Livingston, Zambia

Next stop after Botswana was Livingston, Zambia, home of Victoria Falls. Botswana and Zambia are separated by a river, and despite Botswana being one of the more wealthy African countries, no bridge has ever been built across. They kick it old school with huge ferries. Apparently some truckers have to sit in a lineup for 3 days before they can get across.
We had 5 days to kill there, so we took it easy for a few days before heading out on any activities. First one was the bungee jump. The platform is on the bridge which joins Zambia and Zimbabwe, about 120m above the river...very high. Despite feeling pretty good about the whole thing, it hit me the moment we walked on to the bridge how high it was.

Classic form...
The face says it all...

Zip line over the canyon...a little more relaxing.
View from the bridge...
The next evening as part of the trip there was a dinner and booze cruise

Mark and T both went on safari walks which turned out to be a guaranteed up close with a rhino. The rhino is followed 24 hours a day to protect it from poachers since the other one on the reserve was killed months earlier. It also had a dislocated knee, so it wasn't too hard to keep up with.

This guy is who the poachers get to deal with. Literally "shoot to kill" if they see a poacher because the poachers will shoot them otherwise. Ridiculous.
Our campsite was full of these monkeys which although very cute at first, turned out to be little punks. They would run after you screeching if you they sensed any fear. The security guards at the sight said they best way to show them who's boss is to give them a quick yank on the tail. And definitely don't leave valuable lying around, for some reason all monkeys can sense when something is expensive.

Mark's beard was really coming into full force by this point.

Our last day there was a trip to the falls. The overhead shot is courtesy of someone who went on a helicopter ride...a little rich for our blood.

The falls were really impressive, though actually hard to see at times because of all the mist.


For the most part, there was so much it just felt like it was raining the whole time..but a nice warm rain.

Chobe River, Botswana

We got to the next campsite in the early afternoon, which was a nice change from the all day drives. After a nice little siesta and some time in the pool, we headed out on a boat cruise down the Chobe River which is part of a national park.


No shortage of baboons...


Elephants were everywhere as well. It was a nice change from the dry barren pan in Namibia. Everywhere was lush and green.


A hippo got a little too close to one of the babies...

But for the most part, the elephants didn't really care how close you got.

Baboons, antelopes, and elephants and hippos, all living in harmony.

And apparently elephants can swim..and quite well. Who knew.

Elephant Sands Camp Site, Botswana

Elephant Sands game reserve and campground was a quick one night stop on the trip. As you can see allot of the campsites that we stayed at were really roughing it. Good thing though cause the rumours are true, Africa is hot.

After arriving and setting up our tents at the campsite we loaded onto a couple of trucks for a game drive. Good thing they had ice for our cooler, that could of been close.

Botswana had record setting amounts of rain during this time of year which caused some problems (road used to be here).

Luckily we were in the right type of vehicles.

The campsite name turned out to be misleading being that we didn't see any elephants or any other wildlife there for that matter. Regardless the ride and the sunset were good times.

Kruger National Park, South Africa

Our next stop on the truck was to Kruger National Park and it did not disappoint. Both the landscape and the wildlife were amazing. These cubs were hanging out about 20 feet from were our vehicle had stopped. Not a bad way to start the day.

We didn't blink first.

The elephants got extremely close to the vehicles and where we stopped to have lunch. Mark was very pleased.

Having a few beers, just another day at the office.

Thorny Bush Private Game Reserve, South Africa

After long anticipation, the Acacia tour was finally upon us. We met up with the rest of the crew in Jo'Burg, 24 people and two guides in all, and headed out in a truck for the next 30 days.

First stop on after a days driving was a private game reserve. We headed out in open top safari jeeps with a tracker on the front.

For about the first hour all we managed to find was a warthog who had himself a rough day.

One of the cool things in that all the trucks in park had radios and would alert each other if they found anything. Didn't take long before we found some elephants who didn't seem to care that we were there.



And about a month later since we last checked, T is still working on the smile. I've suggested sticking with some of his earlier looks.

Just before dusk we stumbled upon a heard of buffalo about 30 meters off the trail. And the beauty of a private game reserve is that they took a hard right and drove right into the middle of the pack. These buffalo were big fellas...pretty cool.



We continued after dark with a spotlight, which is apparently the best way to see leopards (nocturnal). Leopard sightings....zero.

Umzumbe / Thirnan's 24 B Day

Umzumbe, a beach/surfing town was our next stop along the coast. The hostel that we stayed at was quite nice with a pool, hot tub, and a nice bar. To save money we decided to camp on there grounds instead of staying in a dorm. Just to avoid confusion the tent that we have been carrying around on the trip is the one on the right. On the Baz Bus we happened to meet up with a group of 4 people that were traveling together (2 Brits and 2 Aussies) and going to the same hostel as us.

Billy's birthday was on the same day as mine, Feb. 2 (Groundhog Day) so we decided to do it up right. Thanks to Kim for the cake.

Splitting up into two teams (Project T and Plan B) we decided to have a beer games olympics. The teams were drawn from a hat in a very official manner. Thanks to Kimmy for being the photographer for the evening.

Beer pong Team T killed it.

We had 9 events all together but after Team T won the first 5 Plan B was forced to forfit.
Sorry Marieka it's not cheating if its a manikin. It was the blonde hair and the german features that fooled him.

That just about sums it all up for Team T.

Das your a great guy but I thought the British could drink. Don't worry about loosing it for your team how could anybody ever stay mad at that face. I know I can't.