Our First Day in Africa

After 35 hours of our journey we finally arrived in Livingstone, Zambia. We couldn’t really believe our eyes! Zambia always seems like one of those made-up places, an African country with a name that sounds like a bunch of other African countries. If pressed to point to it on a map, I doubt most would be successfull. We would be, now.

Livingstone is located across the Zambezi River from the town of Victoria Falls which is located in Zimbabwe. A little tip, if you ever find yourself disembarking an aircraft in Livingstone, immediately get into the line for “Kaza Visas”. There are two types of visas – one that allows you entry into only Zambia, and the other (a Kaza Visa) that allows you entry into both Zambia and Zimbabwe. Since we have plans to go to both sides of Victoria Falls, we opted for the Kaza Visa. It’s US$50 CASH ONLY, and come with exact change because they don’t make any.

Found a herd of elephants who were down by the water drinking and frolicking

Once through customs and immigration we got out to the curb and found our driver that would take us to our “camp” for the next three days, Toka Leya. A short 20 minute ride later and we were at the jetty for the speedboat that would take us to the camp.

Yep, we were arriving by boat. So into the boat we went and moments later we found ourselves speeding along on the Zambezi River to Toka Leya. Holy %^&*#. It’s just not one of those things we thought we’d be doing that day and it was exhilarating!

Just five minutes later and we arrived at the Toka Leya beach where several team members from the camp were standing and waving as we beached. It was such a warm experience, and one that you really only see on TV.

Thembe, one of our greeters, immediately took us up to the common area of the camp and sat us down to discuss our stay. She could be one of the most kind people known to man. So sweet. We were to be in “Tent” 5, and after signing the waiver that we wouldn’t hold them responsible for being eaten by a lion, she walked us to our home for the next three days. We’ll have pictures from there in a future post.

I think the ride in the boat woke us up, because by the time we were done settling in, we went to the bar for an afternoon cocktail.

Imagine this view for cocktails, it was incredible. At around 4:00pm, we joined the day’s “sundowner” cruise on the Zambezi. It sounds lame, but it was just the two of us and three nice ladies we met from New York and Los Angeles getting back into the speedboat for (hopefully) some closeup views of wildlife. We weren’t disappointed.

The first fella we saw was this Nile crocodile. See him (or her) lying in the grass?

Nile crocodiles are notoriously cranky and snappy so we didn’t get too close but being on the boat let us drift quietly within about 20 feet of the croc.

From there our guide found a herd of elephants who were down by the water drinking and frolicking. Speechless we were. Again because we were in the boat we were able to drift closer than we otherwise might on land and enjoy the spectacle of about 20 elephants playing and drinking on the beach. Here are some pics of that.

We even saw some baby elephants – so cute!

After about a half hour of watching these elephants we found another set of three trying to cross the river. Right now, at the tail end of rainy season, the water level is high and it’s running quickly with a lot of rapids. But these elephants made it across!

As the sun set on our first day in Africa, our guide and driver found a quiet place on the river to stop and have a “sundowner”, which is a cocktail at sundown in this part of the world.

Incredible. What an enjoyable afternoon and a terrific introduction to Zambia and Africa. We know where it is now, and it’s something we’ll never forget!