23 June, Sunday: A day at Croc Valley

The whole of last night we lay in our tents listening to all sorts of animal sounds. The ellies going crazy and the po's snorting from all directions, it was incredible. Definitely a good enough reason to not have had a good night's sleep. We were all up early from the sun shining in our tents and the animals still going crazy. The original plan was to cycle down to Chilongozi, a village along the Luangwa River, but the staff at the campsite advised us against this, saying how dangerous it is and that the ellies in this area are known specifically to dislike cyclists and motorbikers. As we have arranged to visit a school in the area tomorrow, we decided to relax at the camp and enjoy the magnificent view of our campsite, right on the river with the po's wallowing in the water. Chris changed my bike tyre, washed the bikes, fixed his while I'm sitting here writing the blog, Lieva and Mom reading their books.

Our plan was to go through South Luangwa National Park next week and exit the otherside onto the T2 which would take us directly to Mkushi. However, after chatting to a few staff members who all explained that to get to the T2, you have to ascend the Muchinga Escarpment which is a narrow 11 km gravel road that only a 4x4 could get over so with our trailer we were definitely not going to make it. We went into town, visiting the local markets. The area is clearly catered for the tourists as there are a few modern coffee shops selling local curios where we had a coffee and met the British couple who run it and work closely with the schools in the area. It was interesting talking to Karen who specifically works with teenagers teaching them about menstration and trying to encourage that it is actually a good thing. She specifically holds workshops for teenage boys to get them to instead of teasing the girls, to rather understand periods and turn it into a positive thing. Throughout our travels it's been incredible to see how many people are doing so much good work in Africa, whether small or big, there is some sort of impact and we've been seeing so much positive action. I found a local lady who runs her own little shop, making curios from the local chitenge material. I found a gorgeous pattern which she then said she'd make a dress for me, how amazing!!

The camp is full of ellies roaming around

We spent the rest of the afternoon completely relaxed, enjoying the Fish Eagles soaring the sky and the animals in the river, plotting our new route. Not being able to cross the escarpment has created some new challenges for us and we can't go north either due to the hectic roads and we have a trailer. Carly and Gregg, our very close friends live the other side of the Park so we were very keen to get to Mkushi. The only other alternative is to go way south, completely around the park, through Lusaka and then drive back up north. This is not ideal at all but the group decided that it's definitely worth going all the way around. Now that we had made a final plan, we enjoyed the evening around a cosy fire. Chris braai'd an amazing meal and we sat under again, another clear gorgeous night, seeing many shooting stars and eventually catching the big orange moon rising over the river. The reflection in the river is incredible, it literally looks like flames from a fire dancing in the night.

Watching the sunset with a cold GnT

Chris and I stayed up chatting around the fire and we heard a noise. We walked around the campsite and as we turned around the bathroom there was a hippo busy munching away on the lawn. It was incredible, we couldn't believe it, we got about 5 m away from it just watching it mow the lawn. We quietly followed him right through the camp, making his way around all the tents - it was so scary!! We couldn't believe there was literally a hippo walking past our tents, it was insane! We watched in such amazement, such an incredible experience.

Not a good pic, but theres proof we had a hippo in our backyard