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My trip was finally at its end unfortunately. After Leaving Lena at Windhoek and catching a plane to Cape Town, we got our flight back to England! The flight was uneventful, with poor aeroplane food but more sleep than expected, and we arrived into Heathrow around 6.30...and it was cloudy and raining by the time we were in the car. My feelings were mixed coming home-looking forward to seeing family and friends, but sad that my short time in Africa had finished.

I very much enjoyed my six weeks away-working with the kids in PE was both wonderful and humbling, and I very much enjoyed the football coaching I got to do. Travelling was also great, I had a great group of people to travel with and saw some amazing places. Highlights include the holiday club, the soccer tournament and the first sighting of Vic Falls on the Zambian side, but to be honest the whole trip was a highlight-I could have stayed a lot longer!

So I guess this is the end of my blog too...thankyou for following, thanks for your prayers and your support. Hopefully I will do something similar again in the future, and then maybe I'll blog again. Until then, go well!

Windhoek.

We spent the final four days of our trip in the Namibian capital city of Windhoek! Unfortunately Jakob left us on the Monday and it was very quiet without him and I was then outnumbered by the girls. Windhoek wasn't the most interesting place-we went to the National Museum, a nice church and to some shops and by then we had pretty much exhausted Windhoek. On the Wednesday we drove to Dann Viljeon Game Park which was under renovation and you could tell-there was hardly anyone around and we saw one beetle and one warthog! So a plan was needed to entertain us on the Thursday, and the girls didn't disappoint...we went to a posh spa place for the day, something I had never envisaged doing in my life, but actually really enjoyed! I used the gym, swam in the infinity pool, had another lovely back massage and used the sauna and it was an enjoyable way to spend our last full day away-perhaps not the most manly thing I could have done but I think I would do it again...

Vic Falls-Zimbabwean Side

Hey all, so following the Zambian side we moved on to Zimbabwe and saw the Falls from that side too! It was different in that the Zimbabwe side is a lot longer-it seems to go on a long time, and the views of it are all a lot closer! Again we got very wet but saw a couple of beautiful rainbows at the end. I think I preferred the Zambian side tho, just because it had the wow-factor and you could see it from different views!

We stayed in the resort town of Victoria Falls and altho the backpackers was very nice the town itself was a bit dead! There were too main streets and not much going on, apart from people approaching you to try and sell things...and yes I do now have an 100 trillion dollar note! Had a very nice massage at the backpackers and following another long bus trip we are now back in Windhoek, Namibia for 4 days before flying back to the UK on Friday.

Vic Falls-Zambian Side

After 22 long hot hours on the bus we finally arrived in Zambia! It has been a little surreal cos in my head I never really planned on being Zambia. After dropping our stuff off at the backpackers we went into the town of Livingstone, named after the explorer, which was a real experience. We went through the market and everyone was approaching you trying to sell things or just to strike up conversation, selling all sorts of things like fruit, bangles, and trillion dollar notes! It was a bit intimidating at first but you soon get used to it, and I actually like Zambia a lot! The money is difficult to get used to tho-I took about 30 quid out of the cash machine, which translated to 200,000 kwecha-lots of cash!

Yesterday we went to the Zambian side of Vic Falls which was incredible! We went down into a jungle-like valley and after clambering across some rocks got our first view of the falls…it was difficult to see them properly with all the mist which was higher than the water itself and it was so high up, but it was amazing. We then got another view of it from the cliffs opposite the Falls, and then went to Knife Edge Bridge! Absolutely soaked but it was well worth it because it was right next to the Falls! It was an incredible experience, difficult to put into words and the photos really don’t do it justice. Well worth a visit!

Today we were canoeing on the Zambezi River, another thing I didn’t expect to be doing. It started slowly, but ended up being a really good day! The river is crocodile-infested, and we also saw hippos, another danger when you are just in a 2 man canoe. I was on edge most of the day, but it was very enjoyable, and on the drive back we saw baboons, giraffes, and elephants really close to the car-amazing!
Tomorrow we are going to Zimbabwe to see the other side of the Falls. Everybody seems to have a different opinion on which view of the Falls is best, so I look forward to seeing for myself.

Travelling 2

So from Upington we survived a 12 hour bus journey into Namibia, funny customs people at the border and after seeing a beautiful sunrise reached Windhoek early this morning! Have spent most of the day based at a cafe in a shopping mall-eating, chatting, playing cards and the like! We've also booked accomodation and a car for when we are back here in Windhoek next week which is good. In a couple of hours we will be back on the bus...this time for an epic 21 hours! which is guna be boring as anything but we have Vic Falls to look forward to at the end of it-woop woop!

Travelling!

So today we are in Bloemfontein...which wasn't part of the plan but is all good! We tried to go to Lesotho yday but the silly border control people didn't recognise Lena and Jakob's visas and thought they were illegal immigrants and wouldn't let them in! And me and Hannah were stamped to go in and didn't, so apparently were in SA illegally too! but hopefully we have got everything all sorted now-they have been to Home Affairs in Bloem and they say everything is ok it was a mistake of the border control...we shall see what happens when we get to the Namibian Border! So today we are off to Kimberley, visiting the great hole and spending the night there...and then onwards to the bus at Uppington! We travel onwards...

Leaving PE

So tomorrow I am leaving PE to go travelling with Hannah, Lena and Jakob! Here follows a brief itinery...
14th leave PE – pick Jakob up in East London and stay in Aliwal North
15th Aliwal north to Lesotho
16th Lesotho
17th leave Lesotho and drive to Kimberly
18th Drive from Kimberly to Upington – drop the car and catch the bus to Windhoek at 6.30pm
19th arrive Windhoek 6.00 am and catch the bus to vic falls at 5.00pm
20th 2.00pm arrive in vic falls
21st vic falls
22nd vic falls
23rd vic falls
24th vic falls
25th leave vic falls at 11.00 am on the bus
26th arrive in Windhoek 5.00am
27th Windhoek – collect hire car num 2
28th Windhoek
29th Windhoek
30th airport flight at 9.45 am
This is the plan, but there has been road closures because of snow so we shall see how it goes...have a good couple of weeks y'all!