18 weeks to go - that's a surprise!

Wall art at Linda Farm

Crikey that's come around quick. In exactly 128 days Tracey and I will be back on that night flight to Johannesburg to make the transfer into Zambia and back to the place we both fell in love with last summer.... the run-down, charming, basic and incredibly friendly town of Livingstone.
This summer we go for a week longer and have arranged to work on the Linda Farm project that inspired us so much in just the hour we spent there.
Linda Farm occupies a piece of land that the government allocated some years ago to provide somewhere for disabled people to grow their crops. The site is now home to 14 families (of about 6 people each) who live as a self-sufficient community raising animals and crops and providing a place for local young adults to learn about becoming self-sufficient themselves by growing their own crops and taking them to market to sell.
So in preparation for the trip, we are collecting old (but working) smart phones this year to help the teenagers to get their businesses started. We also plan to share the skill of turning old clothes and carrier bags into floor mats and strong shopping bags through the simple art of "boodling". Which is basically crocheting on a large wooden hook with stretchy yarn (or in our case old T-shirts).
We are excited to see how far they have come in the last year with their objectives - the pigs were arriving the week we visited and the water pump was being repaired and was to be turned on that afternoon. We were so gutted that we only visited them on the day we were leaving, but hey that's life.... we are going back and get to spend weeks with them rather than minutes! Very excited, very keen and slightly worried that 18 weeks means we should really get cracking collecting what we need and preparing the teaching materials with easy to follow diagrams that are language and age independent (as well as teach Tracey to use her new Nikon!). Many people have asked about donations this year which is incredibly kind. So if anyone would like to donate any of the supplies we plan to take with us, we have created an Amazon wishlist of some useful items which you can use to order and have delivered to us. Thank you for your support once again.

Day 14 - The last sunrise

Tracey rockin the
sunrise safari suit

I woke early and since it was our last day, I decided to get up and enjoy the sunrise with a brew. Tracey joined me despite it being only 615am. I was making the tea and she was outside getting a dawn nicotine fix when I turned to see her leaping about outside the window, silently, but frantically waving her arms around at me. I collapsed in hysterics. Seeing Tracey filled with that much excitement is both joyous and slightly worrying, so I grabbed the bins and went to see what she was peeing her PJs about... there was an elephant wading in the river outside the tent next door! We spent a good while contorting ourselves to try and see it better through the bushes before it wandered north up the river bank. Magic.
With little time left to pack, we sorted through all the paper work and the remaining cash for the last time and headed over to the main lodge to settle up, post staff tips and wait for our speedboat transfer to Vic Falls town.
Return journeys typically feel longer and harder to make, and this one was no different. The river journey wasn't the meandering affair we'd hoped, since two of our travelling companions were 20 minutes late, and the mini-bus transfer to the border had 3 hotel stops to make en route, collecting a total of 18 people before heading to the Zim/Zam border. Two passengers had no visa so there was a slight delay there, but it wasn't long before we were back Zambian side and driving through Livingstone high street for the last time.
It was sad to be back at the airport where it all started two weeks ago - we'd crammed a lot in, met some amazing people, been excited, happy, sad, tired, inspired, frustrated and overjoyed. It was been a huge experience and most definitely filled up the memory banks, not to mention the camera cards.
And for those of you keen to know.... Tracey finally used a loo on a aeroplane! (albeit stationary, on Jo'burg tarmac).
The two flights home were pretty uneventful (apart from a glass of red wine being sloshed all over Tracey's table and some stern words aimed at the guy who pulled Tracey's breakables bag down from the overhead storage). We watched a couple of films and tried to sleep, but thoughts sadly turned to work and the overflowing email inbox which no doubt awaits me... scared to turn my phone on... and I only have a day at the office before I'm back on a plane to Israel, dreaming of African skies.

Day 13 - Serious scat chat.

