Evelyn woke this morning at 5am and took photos of the sun rising of the beautiful Sunday morning in Livingstone, Zambia. Dan got up at around 7:15am.
We both headed for the showers but unfortunately the hot water had run out and we had to suffer through cold showers on a fairly brisk morning. We mentioned to Johannes earlier that we would like to visit the falls this morning. We thought he was in a bit of a hurry so we cancelled plans for the buffet breakfast and had leftover pizza from the night before to get us going. We hopped on to the 16 seater truck for the first time and headed for the magnificent Victoria Falls. As we rolled toward the entrance gate there were baboons scattered everywhere scavenging for food and scraps, and being a major tourist destination, the road leading to the entrance was lined with gift and souvenir markets.
Victoria Falls
Our group visited the Falls the day before as it was part of the included itinerary so we got in for free. As we walked in we stopped at a stall selling raincoats and ponchos starting from $1USD each. We only had $20 notes in US currency but the vendor didn’t have any change. Dan jokingly offered to pay with my 100 Trillion dollar Zimbabwean note and he just laughed. We ended up paying with the Kwacha and gave him a K5000 note which was only enough for one poncho. At the time we were happy to share but thankfully he was very generous in giving us a second one for free because we really needed it.
It didn’t take us long to witness one of Earth's great wonders, Victoria Falls. It was absolutely breathtaking. We took our time as we meandered along the edge of the falls, happily taking photos and videos. We had a little plastic bag for Ev’s camera but it got a little wet.
After about an hour of awe inspiring views we headed back to the truck. Along the way we picked up a Victoria Falls fridge magnet and Dan bought a really cool Zambia hat. Johannes drove us back to the campsite and we found out the reason he was in a hurry was so he could have breakfast before the buffet closes to 10am. He says he is unable to eat early in the mornings anyway. We also got our Tour shirts when we got back.
We didn’t have anything else planned for the day so we decided to head to the computer room and upload our photo’s and check our emails. As we were on the internet we were deciding whether or not we should do the sunset river cruise when Johannes came in and said there were two spots that had opened up for the Elephant ride. Johannes asked if we would like to go but we felt a bit guilty saying yes because people drew names out of a hat yesterday to ride the Elephants. Anyway, there was no one else around, except for Tracey who declined, and we thought if we don’t get them now they may be gone in 5 minutes, so we did. Dan immediately paid for the ride which cost $300USD for the two of us, and we were just thrilled to have the opportunity to ride the elephants. Shortly after, we headed downstairs for lunch and ate our burgers as we watched out over the Zambezi River. We felt pretty good.
After lunch we headed back to the campsite to charge the laptop and video camera and also update our journal. Ev discovered that her camera wasn’t working from the water that got in from Victoria Falls. We pulled the camera apart and let it dry out hoping it would come back to life. Just before we left for the elephant ride, we tried the camera again and it worked for about 20 seconds then died again so she pulled it apart and let it dry out while we were gone.
Elephant Rides
As we waited for our bus to arrive we met a nice Austrian lady from Vienna who told us about her trip and was heading home the next day. She was going to the Lion Encounter we went to yesterday. We told her about our experience and she told us about her time on the Elephant Ride. The bus took about 30 minutes to get to the 1600 hectare reserve where the elephants were kept. We met with our tour guide, at the same place we were for the Lion Encounter, and they explained how the afternoon would pan out. After the briefing we were guided to the herd of 8 elephants including 2 babies. We chose our elephant and climbed the stairs of the platform to hop on. Our elephants name was Liwa who was 27 years old and also the mother of one the babies, Sequinta. Liwa was such a beautiful natured animal. The biggest and oldest elephant was a bull named Bop. He was massive and was about 60 years old.
We both climbed onto the back of Liwa from the platform and met her handler/driver, Roy. Roy was amazing and told us everything we needed to know about Liwa and the elephants in general. Roy was Zambian and lives in nearby Livingstone. He has worked at the reserve as an Elephant Handler since it opened in 2003. Roy told us that most elephants live to be about 70-75 years of age and die due to starvation. An elephant will have 6 sets of teeth throughout its lifetime and after the 6th set of teeth fall out they can no longer eat.
During the ride Liwa kept asking for pellets by placing her trunk back over her head toward Roy and would then grunt. We got to a shallow part of the Zambezi River which gave the elephants some needed temperature relief and also gave us some nice photo opportunities. The tour had our video camera and Dan's iPhone and took some great photos of us on the elephant standing in the water.
