OW – THAT HURT!!!

Patricia squealing with delight!
Me feeding the Kudu
The huge lioness

The EMI team have gone now. They are now in Livingstone doing some touristy things. Yesterday (Sunday) we went to the Protea Hotel Safari Lodge. Katie and I really wanted to see African Lions in Africa and at this late stage didn’t mind where. At this hotel they have a wildlife park and also a lion enclosure.

On our drive through Lusaka we see lots of rubbish again. We have gotten used to seeing it. It still grosses me out but that is how it is here. Anyway as we were driving there was a lady with her son and they had a garden hoe and were scraping in the rubbish. This really upset me. It wasn’t very nice seeing someone scrape through rubbish like that!

The hotel was really nice and we had a good time. We saw the lions. There are 4. A mother and 3 of her children, 1 male and 2 females. The mother had to be separated from the rest as she kept fighting with her son! She was huge. Her paws were so big. The others were big too but she was bigger than the rest!

Yesterday we went on a walk which is when we saw the lions. On our walk we also saw lots of hartebeests (a type of antelope), and some Zebras. We also saw lots of birds. One cheeky bird warned them that we were getting close and they all took off! Oh well we did get a couple of photos.

We get back from our walk and we had an hour to just laze around! Katie and Donald decide to go for a swim. After a while they came back in and Katie was buzzing. She had been able to feed and touch a Kudu. For those of you who don’t know a Kudu is an antelope – a very big one! Sooo I go out to see the kudu. She wasn’t there instead there was a bush buck (again for those who don’t know it is a type of antelope – but a small one). Kids were feeding her and then started to chase her which wasn’t too nice! Anyway it wasn’t a Kudu. I thought Katie and Donald had exaggerated about how big this Kudu was. Donald and Katie get out of their togs and we are waiting in the reception when along comes the Kudu! This thing is huge!!! Turns out she is a grandma. She is a friendly one who is used to having people around feeding her bread and touching her. Ohhh I got to touch her and give her some bread. That was cool! Then she thought I had more and when she realised that I didn’t she bit my hand!!! Yes you can guess what happened – I screamed. It didn’t hurt, it just gave me a fright but I did make Donald, Katie and the staff laugh! After a few moments she head butted a lady. I was glad that she just bit me!

We also went on a safari – yep just like in the movies with a crate on the back of a ute for you to sit on! We were off Yay I wonder what we were going to see. Oh dear that doesn’t sound very good. Oh no, it isn’t very good. The man is pouring cold water into the radiator and you should hear the noise it is making – kind of a loud gurgling noise ummmm even sounds like the water is going right through the radiator! The driver gets us back to the hotel, but that is the end of the drive. Not very impressive I must say, all we saw were some warthogs run across the road and we have seen loads of them. How disappointing! We get back to reception and they tell us that the vehicle will be fixed by morning and that they would take us out then and what time would we like it. Donald told them their first ride, which ends up being at 8am. That is fine we can cope with that. We are in our room and we get a phone call to ask us if 9am would be ok. Ok Donald says. By this point we aren’t very hopeful that it would actually happen!

Dinner was really good. It was a brie (a BBQ!). There was so much food and it was really good. Then we went back to our room and went to bed. We were able to talk to Chris and Stella on Skype about our trip to the UK so that was all good – now to get some sleep!

Ok Monday morning now. Wow the breakfast is amazing as well. It is another smorgasbord. Great food at this place. If anyone goes hungry it would be their own fault and the breakfast is included in the room price – even better!

Breakfast is finished so we go and pack our bags so that when the safari is finished we can leave. So now we are waiting at reception for the truck. We get told that it is on its way. Then we get told that they are coming now. Ummmm I wonder if it really is!

YAY it is here. It is a different vehicle. We had a really good time and saw lots of different types of antelope and a warthog family! There were also lots of birds but we can’t seem to get their picture. They are just too quick!!!

The safari takes about an hour. We are now back in Lusaka staying at Kilimanjaro Lodge. It is beautiful here – so restful. It is soooo restful that Donald is fast asleep and is even snoring! It is the middle of the day but he has been working very hard and is exhausted! Katie is bored so I had better go and do something with her.

We are here until Wednesday morning and then we are flying to Port Elizabeth.

Talk to you all soon.

Gwen