I was given a puppy, Kavango and I passed him onto another volunteer with the promise that they will come see me a lot. Two kittens will move in with me soon!! I am currently living with out any appliances, but I do have a bed!! My Gator flag is flying on the wall so when you walk in it is the first thing you see!! I have warm running water and yellow curtains in my room... what more could a girl want! Some of the volunteers in the town are going to come over to my house for our Wed night dinner, well they are cooking at their house we are just going to hang out and eat the finished product at mine.
RECONNECT:
This was awesome... Our group (20 volunteers) were all together for the first time since swearing in. It was great to see everyone. We spent a lot of time just hanging out or watching movies and sharing some of the crazy things that have happened to us while we are at site. This was a great prelude to the real vacation just relaxing and enjoying some time with great people
Jess, Ashley and Me sitting by the fire #1 after a day of sessions!
This is my attempt to cut Clay's hair... We got to shave it afterwards!
Me, Jess and Clay blinded by the smoke from the Fire Night #2
Me and Ashley watching the Night Rise and listening to some amazing guitar playing
This is how me and Nick train for the marathon... I stretch and pick out good music and he smokes a cigarette! The sad thing is he still kicked my butt!!PART 1: Kasane, Botswana – Chobe National Park
We started out going to Kasane in Botswana. We arrived around 11 o’clock in the morning and checked into our campsite (PS this was my first REAL camping trip, not Balaguer style with a TV and vacuum). We booked our 5:45 am game drive for the next day and the sunset boat cruise and then we went to a nice lodge and had a good margarita before we went back to the camp and cooked dinner. It was a good night with some good liquor…note to travelers: don’t start out the trip my mixing your cocktail in your Nalgene bottle… the smell of rum and coke just does not want to come out
This is the girls hanging out around the fire… I don’t really remember what we cooked but it was yummy. So the next morning came around and we were regretting the decision to wake up at 5:30 in the morning.It was cold and we were all a little hungover. IT WAS WORTH IT!!! Right when we got into the park we saw a family of giraffes (my favorite animal of ALL time)! It was too dark for the pictures to come out so this is just something that I will get to experience but we saw a ton of elephants, hippos and baboons and even a lioness. At one point we were surrounded by a family of elephants. It was a little scary since there was a baby elephant in the group and we kept being told how protective the moms are. 
This is a Baobab tree ... they are all over Botswana and in some parts of Namibia (my region and Caprivi) they are stunning to see in person!!
This was on the boat drive they were fighting/cleaning each other in the water. Did you know elephants can swim? Learned that as we watched the big one swim across the river.
The hippo was a little pissed that we were floating in his water. These things are HUGE I was waiting for him to charge the boat!
This picture does not do justice to the sunset... guess you will have to come visit to see it yourself
This picture does not do it justice either. In fact none of these do it was one of the most beautiful, serene things I have ever seen!
We did not get too much time in Botswana I think we were really excited about Livingstone so we just spent our extra time chilling at the pool.So in my time here I have learned that I tend to “jump to conclusions” as Nick and Clay like to point out to me. I just start doing something right away or assume something… yeah sounds about right. Well on the last night in Kasane, Botswana we had to go to the store to get food and beer. They sent me to get the beer (BIG MISTAKE) they told me to get enough for 5 people for one night. I come out $300 later with 48 beers!! In my head I was thinking that we could just finish them through the week not thinking we are going through two borders (Namibia and Zambia!) Well it is not too funny when I write it down but it was pretty dang funny while I was sitting with 48 beers on my lap in the car. Lesson: Kim plans ALL the parties!! PS- We drank 9 beers that night, but come Friday afternoon they were all gone!!
PART 2: Livingstone, Zambia- Victoria Falls
We got to Livingstone on Wed morning, checked into our hostel, Jollyboys backpackers (AMAZING!!) and we decided since we weren’t going to go rafting until the next day we should go see the falls. The guy at the desk told us to hike to the Boiling Pot and see…Supposed to be a great view. We go thinking that we will have a small hike and see a pretty view… we hiked to the bottom of the Gorge!! I was not ready for this I was wearing a sundress and my reefs!! On the way down the thong of my flip flop broke so I finished the hike down and the killer hike up barefoot. This is what we hiked over after the hike down the gorge!! This is also the exact spot that we jumped in the next day for our rafting adventure
This is the bridge that connects Zambia to Zimbabwe!!
And this is what we got to see after we hiked down. The falls are right in the middle, Zimbabwe on the Left and Zambia on the Right (yes that is what we hiked down). We passed a ton of Baboons on the way down. It is amazing to see so many animals in their natural habitat. “Go Hard or Go Home”
On Thursday, Nick, Jess, Ashley and I decided to go White water rafting down the Zambezi. We had perfect timing since the first half (the hard part) opened on Monday and we rafted on Thurs!This might have been a crazy idea especially because we were rafting Class 5 rapids (Class 6 is considered commercial suicide). IT WAS SO MUCH FUN!!! We had the four of us and one brit and one irish guy plus our guide, Steve. Steve was a drill Sgt. For sure. He went down the one class 6 rapid by himself, head first in our raft while we walked around it (on the Zimbabwe side). He also told us the week before he was going down and showed us the rock where he hit and got his front tooth knocked out!! When we got in the raft I asked if he was a go for it guy and he told me his favorite motto was “go hard or go home” so the whole day we were the first to go down and he made sure to take us on the hardest path.
Going right through the middle :)
This is the rapid where Nick got flipped out (it was a class 5 called Gullivers Travles) he was out and under the water for a really long time… it was scary at the time now its funny becasue we have pictures of him floating down the rapid and we even have it on DVD!! However, Right after Nick fell out we flipped our boat… completely capsized!! We think he flipped us on purpose because we messed up the rapid that Nick fell out on. We were supposed to go down the center but we went down the right side between two rocks 
Our crew kicking butt going down the river... I am in the back left corner!
The scenery was beautiful there was a lot of down time the second half of the day to relax the harder rapids were in the morning before lunch.
Our group shot in front of the falls. Take note this is the ONE AND ONLY group picture we have together (L-R: Me Ashely, Clay, Jessica, Nick and Victoria Falls!)
This is just one of the amazing views we got to see ... it is the start of the dry season so they are not as full as they were a month ago when there was just a white blanket of water coming over the falls.I will leave you with this one story (as told by a rafting guide):
There were two Japanese tourists who took the rafting trip. They could not speak very good English so the guide put them in the middle behind two Brits. He told the Japanese tourists to do whatever the Brits did (ie paddle forward, get down, etc.). They came up on one rapid and it knocked the two Brits out and the next thing the guide saw was the two Japanese JUMPING out of the boat!!! Silly Tourists!!!
So that is pretty much vacation. GOOD TIMES will have to do that again.
!
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