Epic Southern Africa Adventure with the Rainbow Coalition

Holla lovers and friends!

So sorry I've been really bad about updating recently! It's been weeks since my safari adventure and I have yet to write about it, but here it comes, memories might be a little fuzzy by now so be warned... 

April 1- April Fools Day! 

We left for our last minute safari during our Mid Semester (Spring) Break with Adventure Travels, an Australian travel agency through which we "thought" we got an amazing deal. "We" being me, Shanell (a saucy well-travelled Black sista from Pittsburg with sarcasm/wit that could eat through metal), Alma (a Mexican sweetheart who goes to USC and has a heart of gold), and of course, Lindsey (road dog numero uno). We call ourselves the "Rainbow Coalition" because we have our token white, asian, black and hispanic components to our quartet. It's funny because South Africa is known as the Rainbow Coalition because of the post apartheid interracial concessions they had to make. 

Anyways, we had to book all our own travel arrangements and were scrambling to get everything done in time. We all had papers/projects due, classes to attend, anti malarial pills to buy, money to exchange (South African banks suck by the way, we spent 2 entire days and went to 3 banks to try to get US dollars only to be turned away from all of them... :/), and gear to pack. Literally, Lindsey and Alma were writing their papers until the last second- Alma threw some luggage into a suitcase and ran out the door, Lindsey found out she was a victim of credit card fraud an hour before we had to leave (what a crappy april fools joke, eh?) and so didn't end up turning in two papers and literally jumped into a cab after seriously contemplating rolling around in fetal position all break instead. 

We all had different flights in Johannesburg, SA which is where our safari was scheduled to leave from because we all tried to find last minute cheap flights. My flight on British airways was the earliest flight of the 4 and we were late to the airport so as soon our taxi touched the airport, I bolted to my gate. Out of breath, I got to the British Airways booth and handed the lady my passport. She's looking at my passport for a suspiciously long time and asks if this ticket is for me. I'm annoyed and all sweaty I'm like "Of course this ticket is for me, who else would it be for?" She then hands back the passport to me and it's a picture of a smiling black chick! AGHAHGHHHHHHGHGHGHHHHHH!!!!!!!! I have Shanell's passport because our passports got swapped when we were trying to exchange currency at the bank- I run at light speed back to the entrance of the airport praying that Shanell will still be around there and thank god I find them at an ATM, get my ID and run over in time to catch my plane! :) Someone up there is watching out for me! 

My flight itself was AWESOME, a short 2 hours during which they showed TV shows and even served dinner (I love airplane food... so cute!). 2 glasses of wine later and a quick flip through some awesome airmall mags, we were landing. I then met up with the girls in the airport and we went to a cafe to get some chow. Then we happily find out that the man we were supposed to stay with for the night in Joburg isn't picking up his phone and there are no hostels available- pretty much we're screwed. We end up staying the night in the airport amongst the many homeless men that sleep there and have an incredibly uncomfortable and claustrophobic night of cold, nervous napping. At 6 in the morning, we catch a taxi to meet our safari vehicle at a hostel in town and are greeted oh so hospitably by our driver, Blessed and our tour guide, Fiona with "YOU GUYS ARE LATE!" crap. this safari is going to suck. 

Our booking was done through Adventure Travels, but was actually with Acacia Safari on the ground. Overall, Fiona was a majorly sucky tour guide. She wasn't that friendly, wasn't very informative and told us everything last minute. She had this really annoying habit of saying "yea????" after everything she said... literally. it was freaking annoying. "We're leaving you if you aren't back in 10 minutes, yea???" NOOOOO, ho. jeez.  Our driver Blessed had a pretty twisted sense of humor, he was always being mean to us but in a half joking way, it took us a while to figure him out. He ended up being a pretty chill dude though- introduced us to some good Bob Marley and told us some crazy stories about nearly dying while being a guide for rich European hunters around the campfire. He was also eaten by hippos (had his canoe bitten in half instead...), trampled by a elephant, and his brother almost had his guts ripped open by a leopard... pretty cool, eh?

Also, because we did everything so last minute, we forgot to bring flashlights and sleeping bags (Adventure told us they'd provide...) so basically this safari was 5 awesome nights of shivering without sleeping bags, being covered in mosquito bites, and needing to pee but being  too scared to go outside without a flashlight, stepping on an angry hippo and getting eaten....

Nice side note about antimalarial pills by the way- they make you nauseous and hallucinate in your sleep. The first night we slept in our campsite, our tent was pitch pitch black and I went to sleep pissy (I'm scared of the dark, bite me...) and ended up having night terrors that I was trapped in a cave and needed to get supplies and started waving my arms frantically in my sleep, hitting Lindsey all over her head and body and then grabbed her hand in a panic yelling "WHERE AM I? WHERE AM I? WHY IS IT SO DARK? IS THIS YOU, LINDS??" oh jesus, i am the biggest spaz on earth. 