While Liwa was stopped it also gave us a chance to feed her some pellets into her trunk and also touch her ears and thick layer of skin. It was strange touching an elephant for the first time. The outside of her ears was like sandpaper from the dried water and the underside skin was quite smooth, very soft and furry. During the walk back to the reception area we heard ‘thump, thump, thump’. Dan turned around and saw that Liwa had left multiple lovely deposits on the path behind us. We also felt her vibrate as her stomach rumbled.
An hour had passed and the ride was nearly over as we saw a crash of White Rhino and a herd of Impala just as we were about to finish up. We got off the elephant at the platform and thanked Roy. Liwa then knelt down and Ev sat on her front knee and fed her pellets in her trunk and mouth.
Dan was then given a bag of pellets which prompted Liwa to rise to her feet as she opened her mouth up wide, waiting to be fed. Dan threw the pellets into her mouth and accidentally punched her in the mouth a couple of times. She didn’t seem to feel a thing though. Dan then said to Liwa "trunk down" and she closed her mouth and began to sniff out the food so Dan put pellets in her trunk and she held it there until she felt she had enough to swallow. It was time to say goodbye to the elephants and they waved goodbye to us with their trunks and raised their front right foot. We said goodbye to Liwa and Roy and headed back to the reception area.
After cleaning ourselves up we were served some food and drink and chatted with our group about our honeymoon. In the meantime the DVD of the afternoon was complete. It was really well produced and we ended up buying this one as well. We thanked the crew at the reserve and boarded the bus back to the Waterfront Campsite. We arrived back at 7pm just in time for our group meeting about our upcoming trip through Botswana, Polokwane National Park and Kruger National Park in South Africa.
We grabbed dinner from the buffet at the restaurant and reflected on our wonderful day as we again ate over the Zambezi River with the night sky littered with beautiful constellations. What was going to be a pretty uneventful day turned out to be another fantastic day in wonderful Africa and a day we will never forget.
P.S. The camera now works, too!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dan-ev/
We both headed for the showers but unfortunately the hot water had run out and we had to suffer through cold showers on a fairly brisk morning. We mentioned to Johannes earlier that we would like to visit the falls this morning. We thought he was in a bit of a hurry so we cancelled plans for the buffet breakfast and had leftover pizza from the night before to get us going. We hopped on to the 16 seater truck for the first time and headed for the magnificent Victoria Falls. As we rolled toward the entrance gate there were baboons scattered everywhere scavenging for food and scraps, and being a major tourist destination, the road leading to the entrance was lined with gift and souvenir markets.
Victoria Falls
Our group visited the Falls the day before as it was part of the included itinerary so we got in for free. As we walked in we stopped at a stall selling raincoats and ponchos starting from $1USD each. We only had $20 notes in US currency but the vendor didn’t have any change. Dan jokingly offered to pay with my 100 Trillion dollar Zimbabwean note and he just laughed. We ended up paying with the Kwacha and gave him a K5000 note which was only enough for one poncho. At the time we were happy to share but thankfully he was very generous in giving us a second one for free because we really needed it.
It didn’t take us long to witness one of Earth's great wonders, Victoria Falls. It was absolutely breathtaking. We took our time as we meandered along the edge of the falls, happily taking photos and videos. We had a little plastic bag for Ev’s camera but it got a little wet.
After about an hour of awe inspiring views we headed back to the truck. Along the way we picked up a Victoria Falls fridge magnet and Dan bought a really cool Zambia hat. Johannes drove us back to the campsite and we found out the reason he was in a hurry was so he could have breakfast before the buffet closes to 10am. He says he is unable to eat early in the mornings anyway. We also got our Tour shirts when we got back.
We didn’t have anything else planned for the day so we decided to head to the computer room and upload our photo’s and check our emails. As we were on the internet we were deciding whether or not we should do the sunset river cruise when Johannes came in and said there were two spots that had opened up for the Elephant ride. Johannes asked if we would like to go but we felt a bit guilty saying yes because people drew names out of a hat yesterday to ride the Elephants. Anyway, there was no one else around, except for Tracey who declined, and we thought if we don’t get them now they may be gone in 5 minutes, so we did. Dan immediately paid for the ride which cost $300USD for the two of us, and we were just thrilled to have the opportunity to ride the elephants. Shortly after, we headed downstairs for lunch and ate our burgers as we watched out over the Zambezi River. We felt pretty good.
