Elephants and zebras and monkeys, oh my!

Hello All! We arrived back from our trip to the safari in Zambia last night. Oh my, we had so much fun! It was unbelievable, and I fear that this blog entry will not do it justice, but I will try to describe it as best I can (it will take 2 entries).

On Friday at 4:00pm the 6 of us boarded the bus for the 4 hour journey to Lilongwe, the capital of Malawi. The fun definitely began on the bus! For some reason for over half of the bus ride the bus driver played Christian rock music-videos on the bus TVs. The dancing and clothes in the videos was opening credits of Cosby Show style, and it wouldn't have been nearly as funny if they hadn't played the same 4 songs over and over again for 2 hours. I think all 6 of us now know how to say Jesus loves me in Chichwea. Still not sure why they played that music. We came up with 2 theories. One, the bus company may be owned by a Christian organization, or 2, we were being brain washed.
The odd and ironic thing is that while music about how God loves us shook the bus, we all looked out our windows and saw nothing but poverty and despair, almost creating a strange combination of both hope and hopelessness. As the sun set on the towns between Blantyre and Lilongwe we saw groups of people huddled around fires, huts with one light bulb lit in them, and the day laborers walking home with several pounds of fruit or wood on their heads.
The travel agent that we booked our trip through had told us that when we arrived in Lilongwe a cab would pick us up and take us to the hostel that we were staying in for the night. There are very few street lights anywhere in Malawi, and Terrie has made it abundantly clear over and over again that we should never be walking around anywhere here after dark. Unfortunately, our cab driver was not at the bus station when we arrived and it was very dark and none of us know good enough Chichwea to ask questions. I have felt very safe this entire trip until that moment. Standing at an unlit bus-stop in Lilongwe I felt very vulnerable and uncomfortable. We all had money and passports on us and we had no idea where we were. Luckily some kind people helped us and we made it to the hostel in one piece (minus Shant's Nalgene bottle, not sure what happened to that, but it is going in the list of "Stuff Shant will lose on this trip!). Once at the lodge we relaxed and enjoyed some good quality time together.
The next morning, it was up at 6am (sleep is the one thing we all missed this weekend) to get ready for our trip to Zambia. We met up with 2 girls from Holland, and the 8 of us piled into a truck/bus that drove us 6 hours across the border to the safari. It was a ride to remember. I thought the roads in Malawi were bad, but they are nothing in comparison to the roads in Zambia! I am so thankful that I don't get car sick! We had heard that the road we would be taking was a glorified goat-trail, and that is no exaggeration! Our driver explained that there is some corruption in the Zambian road business, so money to repair potholes (mini lakes) often gets "lost". About 4 of the 6 hours were spent being jostled around the back of the truck! Most of the time Katie and I couldn't stop laughing because it seemed like some sort of mean joke/punishment.
We arrived at the park at 4ish on Saturday. As we drove into the park we spotted an elephant off in the distance and we were all giddy with delight! We were so happy to finally be there! Our guide for the trip gave us a quick tour of where we would be staying for the next 3 nights. Shant and Tom shared a cabin, the 2 Dutch girls shared a cabin, and the 3 other girls and I shared a cabin. The cabins were clean, and had a shower, hot water and ceiling fans! We felt like we were living in luxury! 400 meters from our cabin was a beautiful river with chairs set out for us to relax in. While we waited for our dinner our guide explained that we would be doing a 4 hour morning and evening drive through the safari on both Sunday and Monday. He also explained that since the park was not fenced in it was quite possible that we may see baboons, monkeys, hippos and any other animals wandering around outside our cabins, so we needed to be careful. Baboons were nothing to worry about, but hippos can be dangerous. As he talked we could see baboons and monkeys swinging from the trees behind him! It was unreal! Down at the river we all took several photos of the hippos bathing, but we were warned that the river was full of crocodiles, so swimming in it was off limits.
The next morning we were up at 4:30 to get ready for our morning ride. Breakfast was at 5:30, and we hit the road at 6am. One of the many nice things about this safari company was that they prepared all of our meals for us, and they were all very tasty. Our safari tour guide was very friendly and so knowledgeable; we were blessed to have him as our guide. I guess the training to become a safari guide is quite extensive and intense. They have to learn a lot of details about all of the animals, trees, and grasses. He answered all of our questions with great ease and I learned so much on this trip!
All of the animals that we saw on this trip were beautiful and breath-taking. We saw large groups of agile impalas, exotic zebras and enormous elephants. We saw baby monkeys nursing and baboons giving each other piggy-back rides. We stopped the jeep one time because a giraffe was walking across the dirt road in front of us. We came a foot away from a hippo, and we saw an impala standing extremely still while it looked straight into the eyes of a crocodile. We met Jack-the-warthog who was raised in the nearby village because his mother was killed when he was a baby. He recognized our guide’s scent and actually tried to jump up into our jeep! We slowed down as hungry hyena crossed our path, and we all stared in amazement as an angry elephant fanned out it's ears at us in an attempt to protect it's baby. We heard a lion roar, and saw the lion's foot-prints, but the trees were too thick and green for us to actually see the lion.
Kim has a complete list of all of the animals that we saw on this trip, and I will get it from her for my next blog. I will also post a handful of the over 100 photos that I took this weekend in my next blog.
About 2 hours into each 4 hour excursion our driver would find a pretty place for us to get out of the jeep and walk around and have tea & biscuits. We were constantly surrounded by beauty. We all had so much fun on this trip and there were so many funny things that happened to us, that I know I will remember this weekend forever!
On both Sunday and Monday we had the afternoons to relax. Most of the time we laid out (the weather was perfect all weekend), read by the river, took pictures of the baboons playing outside our cabins, or napped. It was so relaxing!
Yesterday, we begrudgingly left the camp at 7am. None of us were ready to return to reality! We spent 10 hours in buses yesterday and we were all exhausted when we finally arrived home.
Overall, the safari was way more fun than I thought possible! I am so lucky to have gotten to spend the weekend with such great people! Our personalities work so well together. The 6 of us got along so well the entire trip, so it was nothing but laughs all weekend. I hope that you all get the chance to one day go to a safari! I am so happy that I have had the opportunity to see such beauty.

(In other news, Emily, one of the 8 of us, got engaged this weekend! She was the one that didn't come with us. Instead she spent the weekend on Lake Malawi with her now-fiancé!)