To make things snappy here's a list of all the activities we did on the safari:

Kruger National Park (North Eastern South Africa) 

* Night Game Drive: AWESOME!!!!! most kickass thing ever- we saw huge black and yellow spiders with webs that stretched across roads, tons of buffalo (who are apparently some of strongest and most aggressive animals in Africa), antelope, giraffes and coolest of all- a freaking lion eating a wildebeest, it was the sickest thing on earth!!!!! National Geographic in real time, baby! We were literally no further than 10 feet away from the lion who was just tearing away at a wildebeest carcass, all this in the beauty of the African sunset 

heart racing and adrenaline pumping to be sure! 

* Morning Game Drive: Saw a ton of wildlife including herds of buffalo, antelope, kudu, eland, giraffe, elephants (!!!), was pretty long- everyone fell asleep toward the end to the disappointment of our poor driver

Botswana

* Early Morning Nature Walk- Super cool nature walk through the bush with a mad cool informative guide- saw a herd of antelope, elephant caca, elephant mud baths, wild dog/giraffe tracks, and more! So much fun! 

* Night Cruise on the Zambian River- We thought this was supposed to be a booze cruise and was super bummed when our boat was a dodgy platform with a motor on it with no booze in sight... :/ We saw some awesome sights though! Huge herds of elephants and impala passing through on the bank, lots of baboons (mommas and babies), monitor lizard, kingfisher birds, and most exciting- a scary huge herd of hippos! 

Zambia (Livingstone) 

*JollyBoys Backpacker's Hostel- Sounds sketchy, but was AMAZING!! Huge facility, outdoor 2 level pool, sunbathing deck, huge pillow chill out zone, internet cafe, laundry area, bar, etc... perfection basically... You also meet the strangest and coolest people in hostels- dudes biking from Cairo to Cape Town, generous huge Lebanese South Africans who shared their hookah and alcohol, crazy drunken British youngsters, and one weird but cool German dude are a few. 

Livingstone itself is an awesome city- feels like a real African city with colorful outdoor markets, dirt roads, etc, unlike Cape Town which really Westernized and diverse. 

*Victoria Falls- The most beautiful and breathtaking thing I saw on the trip. Amazing. Tropical. Lush. Sublime. It made the trip- we hiked all over the park for an entire day and came back the next night to see the lunar rainbow. The lunar rainbow only happens 8 times a year when there is a full moon- the light reflecting off the moon creates a faint rainbow effect at night. Rainbow at night... who woulda thunk? Pretty sick though. We hiked down to the "boiling pot" of Vic Falls as well, which was one hell of a hike, we trudged across rivers, through the forest, and through butterfly covered valleys, it was really the most beautiful thing, exhausting though. This area has gotten the most rain in over 40 years so Vic Falls was literally bursting at its seams- everyone got completely drenched by the spray of the waterfalls. A lot of hotels and lodges surrounding the Zambezi River are underwater because of the intensity of the flooding. 

*Mukuni Village- A young Zambian man (Javan) our friends, Lixanne and Marshall, met at a crafts fair offered to show us around and take us to a traditional Zambian village. We went to Chief Mukuni Village and got a tour around the royal quarters and walked around the village- saw the hospital, the school, the houses, craft market, etc. It was really sad to see the craft market, desperation in the vendors eyes because of the tapering of rich tourists to the village...It was a holiday the day we visited so the children of the village didn't have school. They absolutely mobbed us! They nearly tore Alma limb from limb when she offered one of them a ballpoint pen. We played with them and they rushed at the chance to hold our hands, they are so cute but their poverty was really apparent. Signs around their school said phrases like "AIDS kills" and "Abstinence is good". Pretty intense, serves as a symbol of how much AIDS is devastating rural areas such as this. 

* Lion Encounter- Alma and Shanell decided to go gorge swinging (throwing themselves off a huge cliff over the Zambezi River) while me and Linds opted instead to go for the less adrenaline pumping lion encounter. We got to stroll and play with three 1 year old girl lions in the bush. It was KICKASS. It was the most amazing thing I've ever done in my life. They were so cute and sweet and playful!!!!! I fell in love, completely and utterly- head over heels in love! I got to stroke their heads and back, hold on to their tails, and watch them play! OMG kill me, I'm in heaven. If I can, I'm definitely going to go back and volunteer for the non profit that sponsors the program. It's actually part of a lion rehabilitation program that work to reintroduce domestic cubs into the wild, so I didn't feel like part of a shameless money making tourist-y activity. GLEE!

Headed back to Cape Town after 5 days in Livingstone. Took a 2 day epic bus journey from Livingstone to Windhoek (Namibia) and then from Windhoek to Cape Town. 

5 countries in 2 weeks. not too shabby. :)

<3