Safari, the Last, Part I

So, we decided the first week of April that I would take the girls and head back to the U.S. to set up house and start work departing Zambia the third week in April.  In between deciding and going I had approximately eight million things to do, Chris was out of town for a week, and I decided it was vitally important to take the girls to Lower Zambezi for one last safari.  While the packing and planning did add some additional stress, the trip itself was wonderfully relaxing, really fun, completely amazing and totally worth it.

We left Lusaka at 6am and zipped right out of town without any traffic issues, which was great.  Unfortunately, there was quite a lot of random road "construction" and I use that term loosely as while I saw cones and people randomly and unhelpfully waiving flags I could not really ascertain what improvements may, or may not have been taking place.  There were also a ton of trucks including some very large mining machinery making its way up to the Copperbelt, as shown below.

Thusly, our drive was a bit slower than would have been ideal, but we eventually made it to the camp where we were to meet the boat and got all the stuff and people loaded up and set off down the river.  T LOVED the fast boat ride.

And then, peace, quiet, and glorious, glorious nature!

The afternoon of Day 1 was filled with elephants, including some very cute baby elephants.

Day 2 started with hot chocolate for the girls (possibly one of their very favorite things about the trip) and coffee for me before setting out on a game drive.

When going to bed the previous night we had heard lions in the distance so we were optimistic that we might find them in the morning and we weren't disappointed.  As some of you may recall, both girls have seen several lions, but only BOY lions and K very much wanted to see GIRL lions.  Well, we got lucky and saw not only two male lions but also, finally, a female!  K was very happy.

If you look closely there are lions to the left of the cute smiling faces in both photos, I swear!

T enjoyed her morning so much she had to pass out for a mid-morning nap.

But she rallied after her little snooze!

And both girls love the pool, of course.  Isn't T cute in her little "burkini", as I like to call it, poor pale little thing.

In the late afternoon we headed out on the boat, which T loves, and saw more wildlife.  Like this nice big, friendly  corcodile!

And this elephant crossing the river!

 Then we had a picnic dinner for the kids on a lovely little island and they got to run around and dig in the sand and generally frolic.  I am pretty sure both girls still had sand in their hair when we got back to the U.S. despite repeated washings.

 Finally, we wrapped up by roasting some marshmallows.

To be continued... really, I promise!