Africa Day 28

We went and drove around Etosha National park.  This is more what I was thinking Africa would look like.  Etosha is on a salt flat so it is wide open with just a little scrub brush growing.  We could see for miles in all directions.  We didn't see as many varieties of animals here, but the ones we did see, we saw a ton of.  

Wart hogs

Gemsbok

Girrafe-look at the cute babies

Wide open salt flat.  You could see for miles in all directions.

Katie and Garret playing dress up.  They had to get creative at night so they didn't get bored.

Africa Day 27

We drove to Etosha National Park in Nambia.  We stayed in a really nice hotel here.  Kirt had been really feeling bad for about 10 days, so when we got there I made him go to the Dr.  The nearest Dr. was about an hour away.  So while he went to the Dr. the kids and I played tennis, went to the health club and swam.  Kirt came back to from the Dr. and said the Dr. said his rapid malaria test was negative, (we diagnosed him with malaria after reading all of the symptoms of it online) but he said the antimalarial drug we were taking could has made the test a false negative.  So Kirt also had some blood drawn and we have to call the Dr. tomorrow to find out the results.  He still isn't feeling very good so Tanner, Katie and I went to dinner alone.  Garret wanted to stay with his dad.

Pictures of our fancy hotel room.

Strange deer like animal that was roaming the grounds at our hotel.  We could never determine what it was.  It's picture was not in any of the animal books that we had.

Africa Day 26

We went on a canoe ride in a traditional Namibian canoe called a Mokoro on the Okavango River this morning.  It was a little scary being on the river in a small canoe knowing there were crocs and hippos in the river, but our guides were very knowledgeable and knew the places to avoid.  Plus the water was very clear and you could see the bottom of the river clearly.  We saw hippos but no crocs.  It was very scenic.  After the canoe ride we drove to our next stop outside of Rundu Namibia.  Namibia is not a very populated country.  It is bigger than Texas and only has about 2 million people.  We have driven over 1000km in the country and only seen a few small cities.  We stayed at the N’Kwazi Lodge.  It is also on the Okavango River.  Across the river we could see Angola.  The kids really wanted to swim across the river so they could say they had been to Angola too, but the crocs and hippos scared them out of doing that.  We unfortunately didn't take any pictures from here because Kirt wasn't feeling well and I never remember to take pictures.

 We did go through the tall reeds for a while.  Katie and I really didn't like that

No one but Kirt ever takes pictures so he had to take one of himself

Africa Day 25

We drove to Namibia today.  We got to our hotel outside of Divundu called the Ngepi Camp.  It was a very cool yet odd place.  The rooms were all bush huts.  They had solar power and water from the river.  The kids hut was about 20 feet from the water, but Kirt and I’s was a tree house.  It wasn’t really a tree house, but a platform that was right over the water.  It was really awesome.  We saw the sun raise right from our bed.  When we got there, the kids and Kirt went swimming in the river.  The river is full of crocodiles and hippos, so the swimming pool is an area in the lake with a cage around it so the crocs and hippos can’t get in.  When we were sleeping, I woke up about 12:30am and I could hear a hippo eating grass right under our tree house.  It woke me up a few times that night when it grunted.

 The plank out to our tree house

 The swimming pool.  There is a cage in the water inside that dock to keep the crocs and hippos out

 Bathroom in the kids hut

 Kids hut

 Kirt and I's tree house

 Bathroom in the tree house.  If anyone happened to row by in a boat they would get the privilege of seeing us shower.

 Sunrise from our bed

 This place had a thing for random toilets.  There were toilets in little huts all over.  This was the Garden of Eden toilet.

 This was the toilet of tomorrow.  (There wasn't actually a toilet so I didn't really get it.)

 This one said, pull here to call the dung beetles and the toilet flushed when you pulled the cord 

This was a toilet with a view.  The toilet looked off into the wild.

Africa Day 24

Today we went to Botswana by a transport vehicle.  (It was easier to use taxis in Zambia and Zimbabwe than to rent a car.  It’s expensive to rent cars in these countries and we couldn’t take our car from South Africa into either of these countries.  Plus taxis are really cheap.)  When we got to Botswana we picked up our rental car and checked into our hotel the Kasane       Self Catering.  We got lunch and some groceries and then drove around looking for animals.  We also drove to a point where you can see 4 different countries at once.  We saw Zambia, Zimbabwe, Namibia and obviously Botswana.  We saw a bunch of elephants, but not much else.  We went to dinner and had and early night to bed.

 This is the place that you could see 4 countries at once-Zambia, Zimbabwe, Namibia, and Botswana. There was a ferry that you could take across the river from Zambia and Botswana.  Only one truck or car can go over at a time.  There were semi-trucks lined up for at least a mile to get on the ferry.  I asked the truck driver who was 2nd in line how long he had been waiting and he said that he had been waiting for 5 days.  I asked why he didn't drive and he said that it was much more expensive to drive.

 Tanner posing in his robe that was provided at our hotel

 It is very tropical here in Kasane Botswana near the Zambezi River.  The gardens at our hotel were beautiful.

Africa Day 23

Katie and I went on a helicopter ride over the Victoria Falls today.  It was so awesome!!  The falls are so beautiful from the sky.  Neither of us have been in a helicopter either so that was really cool too.  When we got back we all went to see Victoria Falls from the Zimbabwe side.  You can only see half of the falls from each side because the river is in the middle of them.  The river is also what divides Zambia and Zimbabwe.  We then relaxed at the hotel pool the rest of the afternoon.

 We flew the red and black route while we were in the helicopter.  We flew around the falls 2 times and then up the Zambezi river 4km.

 Pictures that we took from the helicopter

 Picture of the Zambezi River, upriver from the falls

 I didn't take this picture.  This is a picture of the falls in low water (it is very high water right now) just to give you an idea of the difference in the water levels.

 Getting off the helicopter.  We survived.  Neither of us had ever been in a helicopter before.

 The falls from the Zimbabwe side

 The main falls

Livingstone Island