Devon and Geoff's Excellent Adventure

As I write this, me and dad are safely back in the great state of Pennsylvania, with ample and fast wifi. We left Zimbabwe via car, an hour and a half later than the departure time we were originally told.  A fitting end to Zimbabwe.  Border control on the way out was about as annoying as on the way in- with an added bonus of stepping in bleach water to protect Botswana's cattle. Our tiny plane We drove to the Kasane airport, where we caught a (much larger than expected) bush plane to Machaba Camp .  The bush plane actually makes stops, which added to the rather nauseating experience. The "tent" Machaba is remarkably similar to Rhino Post- substitute tents for our cabin and you have it.  Plus more honeymooners.  The same schedule- wake up, eat, drive, eat, sleep, eat, drive, eat, sleep.  Very similar wildlife, but much rougher roads- and the ability to go off road.  Thus we could follow animals for longer (topped by the low speed leopard ...

Day 9 Yesterday we learned about massive changes in our itinerary.  We should have canoed today then hiked tomorrow, but it got switched so that we hiked this morning and headed out to our canoeing overnight at 4 to canoe the next day.  The details were unclear, so we also squeezed in Victoria Falls today. We started off with a hike in the Batoka gorge with a 6:20 AM pickup.  We got bagged breakfasts from the hotel with very good biscuits.  Bizarrely, we were in a safari style truck, as we raced down a highway.  It was so cold that our guide huddled under two fleece ponchos. Eventually we made it to our hike, which was more of a nature walk.  We learned about different trees and their traditional uses- considering I was ready for a legitimate hike I was somewhat underwhelmed. After our hike we had a tour of a traditional hut.  As our guide said, most people in Zimbabwe live this more rural lifestyle.  The South Africans had nothing...

Today we left Rhino Post- we didn't even get a morning game drive, but they made us breakfast early, so we cannot complain.  Our rustic-y campsite, including the open air bathroom, is below We headed back to Skukuza, we we caught a flight to another Kruger airport.  We were the only passengers on the plane, and thus our flight was about the last to land in Nespruit and we almost missed our flight to Livingston.  It all worked out, and we had a female pilot. Once in Zambia, we had to pay our visa fee for Zimbabwe (must be paid with crisp American dollars).  The drive to our hotel was memorable.  One driver drove us to the Zambian side of the Zambezi.  There we had to get out and have our passports stamped for exiting Zambia.  Then we crossed the one lane bridge (this one lane caused huge truck delays on either side) to the Zimbabwe side.  While still in no mans land, we switched drivers, and entered the Zimbabwe entrance office-it was a...