Africa - Livingstone I presume

Muli shani

Greetings from Livingstone in Zambia peoples. I've been here at the falls the last 2 days and I'm just gathering up me bags and baggage to head off to the airport later. Cramming too much stuff into a bag - it must be my favorite part of any holiday. Lisa I promise not to kill your bag after I lost half of it last year!

We got to see a load of animals on the cruise in Chobe National Park. There was a ton of elephants and hippo's and they are very relaxed with the boats around them as we could pull right up to them for photo's and they barely bothered to acknowledge us. There was a lot of birds and that kind of stuff that pleased the Germans on Board no end - whats with them and their stamp collections and fascination with the generally dull stuff on holiday.

We headed for the border to Zambia on Tuesday morning and we had a fairly smooth crossing considering all things as it only took us about 90 to cross by ferry whereas another tour group we met told us they were waiting 3 hours to cross when we arrived. Its a beautiful system they have here at the border crossings. Theres a clear hierarchy system that goes something like whites in jeeps, blacks in cars, tour company trucks followed by the lowest of the low truck drivers. Theres this big made argument everytime the ferry comes in which is every 5 minutes and all the truckers do be giving out stink about all the smaller cars/trucks getting ahead of them. All the cops there are just looking off into the distance daydreaming about how they will spend their "compensation" from the white folk for skipping in. At least one truck barges on each ferry and then we go through the process all over again.

For some odd reason Irish passport holders dont have to pay the $50 fee at the border which was nice, I think we are the only country outside of africa that applies to so apparently those missionary's did some good. We got a tour of Victoria Falls pretty much as soon as we landed in Livingstone which was just after lunch. It is amazing to see up close. Apparently its 10.5 million cubic litres per second falling in and we got a right drenching walikng around. Theres this permanent rainbow in the valley from all the spray and at certain points its a full circle if you squint your eyes. The town of Livingstone is your typical busy african town. Its one big long street of shops and markets and its nice to walk around in. We went back yesterday to the falls to watch one of the lads do the bungy off the bridge by the falls and I was glad I had done the skydive cause I nearly had a heart attack looking at it.

So thats all from me for now. Hope you enjoyed the emails and maybe you might be wandering these parts some day yourself and we can compare notes. This is your intrepid african correspondent Ultan Dillon signing off.

peace, love and sunscreen

Ultan alikuwaafrica