Round The World Adventures "The rewards of the journey far outweigh the risk of leaving the harbour"

Hi from Victoria Falls in Zimbabwe.

Well I've survived a week on tour already and have resisted the urge
to take over driving the truck...
It's just like life on the road with WesternXposure...
sandwiches/rolls for lunch; cheese, tomato, lettuce, cucumber and
cold meat!  We have been spoilt so far and not had to cook dinner
yet.  Either our tour leader, Renee, has cooked or we've eaten out.
Our driver, Laurence, and Renee are both South African from Durban
and Pretoria.  They're pretty cruisey and laidback so it's going
well so far.
On arriving in Vic Falls we go from 20 down to 10 pax; 3 fly to Cape
Town, 10 jump on another truck and head back to Jo'burg, and we have
3 new pax join the remaining 7 of us.

Now for the exciting stuff.....
After the initial 2 driving days, we did an awesome trip into the
Okavango Delta for 2 nights camping out and cooking over a
campfire.  We travelled 2 to a mokoro (traditional open canoe)with a
poler who stood up in the boat and moved us along with the pole,
through waterways choked with reeds.  We did a couple of game walks
and saw zebra's, wildebeest, elephants, impala (like an antelope)
and spring hares.  We also did a sunset mokoro ride to the hippo
pool.... was a little disconcerting hearing snorting and grunting
the closer we got, and not being able to see anything.  Once by the
pool, we just floated near the edge and took a few photos of the
hippos (7 in total).  It was a challenge trying to capture them as
they submerge themselves every 2-3 mins.
Sunset was awesome as all the sunsets and sunrises have been.  Think
I've taken far too many photos of them already!  Our last activity
was a 45 min scenic flight over the Delta in 5 seater planes;
amazing to see how huge it is; over 1400km.  It was great to touch
down on land again as a few of us felt a bit queasy after the
flight.  We flew legally at 500ft for a brief time which was awesome.

The highlight for me so far was our 3 hour sunset river cruise on
the Chobe River.  We saw baboons, crocodiles, banded mongooses,
hippo's, kudu (type of antelope), buffalo, countless birds, got up
very close to elephants, zebra's and impala.  It was absolutely
fantastic!  At 6am the next morning we did a 3 hour game drive and
managed to see lions (not close enough tho'), giraffes (one was
dead!), kudu, elephants, buffalo and more colourful birds.  The
camera has been getting a serious workout.... having a decent zoom
makes all the difference obviously.

Now in Vic Falls which is a little touristy; lots of adventure
activities on offer.  I did a 30 min helicopter flight over the
falls and down in one of the gorges yesterday afternoon.  It was
awesome tho' a little overpriced at US$190!!  Needless to say,
that's the only activity I'm doing here.  Will check out the markets
tho' apparently you get hassled to death by sellers.  They try and
sell you wooden souvenirs on the street as well.

The Africa I've seen so far is pretty civilised but Botswana is a
wealthy country.  Zimbabwe is obviously suffering with the economic
crisis; we spend a week in the country and away from Vic Falls I'm
sure it'll be more obvious.  We have huge wads of $100, 000 Zim
dollar notes!  The only time I'll be a trillionaire in my life!
Food-wise there's not much to buy tho' the restaurant at our
campsite is doing ok.

Well I'll say goodbye for now.
Till next time....

Jules