Zambia Recap Part 3

There are few things as strange as waking up in Africa for the first time!  We walked out of our room and all over the grounds there were monkeys, zebras, and giraffes milling around. 

We went and had a big breakfast with fresh squeezed OJ (a staple for us over the next few days), coffee, and African Red Tea.  The food was really good, but also interesting.  You could tell that they were trying to cook western food, but it was always just slightly different than we expected.

I'll attack the next few days' activities a couple of days at a time because in all honesty, a lot of it was a blur at first while we were adjusting to the climate and time difference.

The first day we went to get a peek at the Falls.  The hotel we stayed in was on the National Park grounds, so we had easy walking access to the trails that go around Victoria Falls.  As we approached it on foot for the first time, we started to understand why people had raincoats on.  We were able to see only about 5% of the falls without getting soaked (including the camera).  We snapped some pics and decided to come back at a time that we were more prepared to get drenched.

The really strange thing about the Falls is that you can stand directly accross from it, so all the spray is coming right at you!  I'll share more about that later in the post.

We decided since we had the camera with us that we would just hike around and see what we could see.  A nice Zambian park worker offered to guide us down to the Boiling Pot, 400 ft below.  As we decended it got more and more humid.  Zambia at that time of year is in winter, but with the 24/7/365 mist from the falls, the area is more like a rainforest than savanna.

When we finally reached the bottom we saw where the entire water fall converged and continued the border between Zambia and Zimbabwe.

The hike back up was tiring because we were drenched from sweat caused by the humidity (and our lack of fitness).  When we got back up top we showered up and rested.

We had a lot of opportunity to read while we were there, and I'm very thankful for the opportunity to rest and prepare our hearts and minds for the work we would be doing.  One of the books I read was Bruchko by Bruce Olson.  This book was very empowering because it tells the story of a 19 year old kid who felt the Lord call him to walk blindly into South America to find a murderous tribe called the Motilones.  The story of his time there is riddled with what we would assume are mistakes and bad signs, but the Lord used Bruce's willingness to do His work, and God was glorified because of it.  Great read, pick it up!

The next post will be about our river and land safari in Botswana on and around the Chobe river.

Zambia Recap Part 2

The second leg of our flight was a little tougher than the first. It was still British Airways, and we had the "luxury" of sitting on an exit row by the emergency exit, but the air at 38,000 feet is really, REALLY cold. We froze. Plus we didn't sleep much, because you can only get so much rest in the sitting position. 

The sun was coming up as we circled to land in Lusaka, Zambia and we saw Africa for the first time. The sky is crystal blue, and we saw small trails of smoke coming up from individual cooking/trash fires all over the city. We would later see these up close and realize they arent as charming at ground level. We landed event free and taxied to our "spot" on the tarmac. We walked down the steps and it hit us: we're in Africa! 

The lines were really long for customs, and somehow, though we were one of the first couples inside, Taylor was officially the last person through. With an all paper system you wonder why they bother with receipts, but we needed the receipt so that we could get back into Zambia from Botswana, but you'll hear more about that in a later post.

Susan, the director of Family Legacy met us at the airport door. She said the airport was the best spot to exchange our money, so K1,000,000 ($200) later, we were on a FMLI bus headed to the bus station.

For this next section it is important to review the timetable leading up to this moment: 10 hour flight, 8 hour layover that included navigating Heathrow Airport and the Underground network, 12 hour frozen flight to Lusaka, a couple of hours in line at the customs office, and now the icing on the cake, an 8 hour public bus ride through rural Africa!!! God bless Susan for her help, because Lord only knows where we'd be right now if she hadn't physically put us on the bus! She reserved us the front 2 seats on the highest level bus (TV, air conditioning, only 2 stops) but that bus didn't show up. They also had sold our same seats to 2 other couples. Its almost like they sold as much as they could, then tried to fix it just enough to get moving and hopefully come out on top. With Susan's persistence we found ourselves in the front seat of a non-air conditioned bus which intended to make about 7 stops on the way to Livingstone, Zambia. I used the restroom at one stop, Amanda (God Bless her) didn't go at all because she was worried someone would take our bags or that she would get left by the bus (both very real possibilities!). About 2 hours before our destination the road got very spotty, and we off-roaded the last 100 km or so.

But then we saw the "smoke" of Mosi oa Tunya, Victoria Falls, and we were finally there!

The next post will pick back up after the world's BEST shower (because we hadn't had one in over 48 hours) and a day and a half of sleep.

Zambia Recap Part 1

Muli bwangi!

We are back, rested, and still processing our two weeks in Zambia. First and foremost, thank you to all who prayed for us during our trip. Your prayers were felt and appreciated!

Over the next couple of weeks we will be posting stories and pictures from Zambia. It all starts with getting there…

We left Dallas June 12th around 5:30 pm. My sister Lindsay and her 6 month old Tanner graciously brought us to the airport in her husband’s truck, which had a bed FULL of luggage totaling 9 bags. The flight was on-time; no problems with customs or baggage. Our bags were all under 48 pounds, so no extra fees. Thank God! While in the airport at Terminal D the US was playing England in the first game of the group stages for the world cup. At this point I thought “oh cool, I’m glad I got to see this before I got to Africa”. Little did I realize how much soccer fanaticism I would see over the next couple of weeks!

But that’s a tangent, I’ll get back to our trip. We flew British Airways, which let me tell you is just lovely (to borrow a commonly heard phrase). Good food, all the drinks we wanted/needed, and they upgraded my seat to middle class so I would have more leg room. I love the Brits!

We settled in without a care, and 10 ours later we landed at Heathrow in London. It was 8:30 am London time, but 3:30 am Dallas time. We had a 10 hour layover, so we ran into town to see it as quickly as possible.

We got freshened up in the airport, and caught the Underground into London. It took about an hour, but we made it to the Notting Hill Gate station just in time to meet our bike tour group. Our tour lasted 4 hours and went through the Royal Park system.

We saw Kensington Palace, Albert Memorial, the Houses of Parliament, Buckingham Palace, Westminster Abbey, Big Ben, Trafalgar Square, and many more sights.

There were about 20 people in our group, and we got to know a great couple from Florida named Ray and Shawna.

After the tour we grabbed coffee at Starbucks (the last one we saw until we returned to London) and headed back to Heathrow for our 7:30 pm flight.