After lunch we headed back to the campsite to charge the laptop and video camera and also update our journal. Ev discovered that her camera wasn’t working from the water that got in from Victoria Falls. We pulled the camera apart and let it dry out hoping it would come back to life. Just before we left for the elephant ride, we tried the camera again and it worked for about 20 seconds then died again so she pulled it apart and let it dry out while we were gone.
Elephant Rides
As we waited for our bus to arrive we met a nice Austrian lady from Vienna who told us about her trip and was heading home the next day. She was going to the Lion Encounter we went to yesterday. We told her about our experience and she told us about her time on the Elephant Ride. The bus took about 30 minutes to get to the 1600 hectare reserve where the elephants were kept. We met with our tour guide, at the same place we were for the Lion Encounter, and they explained how the afternoon would pan out. After the briefing we were guided to the herd of 8 elephants including 2 babies. We chose our elephant and climbed the stairs of the platform to hop on. Our elephants name was Liwa who was 27 years old and also the mother of one the babies, Sequinta. Liwa was such a beautiful natured animal. The biggest and oldest elephant was a bull named Bop. He was massive and was about 60 years old.
We both climbed onto the back of Liwa from the platform and met her handler/driver, Roy. Roy was amazing and told us everything we needed to know about Liwa and the elephants in general. Roy was Zambian and lives in nearby Livingstone. He has worked at the reserve as an Elephant Handler since it opened in 2003. Roy told us that most elephants live to be about 70-75 years of age and die due to starvation. An elephant will have 6 sets of teeth throughout its lifetime and after the 6th set of teeth fall out they can no longer eat.
During the ride Liwa kept asking for pellets by placing her trunk back over her head toward Roy and would then grunt. We got to a shallow part of the Zambezi River which gave the elephants some needed temperature relief and also gave us some nice photo opportunities. The tour had our video camera and Dan's iPhone and took some great photos of us on the elephant standing in the water.
 |
| Liwa asking for pellets |
 |
| On the bank of the Zimbabwe River |
 |
| "Please Sir, Can I have some more?" |
While Liwa was stopped it also gave us a chance to feed her some pellets into her trunk and also touch her ears and thick layer of skin. It was strange touching an elephant for the first time. The outside of her ears was like sandpaper from the dried water and the underside skin was quite smooth, very soft and furry. During the walk back to the reception area we heard ‘thump, thump, thump’. Dan turned around and saw that Liwa had left multiple lovely deposits on the path behind us. We also felt her vibrate as her stomach rumbled.
An hour had passed and the ride was nearly over as we saw a crash of White Rhino and a herd of Impala just as we were about to finish up. We got off the elephant at the platform and thanked Roy. Liwa then knelt down and Ev sat on her front knee and fed her pellets in her trunk and mouth.
Dan was then given a bag of pellets which prompted Liwa to rise to her feet as she opened her mouth up wide, waiting to be fed. Dan threw the pellets into her mouth and accidentally punched her in the mouth a couple of times. She didn’t seem to feel a thing though. Dan then said to Liwa "trunk down" and she closed her mouth and began to sniff out the food so Dan put pellets in her trunk and she held it there until she felt she had enough to swallow. It was time to say goodbye to the elephants and they waved goodbye to us with their trunks and raised their front right foot. We said goodbye to Liwa and Roy and headed back to the reception area.
After cleaning ourselves up we were served some food and drink and chatted with our group about our honeymoon. In the meantime the DVD of the afternoon was complete. It was really well produced and we ended up buying this one as well. We thanked the crew at the reserve and boarded the bus back to the Waterfront Campsite. We arrived back at 7pm just in time for our group meeting about our upcoming trip through Botswana, Polokwane National Park and Kruger National Park in South Africa.
We grabbed dinner from the buffet at the restaurant and reflected on our wonderful day as we again ate over the Zambezi River with the night sky littered with beautiful constellations. What was going to be a pretty uneventful day turned out to be another fantastic day in wonderful Africa and a day we will never forget.
P.S. The camera now works, too!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/dan-ev/
2 comments:
How wonderful! but I can't believe I had to read through all that just to find out the camera was ok ;) hehe
WOW, I'm thinking you would be saying this everyday of your trip. What a way to start your married life together. Please keep the blogs coming and I cant wait for movie night to watch all the dvd you guys keep buying. Do you like how I invited myself for a movie night. Leanne
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