Alice's travels

My final week in Africa did not disappoint. The wildlife of the Serengeti was on top form and gave us some extraordinarily lucky views of what it had to offer (pictures supposedly say a thousand words so I’m not going to write much). Descending into the Ngorongoro Crater was fascinating, and spotting some black rhinos, albeit in the distance, just topped off a superb few days of wildlife sightings before the final leg of driving up to Nairobi to fly home. Despite having our truck impounded for a couple of hours at the Tanzania-Kenya border, we made it to Nairobi in time for onward travel plans (after some tense negotiations to avoid paying an outrageous bribe) and I’m now writing from a cold and wet UK, where I arrived in the early hours of Christmas Eve.

After a busy few days catching up with friends and family, the next and final stage of my adventures is beginning on 7^th January when I am returning to work for Raleigh International, only this time in Central America. My role will be based at the Raleigh field base in Turrialba in Costa Rica, where I will be working as the Logistics Manager for three months, ensuring around 11 remote expedition teams across Costa Rica and Nicaragua are supplied with all the food and equipment they need for project work and trekking. It’s going to be a busy few months with so many teams on expedition, and should be a good opportunity to improve my Spanish too. I’m also hoping that by holding the budget for chocolate biscuit supplies people will have to be extra nice to me.

¡Hasta la próxima vez, desde Costa Rica!

After a wonderful final few days in South Africa enjoying the Drakensberg Mountains and venturing into Lesotho for a day, my next destination was Livingstone, Zambia. Here I had a few days to enjoy Victoria Falls and the surrounding area before joining the group I’d be travelling with for the next three weeks up to Nairobi by overland truck.

Top of one of the chain-ladders in the Amphitheatre area of the Drakensberg

At the top of Tugela falls in the Drakensberg Mountains, the world's second highest waterfall , though you wouldn't know it by the quite small amount of water spilling over the edge (being at the top of waterfalls becomes a bit of a theme...)

Two days were filled up by a great trip over the border into Botswana to visit Chobe National Park, which included camping out in the bush, seeing some enormous herds of elephants, lots of baby impala, gorgeous lion cubs and a fleeting glimpse of a leopard.

One reason to keep shoes on while camping in the bush

The tiniest baby elephant, only a few weeks old!

Then it was back to Livingstone to explore the falls. Victoria Falls is an adrenaline junkie’s dream, and while bungee jumping definitely wasn’t on my to do-list, I did make a trip across the top of the falls to Livingstone Island and the Devil’s Pool, a small plunge pool precariously situated at the top of the falls from which the Zambezi waters plunge 110 metres down into the gorge. The walk across the top of the falls was scarily close to the edge, and can only be done in the dry season when there isn't so much water thundering over. Jumping in to the pool and then leaning over the edge looking down the waterfalls (I will add here that this was while someone was holding on to my feet quite tightly) was unforgettable. As was a rather more sedate trip to the Royal Livingstone Hotel to have a lunchtime cocktail sitting on the banks of the Zambezi watching the hippos in the water - one of those moments when I felt extremely fortunate to not be in the office!

After meeting up with my overland group in Livingstone, and being introduced to the truck we’d be spending a large part of the next three weeks in, we set off on the first leg of the journey to Malawi, via Lusaka, Zambia’s Capital, and Chipata, a town near the Zambia-Malawi border.

Into Malawi and we had a few days to enjoy the lake, staying at two different campsites along the lake shore, and experience a bit of village life too. Lake Malawi has the greatest number of fish species of any lake in the world and it was amazing to be able to go snorkelling one day to see this for myself – none of the spectacular corals or marine life of the ocean, but a very unique experience seeing such a variety of colourful tropical fish in fresh water, which was also beautifully calm and warm to swim in (though I still have my fingers crossed that I don’t arrive home with bilharzia…). Our second campsite was also by the beach, though swimming wasn’t quite so relaxing when we found out about a recent crocodile sighting.

learning how to make wood carvings

Shores of Lake Malawi

After four nights in Malawi we had two very long days of driving into Tanzania, including a frustrating wait at the border crossing and a search for a new spare tire for the truck. Although the trip entails many hours on the road, the travelling is enjoyable despite being on the move all the time. There is so much to see and it’s interesting to observe the changes in life and landscape as we drive along. The truck is also much higher up than a car so we get a good view of the surroundings, including giraffes and elephants when our route took us through a national park.

Now we’re enjoying a few days break from driving and soaking up the island life on Zanzibar. Yesterday we went snorkelling and were lucky enough just before we got back on the boat to be joined by a pod of dolphins that swam around us for about 15 minutes – a beautiful sight and an unexpected bonus to top off the trip. Today we’re back in Stone Town enjoying getting completely lost in the small alleyways through the town, bargaining hard in the markets and getting a good fill of curry and Zanzibar pizzas (not much like a regular pizza but very tasty!). Tomorrow we head back to Dar Es Salaam and begin our journey to the Serengeti and Ngorongoro crater where we have a couple of days of game drives to look forward to. It’s hard to believe I only have a week left before reacquainting myself with British weather again!