Beautiful male Kudu - shame he's in the shade

Grumpy warthog, not liking my lens

545am the in-tent phone went with our wake up call. Tracey had been up for hours keeping watch for hippos and so was pretty shattered before we started, but 615am Joshua arrived to escort us to the lodge for our 630am game drive with a truck load of Americans. This time we were led by a different guide, called Martin. Very knowledgeable but obviously had no idea we had been on the drive last night and proceeded to repeat the entire Baobab tree sermon again. Thankfully we were spared a repeat of the lesson on Aardvarks too, and instead were treated to some interesting lessons in animal toiletry; Herds of Impala like to all use the same spot and create a massive pile of poo pellets to scent mark their territory and to help them find their way home if they get lost. The hyena produces white poo, a bit like chalk, on account of all the bones they eat as scavengers and we learnt how to tell if Elephant dung has been left by a male or a female based on the positioning of the pond of pee in relation to the poo - on top is a female and in front is a male. Obvious really. What was not so obvious was the fact about the weaver birds that make their nests in the western side of trees. We had thought that the 15 or so nests in each tree were a flock of Weaver birds, each with their own nest. Turns out that all 15 nests are made by the same pair of breeding birds and only some are used. One for nesting, one for roosting, one for dining etc. and a number as decoys to fool predators. Talk about living life on the edge.
Numerous species were spotted on the drive; more waterbuck, impala, guinea fowl and warthogs, but also some impressively coloured birds; the Lilac-breasted roller, the white-fronted bee-eater, and my favourite of the day; the Giant kingfisher.
We returned for a leisurely breakfast before spending the rest of the day chilling on our balcony watching the wildlife and looking through photos. Someone came to clean our pool, another person came to restock our fridge and before we knew it, it was time for our last game drive of the trip.

Maribou Stork coming in to land

This time we went out with a highly experienced guide called Nofias from Hwange, and a Japanese couple with their two small girls, one of which squealed in Tracey's ear before falling asleep and the other was actually quite well behaved, that is until she saw a zebra and promptly squealed loudly, sending the zebra dashing over the road. Young children should not be allowed on safari. simple. It should be one of those adult-only treats, like prawn crackers and poppadoms were for me as a kid. I fear children these days will have nothing to save for, or look forward to, they have everything and are allowed to do everything. They are treated like miniature adults who don't have to work or clean up after themselves, but get to do all kinds of things I could only dream of as a kid. There, jealous rant over.

Baobab tree at sunset

We got back to the lodge in the dark after a gorgeous sundowner beer with the Baobabs and a run of about 8 giraffe in 3 different groups - two of them we saw only as silhouettes, which was fortunate as they were mating at the time, and after watching the baboons "at it" earlier and stifling giggles like kids ourselves, I was relieved we didn't have time to hang around.
When we got back to our tent, I needed to wash. So I decided to try out the shower that was installed inside the tent, (it was too dark for me to brave the outside one). There's something both liberating and a little weird about standing naked, in near darkness, under a hot rain-forest shower in a very large open plan tent, with no shower curtain surrounding you, or even a shower tray to stand in. The tent was erected on a raised platform of wooden planks, with the shower head fixed to one wall, so you just stood under it and the water flowed down between the slats. Lovely and hot though, with a cracking range of smellies to choose from.
We knew the staff were planning something for Tracey's birthday at dinner, but I was expecting maybe a cake or even just a candle or two on the dessert, but the staff had gone to great lengths (and inconvenience) to

sharing birthday cake with the staff

set us up a private dining table right down on the end of the boat jetty with our own waiter, Nkanyusi ("Tokyo"), The poor guy had to traipse backwards and forwards all evening down the long walkway to our table to serve us an amazing 3 course dinner with free-flowing wine and topped off with a chocolate cake, complete with candles and an African "happy birthday" sung by a couple of the team. So generous and such a lovely way to end our trip. We giggled, we ate, we drank and we reflected. Then Tracey cut the cake into about 40 pieces and we took it back to the restaurant where the Manager, Andrew, called all the staff out into the dining area for a piece each; sharing a cracking end to a cracking trip.

Day 12 - Transfer to Zimbabwe

personal speedboat and captain!

Sad to go and even sadder to realise it was the last leg of our trip, we packed our bags, had another river-front breakfast and waited till it was time to leave.
Our transfer to the Vic Falls River lodge in Zimbabwe took 3 drivers, 2 passport checks and a speed boat! Yes, a luxury speedboat all to ourselves - we couldn't believe it. We had assumed we would be driving there, crossing the bridge over the gorge and north along the river - so you can imagine our shock when shortly after leaving the town of Vic falls, our driver pulled down a tiny track and let us out at a jetty. We were met by the captain, "Polite", and our bags were loaded onto a snazzy-looking, leather-seated speedboat and we headed upstream to the lodge. Awesome. We felt like royalty.

inside our tent at Vic Falls River Lodge!

chilling on the balcony of our tent overlooking the Zambezi

On arrival at the lodge, we were met by "Cuda", an over-excited new starter that spoke English with an American drawl and oddly repeated himself a number of times - we guessed it to be nerves. After a quick tour of the main lodge house, we were shown to our tent which has two showers, a free-standing bath and a plunge pool on the balcony! so we chilled there a while before returning to the open dining area for yet another luxury lunch. I'm down to only a single pair of trousers now... not through a lack of washing, but an over-abundance of good food, beer and wine. We retired to the bar area to blog a little and watch the warthogs snuffling in the grass on the bank, before deciding that our own balcony had a nicer ambience as well as a troop of baboons, monkeys and a family of about 20 mongoose running around.

