Christmas vacation – Part 2

Wow, it’s January 20th, and I’m still not finished writing about Christmas. Well, that’s what happens during audit season I guess. Maybe I’ll get around to writing about audit season by February. Anyhow, when I left off, we were just leaving Tanzania. The night before we left, too late to actually do anything about it, I remarked to Mike and Leah that we might not have enough US cash to pay for our Zambian visas at the border. We had originally thought that we would get them free with our hotel stay as promised on the internet, but as we found out quite frequently, the promises made by this hotel on their website didn’t amount to much, including actually getting the rooms we booked (but more on that later) Anyhow, once we realized we had to pay for the visas, we pooled our US cash together and it amounted to $123. Visas were $40 each, so we were ok. Except, when we got to the border, it turns out visa prices went up to $55 each. How we got the extra money is a bit of a story, which I don’t want to relive, including ripoff artists disguised as money changers, a helpful bus driver, Tanzanian shillings, Malawian kwacha, some questionable American cash, an obtuse border guard. But we got through without completely losing our tempers, and made our way to Lusaka, the capital of Zambia. One thing I will say is that Scandanavia buslines from Tanzania to Lusaka was far and away the best bus we rode on. No people in the aisles falling asleep on my shoulder, no bags falling on my head. There was even a scratchy movie shown which I couldn’t hear and could barely see, but at least the effort was there. So after a short stop in Lusaka, we caught a bus to Livingstone, the site of Victoria Falls. We had booked rooms at Fawlty Towers Lodge. The accommodations were fine, but the service was not all that great, and we had some problems. The rooms we had booked online were filled by an email booking. (I know all you Seinfeld fans are remembering Jerry’s incident with the rental car, and probably remembering that moment was the thing that kept me from losing it on the receptionist) But they found spaces for us, so all was well. The first night, we went out for a fancy steak dinner, and then back to rest, as the bus left for the Falls early the next morning. So, the next day, we hopped on the bus and headed to see the Falls. It is low tide season, so the waterfalls were a bit less impressive than the pictures we saw, but then we got to see more of the rocks and more of the land. Much more impressive than Niagara Falls, if you’re wondering. We spent the morning hiking around various trails that provided different views of the Falls, and then sought shelter from the rain (read: torrential downpour) By midafternoon, we were pretty hungry, and stumbled upon a very fancy hotel that graciously let us have their amazing lunch buffet at half price. Ham, beef, chicken, salmon, some great vegetable dishes. Incredible. Near the hotel, we ran across some zebras just strolling past. Pretty amazing to see animals like that up close. It was a good preview for our walking safari the next day. After the zebras, the rain had let up a bit, so we went and took a few more looks at the Falls, and then went back to a bar near the hotel for some drinks (where they played some bizarre mix of Western music, some of which was pretty cool)

The next morning was New Year’s Eve, and we started it off with a walking safari. Very cool nature hike where we got to see some neat birds, a few interesting butterflies, a large snake (that came a little too close for comfort for one of the girls in our group). But we also got to see some pretty cool animals. The feature of the park is a pair of rhinos (which everyone tells me is very rare, so I’m lucky to have seen them) but the more cool animals for me were the giraffes and the wildebeests (only because the Wilde Beest is my favourite roller coaster at Canada’s Wonderland.) Anyhow, after the walk, we went back and rested a bit. For New Year’s Eve, I kept alive a tradition that Leslie and I started 5 years ago, of spending the night in quiet reflection and thanksgiving for the year past, and speculation about the year ahead. I missed Leslie and my friends from home, but Mike, Leah and I were able to have a good time, even without a guitar for worshiping or anything. At midnight, we decided to venture out to grab a drink, and brought in the New Year at a nearby bar that had a theme night of school uniforms (where a surprising number of people actually wore different uniforms.) After a couple drinks and a bunch of really cheesy music (just like home!) we took off. The next few days were fairly low key, as we were basically winding down and making our way back to work after the holiday. After one more night in Livingstone, and one night in Lusaka, we were headed our separate ways (Leah back to Tanzania, Mike and I back to Malawi). After one last bus ride (which left 8 hours late, was the quality of the school bus I rode as a kid, and broke down a few times), I was finally back, exhausted from the traveling but glad to have seen and done everything we managed to accomplish. And then the audits started…. More on that later.