Preparing for the Trip of a Lifetime

Hey everyone! Sorry I have not been doing a great job keeping up with this blog. I cannot tell you how busy and stressed I have been this past week in preparation for my spring break! I have had to buy all sorts of things, such as malaria pills, a head torch, and little items to trade in Zimbabwe. For those of you that don't know what my trip includes, I'm going to provide a little preview. My friends and I are taking a 10-day camping trip to Botswana, Zambia, and Zimbabwe. We will be taking a bus with a chef that cooks all of our meals and staying at campsites for most of the nights, but camping in the legitimate wild for two. 


The itinerary is as follows:

• Day 1: Catch early flight to Johannesburg and catch overland bus to drive to campsite in Botswana
• Day 2: Travel to Maun, Botswana and enter the Okavango Delta (the world's largest inland delta which will be the most natural setting for seeing wild animals)
• Day 3/4: Spend two and a half days in the delta doing game walks and riding in canoes. Here we will have no amenities so we will be showering in the river, going to the bathroom in the woods, and sleeping in the middle of no where, hopefully not too close to a lion's den.
• Day 5: Leave the delta in the afternoon for Planet Baobab, a campsite with a baobab tree as the centerpiece (don't recognize the name, just picture the Tree of Life from Lion King).
• Day 6: Travel to Chobe National Park, which has the highest concentration of elephants in the entire world (over 120,000), as well as a god number of buffalo and hippos. That night we will take a sunset cruise through the river of elephants. 
• Day 7: Travel to Zambia and Victoria Falls, which are the largest waterfalls in the whole world and are considered one of the 7 natural wonders of the world. 
• Day 8/9: We will have two days to do whatever we want near the falls. I am planning on doing the adventure package, which in includes 4 activities, each of which you could do twice. These activities are abseiling (repelling down the side of the falls), a zipline across the falls, a rope swing across the falls, and the flying fox (which is a lot like the zipline, but your body is facing the ground like you are in a Superman position). I am also planning on taking the optional opportunity to venture into Zimbabwe and go into the Victoria Falls National Park, where there is supposed to be a breathtaking view of 2/3 of the falls. Also in Zim, we will be going to the Livingstone Market where you can buy/trade all sorts of things, including pens, hair-ties (thanks Mrs. Young for those ridiculous pens with all of the hearts, I'm hoping they get me far), and more. The last event that I am planning to do is the lion walk, where I will walk with a lion for about an hour. There are so many different things to do at the falls, so we'll see what happens. I am honestly just excited to get there and see the falls, let alone go flying in the air across them!
• Day 10: Travel back to Cape Town and get dropped off at our flats.

So those are my plans for the next 10 days.  I wish I could take you all with me, but considering I have to pack all of my belongings in one small duffle, I hate to say that the chances are slim. Much to my mother's dismay, I will be out of commission as far as communication goes because I will neither have wifi or cell phone service. When I return I hope to catch you all up on my travels, as well as some of the things I have been doing with my internship and in/around Cape Town! For those of you with facebook, you could check out the Amandla EduFootball and see a ton of pictures, a few of which I am in. Other than that, I miss you all and look forward to hearing from a lot of you!


P.S. Shout out to Mike and Jan for allowing me to do this and making it financially available to me! I can't thank you enough! Love you both and no worries, I'll stay safe!