Mwabuka buti?

Well we made it to Zambia reasonably intact. And whatever bruises we suffered at the hands of the travel gods were quickly forgotten as we set up our little tent village under the mopane and acacia trees at Eureka Camp. But I am getting ahead of the story a bit.

The flights from London to Johannesburg and Jo'burg to Lusaka were happily uneventful for us, although perhaps a bit more adventurous for some of our luggage. It turns out that Courtney's very nice backpack never made it to Lusaka. Jo'burg airport is fairly notorious for bags getting "lost" and never reappearing...but not this time. It arrived two flight later, but we only lost a few hours in our schedule due to that minor setback. All things considered, 12 students and 12 bags is fantastic. 

One of the things they all appreciated was the fun of deplaning via a stairway to the Tarmac - you hardly get to do that anymore. (Wait until they have to place a call on a rotary phone!)

The Lusaka international airport is now known as the Kenneth Kaunda airport (Zambia's first president after independence) and given the relatively lax security, we took a chance on immortalizing our first steps on African soil. 

We then ran our errands (groceries, cook kit, bank run, etc) as best we could and then jetted off to our campsite outside of Lusaka - Eureka Camp. It is a game park too, with something like 120 acres of Miombo forest to support impala, zebra, kudu, puku and giraffe. We set up our tent village right next to a small chalet we also rented for the night, just for the ease of charging batteries and having a basin to wash in. 

After a quick little morning hike to see the giraffe, impala and blue waxbills (I know everyone is anxious to know which birds we have seen), we loaded onto the Zambus and set off for Livingstone. 

This really is a much more excitable bunch than they let on in this photo. The drive had one breakdown, which we fixed, but was otherwise an uneventful tour of the expansive but continuously populated countryside. Snacks were fresh baked rolls, oranges, bananas and eggs.

Eventually, we arrived at our intended camping spot, "Jollyboys" group site in Livingstone, only to find it had been closed for renovations. Student response, "more adventure!" This was much more easily solved than it sounds - Jollyboys has a more funky "backpackers" site which also as camping - they took us in happily. So we sat down, had our dinner and prepared ourselves for the big day tomorrow at Victoria Falls!