re I leave. So this Christmas, instead of travelling abroad I decided to see more of Zambia. So on Christmas Eve, I made my way to Luapula Province. Home of more Bemba people, a beach, great fish and the best dancers in Zambia. The trek to Luapula was long as with any trek in Zambia. The only transport leaving was a semi truck. The driver was very nice and basically told me I had no other options and of course he was right. So 7 hours later, I reached the capital of Luapul
a just fine! There I was greeted by some of my FAVORITE volunteers. It was so nice to spend Christmas with friends. We did a "dirty Santa" gift exchange, channeled our inner three-year old by using way too much face paint and had a fantastic meal, all of which cooked with out any electricity. It just confirmed the fact that Christmas isn't about fancy gifts and material luxury, it's about spending time with the people you love and being grateful for the things you have even if it isn't much. I also got the chance to hangout with some Zambians on the dance floor on Christmas night. New experience indeed. The next day,a small group of
us went to Samfya and visited Lake Bwangweulu. It was a beautiful sandy lake front where we just enjoyed looking out into the water. We jumped in for a bit but the fear of shisto kept us a bay. We had a picnic there and even got fishing lessons from local kids. We also were warned about the crocs that like to hangout in the water but there were no Croc sightings that day. All in all, a great trip to Lupapula and Id love to visit again.Then it was time for the 2nd part
of my "tour de Zam" which was a 17 hour trek to Eastern Province. Ive been to Eastern many times but this trip was for one reason 
only. ZEBRAS! I had gone on safari before and never got the chance to see the "rock stars" of the Savannah. So we went to South Luangwa National Park which is one of the biggest and best game parks in Zambia. We were greeted by elephants as soon as we arrived and had monkeys playing on our porch. We only could afford to stay one night but it was New Years Eve and what better way to bring in the new year than with the sound of elephan
ts trumpeting and monkeys playing. We went on a gam
e drive on New Years Eve which was nice. We even got stuck in a huge mud puddle and got the chance to walk around the park a bit. It was beautiful. We attempted to stay up until 12 but since my friend and I are so use to village time, we fell asleep at our normal time of 9pm. The next morning we went on a game drive and the first thing we saw were Zebras! There were so many. That day we saw: mating Lions, giraffe, warthogs, buffalo, elep
hants, lots of monkeys, impala and hippos. We also saw a beautiful Baobab tree, Ive grown to love these trees since being here. It was a nice vacation spent in Zambia. And to top it all off we had our Close of Service Conference immediately after. So after seeing my favorite animals, I got to see a group of my favorite people!
No comments:
Post a Comment