Monster Baobab tree with grazing giraffe

Polite took us on a game drive at dusk, by sheer luck just the two of us, and we saw baboons, vervet monkeys, kudu, waterbuck, impala, maribou stork, warthogs, 4 giraffe, zebra, kingfishers, hammerkop and guinea fowl. No cats sadly, or hyena, but apparently they are rare here. Poached too much in previous years and so numbers are still low in the area. We were given interesting facts about Aardvark and their dens and taught the many uses of the awesome Baobab trees which stand like ancient guards over the bush - one of which they believe is almost 1,000 years old.
Polite picked a beautiful spot on the river for our Zambezi sundowners, watching the kingfishers and wishing we could stay longer. We now know that we had accidentally chosen the very best time of year to visit the river as the water is quite low and so you can see the dozens of small islands and dead trees that litter the riverbed. It was a lot to take in and one after the after the scenes kept appearing before us like something from a Rudyard Kipling book.
As soon as we arrived back at the lodge, we were told there were Elephants outside lodge number 5, so we jumped back in the truck and headed over there in the dark to spot Eles by torchlight - sadly they'd already gone when we got there, so we freshened up for dinner and Joshua escorted us back to our lodge for bed by 9pm. shattered, but happy.

Day 11 - Monday

breakfast at Waterberry

Our morning tea tray did not arrive to wake us this morning. (perhaps the staff thought we needed a lie in after our campfire wine-fest last night!) so I ventured over to the main house in my nightie and trousers to get us a couple of mugs, only to find a very apologetic Wilson who assured me he would be over in a few minutes with the tray.
Today was destined to be a slobbing out day, to explore the lodge gardens and photograph the birds. That is, if we could stop laughing at them... the Hoopoes were hilarious.... they move in groups making loud cackling noises at the same time as swinging themselves back and forth on their perches. Like rocking birds.

Tracey laughing at the Hoopoes

After breakfast, we followed the nature walk past the tree house and swing, round the ponds and along a glade path filled with butterflies of all colours. When we returned for lunch, there was a hippo on the opposite bank of the river, fully out of the water and soaking up the sun. Tracey was mesmerised and so we ordered a wine each and sat on the deck facing the far bank. A family of elephants came down to drink and various birds came and went, but the hippo remained; splayed out in the sand, hardly moving. For two and half hours Tracey sat glued to her binoculars and became extremely adept at drinking without looking as Wilson continued to top up our glasses and the hippo continued to sleep.

the lively thatch

At one point I heard a gasp to my left and looked to see Tracey sat next to me, clutching her binoculars, and covered in a large chunk of straw that had fallen from the thatched roof above - the laughing took awhile to subside, by which point various members of staff were surrounding us asking if she was ok and not able to get a word out of her. The manager was called and soon came running, having been told there had been a "catastrophe" - we laughed harder. Africans really are very caring. Desperate to get us out of harms way they tried to get us to move elsewhere in case more fell from the roof.... but the hippo still had not moved. We needed to answer the question.... do hippos belly-flop when they get in the water? All other seats had obscured viewing, so we inched forward to the front of the decking and continued our vigil in front of the river. The staff found this hilarious, but simply topped up our wine and let us be. People came to look at the roof and eventually ladders appeared as well as a thatcher to make some repairs. They think the monkeys pull the thatching to get at the insects and bugs, but as yet we had not seen a single monkey at Waterberry.
Our sunset cruise boat left the jetty at 430pm and the closer it got, the more excited we became that the hippo might remain in position for us to go over there in the boat and get some photos, but it was not to be - about 4pm she stood up, ambled down to the water and slid in without a single splash - as gracefully as ever. Well, as gracefully as a giant water cow can anyway.
The boat cruise was as good as the last. But the highlight has to go to the river otter we saw as the light began to fade. It swam across some yards in front when we were on our way back, and then spent a good few minutes popping up in various places amongst the rocks to watch us, watching it. Lovely little creature and a great memory for me - my first African otter.

Otter in near darkness - love my Nikon D4!

When we got back, we discovered that the hospitality team had set us up a private dining table on our veranda to celebrate Tracey's 50th, complete with rose petals and paper-bag lanterns - I'm sure they think we're a couple! We had our own waiter, called Matthew, who speaks 50 African languages, taught us to fold little men with napkins and kept the wine flowing throughout the evening. The food was sublime and although the evening got a little chilly towards the end, we ended our time at Waterberry with yet another cracking day.