – this park has more poo than animals. Second observation – in a pack, there is often one animal on its own a distance away. We’re calling it Fred. Hippo example below. We are still getting up at 6am to eat and rush off for a drive around to spot animals. No idea how long we can keep this up. In the evenings we genially caught the sunset, had sundowners and then a night drive where a spotter shines a very powerful light into the trees to see night animals. We have been known to drink Gordon’s on safari 🙂 Best animal scene: while parked to drink morning coffee, we saw tons of baboons and impala out on the plains. Suddenly a few got up to run away. Then more and finally every single one was on a tear in the same direction. As if a bomb had just gone off. It did in the form of wild dogs, snarling and barking. Right in the middle of everyone. The plain cleared out and then they all came back the other way. No one was hurt but what a show.

We also saw giraffes cross a river. Except for Fred, far left, who eventually turned back.