PanicVantura to Hot-lanta to Jo'BurgWelcome to South AfricaVictoria FallsFirst SafariMicrolightsChobe Safari LodgeChobe Game DrivesMoremi Game ReserveCape Town, South Africa
Embed trip
View in Google Earth
Rss news about this trip
GPX Track
Journal
Location
Livingstone, Zambia
We got up at about 7 and were immediately shuttled in a sweet Mercedes van to a resort with a short dirt airstrip where we were again welcomed by a young Marimba player. The resort was the launch point for both helicopter and microlight tours. Nic and I elected to do the microlight based on recommendations from the Spaniard who we hung out with on the boat safari yesterday. We put on some sweet jump suits and took to the air behind the pimpin local pilots. The microlight tours were TOTALLY AWESOME. We each did a few loops around the falls and got a totally different perspective from the air. We also did a few laps around one of the large islands in the middle of the river and we were able to see a lot of elephants, hippos, and crocs (crikey!?) from the air. When we get back to Ventura, we are definitely learning to fly these things at the local school. Way too much fun. Don’t tell Nicci’s mom!
Since only two microlights were flying at a time (the rest had suffered horrible fatal crashes earlier in the morning!!!....not really), we had some down time on the ground while the rest of our group was airborne. I got a quick Marimba lesson from the kid who greeted us on the way in. It was fun, and surprisingly easy…at first…until he tried to have me play some slightly more advanced bass parts while he did the treble....way harder than it looks. We also got to watch an awesome piston driven helicopter take off for a tour.
When our group was done at the airstrip, we headed back to the Fawlty Towers hostel. We grabbed some brunch from the hostel kitchen, and then spent the next several hours chilling by the pool. As usual, Nicci channeled her inner reptile and followed the sun as it arced around the pool while I stuck to the shady bushy spots. Robin called us with the news that “her flight had taken off without her while she was right there in the terminal”…suuuure Robin. As I was chatting with Robin (and writing this!), Nicci kept reminding me to go reserve the evening booze cruise from her comatose position across the pool, face down in a plush chaise lounge. Robin was able to work out a flight to Livingstone on Tuesday, and so we helped her cancel her first night reservations and find a place in Jo’burg for the night.
When I walked into the front desk to help coordinate for Robin, the pickup driver for the evening booze cruise stopped by and the desk told me that it was too late to register for the trip. I walked out to give Nic the bad news, and without raising her head or opening her eyes she simply mumbled “your fault”. With this encouragement, I sprang into action and asked the driver of the pickup if there was still any room on the cruise. He indicated that there was, and so Nic SPRANG into action (amazing…comatose to tazmanian devil in 1.37 seconds) and changed into her clothes while I reserved the trip through a different person at the front office. I went to change my clothes, while Nic tried to hustle me out the door for fear that we would miss our ride…hah…like that would happen! Sure enough, we made it to the front as the truck was taking off down the street. The doorman was somehow able to hail it down by hailing a guy further down the street, who whistled to a guy even further down the street, who flagged the driver. We ran down the block and hopped into the single passenger seat since the back of the truck was totally full.
We arrived at the dock near an opulent luxury resort, where we paid our money and boarded the boat. The cruise was pretty sweet. We didn’t see too much wildlife, but we had plenty of free drinks and we met a lot of cool people. We met a group from Maryland who were in the country doing some cool AIDS education (stop-the-spread.com), a team of weirdos from Philly, some Spaniard honeymooners, a Canadian couple, and a dirty flirty South African 20 year old succubus (reminded us of Lindsey Lohan…and she was into Nicci!). We ended the day’s activities watching a nice sunset on the Zambezi River.
Cheers!
Code and Nic
Comments |
Log in to add comment |
No comments