Safari!

We couldn't have family come all the way to Africa and not go on safari. Plus after a long second trimester jam packed with extra curricular activities, administering finals, grading, and hosting family and friends from the USA here in site, we felt like we deserved a little vacation. Traveling in Africa is not really relaxing, but we did not rough it on this trip; we had a safari company do all the work and we just enjoyed the ride. We cruised to the relatively nearby South Luangwa National Park in Zambia in a fancy private vehicle. It was still about 10 hours away, but that's not bad for this big continent, public transport would have been at least twice as long and even more bumpy; the dirt road still managed to break one of our shock absorbers. We stayed in a lodge right on the river, with views of crocs and hippos from the swimming pool and periodic elephant visitors. Food was gourmet, and meals happened five times a day (calories don't really count in Africa since we usually just eat leaves during the rest of the year) breakfast, morning tea, lunch, afternoon tea, and dinner. The Land Rover we took our game drives in definitely had us all humming the theme song to Indiana Jones (it felt just like the ride in Disney Land), and James, our burly Zambian guide, loved offroading, and testing the vehicle's limits speeding over gullies and dry river beds with no fear of catching some air. We saw plenty of animals, including elephants, buffalo, lots of impala and puku, plenty of giraffe and zebra, birds galore, a heyena, and even a pride of lions on the very last night. The highlight was when a leopardess tried to eat Janet and her buddy Rebecca. Apparently she had been trying to mate and our safariing was cramping her privacy. Janet's dad's accidental flash possibly set the big cat over the edge and she let us know with a mighty growl and false charge. Luc still maintains we were totally safe in the safari truck, but James did mention that this was only the second time in 14 years that he's had this happen.